Bob Blea

Stunning! I can't imagine the amount of work that must go into these works of art! I am humbled. Bob

No problem, and remember there are lots of different ways to do things so it's perfectly OK to find what you like and do it that way. There really isn't an absolute right or wrong way when it comes to using carving tools, as long as you are satisfied with the result! Bob

Hi Bob, I don't have that copy of the LC&SJ handy, but I think I can explain the leaves. I'm just going by how that kind of leaf is typically tooled, and normally those marks would be made with a veiner, not by a swivel knife. Not that you couldn't do it that way, and I do see it done that way, but normally it would be a thin veiner running up the center of the stem with the deepest part of the impression right at the stem center line and the impression fading out towards the edge of the leaf. Then often the same veiner is used along the edge of the leaf creating short impressions along the edge to give the leaf a serrated look. The leaf 'F' is your best example, just imagine using the veiner at the same points you did the cuts at, with the same kind of curvature. Hope that makes sense. Decorative cuts on the flower petal, that's an art to itself. They can be very personalized and it seems to me that everyone does theirs a little differently. I basically look at what other people do and try to find things I like and practice those. There was a Tandy Doodle Page that was done by Rob Barr where he showed how he does them, and he claimed there were really only seven (I think it was) basic cuts and everything was derived from those. You can find it in Tandy's Leather Craft library and it might be a good place to start. Or you can look through the galleries and show off section here and find different examples of how people do them and pick something you like and practice it. I find I need to warm up with the swivel knife and carve them into scrap before doing the actual project in order for mine to turn out good. There are some tips I can give you. Start by pushing your swivel knife in deep and then fade the cut out towards the end so it fades away into a very light cut. Also, I've been shown to start the cut off at almost a right angle to the direction you are going to cut and while making that initial cut into the leather, you twist the knife to open up the beginning of the cut more. I've never quite got the hang of doing this part of it, but I've seen it done well and it does make that initial part of the cut open up well. On the flower pods, I often use a veiner along the edges like I described with the leaves, but I also learned to make cuts in the pods to look like the green petals that surround a rose bud and open up to release the flower. That's just the way I learned. In Sheridan style you often see a special veiner called a wriggler (because it just looks like a wavy line) used on the pod to give it texture. That might be what they did here. Wish I had the article in front of me. I could say more clearly what tools they used. But hope this helps. Bob

Mine was a Tandy checkbook kit. I had tried a few small floral carvings from the Stohlman books my wife had, and then adapted one to fit the front of the checkbook. I still use it to this day, though I could do a LOT better now. Bob

Welcome from an almost as cold Colorado, hope you thaw out soon!

Were the two pieces the same type of leather? Also, was the bigger of the two stamped or carved at all?

How long after oiling did you take that picture? It takes a while for oil to even out in the leather, though I don't think that is your problem here. It looks more like something was splattered on the leather. Bob

I second Van Amburg Leathers. I've bought from Jerry and he is super great to work with. Bob

Try a few of the Barry King tools and you will never want to go back. The impressions are very crisp and you will never need to worry about quality. They will last a lifetime. Bob

Thanks all! I've learned something today. Bob

It sounds like your using the rein rounder like a burnisher, like you are burnishing an edge. That makes sense, but I have a question: If you edge the strap on all four corners, don't you end up taking most of the grain surface off the leather? Seems like that would leave the cord kind of weak?

Hello and welcome to the forum! I think this is what you are after. See the #6 post especially. http://leatherworker.net/forum/index.php?showtopic=35683&hl=quilted#entry220861 Hope that helps! Bob

I'm not sure there is much you can do once it has dried. My wife had something similar happen to a purse when we were at a leather show, and she talked to the people at Bee Natural (who had a booth there) and they had her use one of their leather care products and it worked, but I remember that it was critical that she treat it while it was still wet. I don't remember what product it was (might have been Leather Amore) so you might try contacting them and asking for advice. However, once it's stained and dried there may not be much you can do....

I apologize it took a while to get back to you. The flat spots are probably most noticeable on the flower closest to the camera in the picture. On the petals of that flower the cuts were not smooth rounded curves like you would expect, but instead they have kind of straight edges. I noticed this somewhat on the leaves as well. Bob

I use my Barry King lifters as either a lifter or a undershot beveler. When lifting the petal edge, I usually tilt the tool back on its heel after striking it to lift the petal edge up a bit and get more of a 3D effect. But that's just the way I found that I liked. It may not be the 'right' way. Bob

Hi Bev, I'm not much of a figure carver, and even when I painted in oils I never did well reproducing the human form. They always looked wierd to me and out of proportion. I can see from the picture why the nose would be hard to reproduce. If you try to tool the shadow on the bottom side of the nose it would be easy to make it look like a pig snout! I'm just guessing, but would it be possible to duplicate the shading by lightly dyeing that area, just like they did on the tatoo? From what I understand of tatoo work, doing that kind of shading can be really tough and it takes a skilled artist to pull it off well. Sorry that's not much help, Bob

Not bad for a first attempt at carving and beveling. The bevelling looks a little choppy in places but that will get smoother with practice. The biggest thing I see is that your swivel knife cuts don't look very smooth. Your curves have lots of flat spots in them making your flowers and leaves look a little off. Again, practice will be the big help for you. Try making gentle curving cuts with your swivel knife on some scrap leather, and concentrate on making the curves as smooth as possible. Also, make sure that the knive is actually sharp and well stropped. That will make it much easier to cut smooth lines. Keep it up, your off to a good start! Bob

The Eco-Flo all in one is acting like an antique, so it's getting the dark pigment down in your tooling impressions and making them all equally dark. That's what is interferring with the shading your tooling created (which looks really good by the way.) I've had that happen sometimes too with figure carving which I don't do very much of, partially for that reason. You could just oil it, which would give a more uniform result and still leave your tooling shading intact, or you could actually paint it with either dyes or acrylic paints, which ends up giving you a completely different effect. Maybe some of the others here that are more experienced with figure carving pieces like this have suggestions on how they antique or color their pieces for the best results...

Where are you located? There are several smaller leather distributors around the US, like Sheridan Leather Outfitters in Sheridan, WY, or Panhandle Leather in Amarillo, TX, that are good to deal with and may be close to you. I like dealing with Sheridan Leather Outfitters when I can. Bob

Hello, For this particular project I'm not sure there is much you can do. What did you use to paint it with? If you like the shading on a figure carving and don't want to change it with a paint or antique, you could try just oiling the leather. The oil would darken everything a bit but it would leave the burnishing much the same as it was after tooling. You could try it on some scrap and see if that gives you the effect you are after. Hope this helps, Bob

In the leather tools section there are a couple of posts on knife sharpening but those are all (I think) about round knives or common knives. On the Leather Wranglers site they have instructions for sharpening one of their SK-3 swivel knives, but the info there would apply to any type of swivel knife. See the link below. http://www.leatherwranglers.com/tips.html

One suggestion I would make is that your leather may be too wet when you are tooling it. That will sometimes cause the tool marks you are seeing. When you case your leather let it dry again until its almost back to its normal color before you try to tool it. Bob

It's normal for Neatsfoot oil to darken leather. Some people here use Olive Oil to condition their leather because it apparently doesn't darken the leather or doesn't darken in very much, but I've never tried it. However, I've never noticed my leather getting darker just because I've cased it for a long time. Some leather just gets darker than other pieces, and also sunlight can naturally darken leather, so exposure to bright lights can make leather noticably darker too. But every piece of leather takes to dyeing and antiquing a little differently, so you never quite get the same effect from time to time. I like how your leaf turned out. Bob

I can't say from experience, but I would not trust it to completely eliminate the problem. You need to buff off the excess dye first, then apply the finish coat of Clear Lac or whatever you like. Finish coats will wear off eventually, so any dye particles you didn't buff off would eventually be exposed. However, a more immediate problem could be that any dye particles you don't buff off can get caught up in your finish when you apply it and get smeared around. If you aren't dyeing a single solid color you could get bleeding to other areas. Bob

I use the Eco-Flo antique gels pretty much exclusively. That's what I used on the picture I posted earlier. You will need to use a resist (clear lac, Wyosheen, etc) to get the effect in my picture though, otherwise the antique will darken all of the leather, not just your depressions. Bob