Bob Blea

NICE! Someday I'm going to own one of those, not in the cards right now though. I'm envious! Bob

Congrats Cheryl, looks nice. Wish I had one. Bob

My $.02 worth, the round knife is far easier to use than a utility knife once you get used to it. As long as your knife is (very) sharp and you practice with it a little bit, you find it much easier and safer to cut leather with. I couldn't imagine using a razor blade to cut my leather now. Bob

Looking forward to seeing all of your items at the show! I've got one of your burnishers and love it. Bob

Hello Lacosta, I haven't seen a premade trim like this. Have you tried searching Etsy for someone selling this in one of their shops? There are a lot of people there that sell raw material for making other crafts, and maybe someone there has something that will work for you. I've tried a few of the scalloped scissors made for paper crafts and so far I haven't found any that work really well for cutting paper consistently, let alone leather. If I were going to make a scalloped trim I would cut the suede to the size I needed then I would use a half round punch to punch out the individual scallops. Bob

Hello FFleather, welcome to the forum! I use a product called Wyosheen (available from Sheridan Leather Outfitters) as a resist for my antiqing, and it will block water. It's the modern version of NeatLac that Tandy used to sell, and it's also available as ClearLac (at least I think it's the same product). I test that I have a good coating by running a damp sponge over my project to make sure the water doesn't penetrate the Wyosheen. If it doesn't I'm ready to antique. I'm just using a thin layer in my work and I don't know how waterproof it would really be. It might not work well in a situation with a lot of wear or heat. I know that most of the people on here that make motorcycle gear use resolene for their items, so it might be better choice for high wear items. I don't have any experience with it though. Bob

Wow! Really outstanding work! It looks really luxurious. Bob

Truly stunning and inspiring craftmanship. Thank you for sharing! Bob

Wow, very impressive work!

Really nice work!

I've got a trick to add. It's actually a specialize tool I modified to solve a problem. When lacing notebook edges I have a bad habit of lacing until I have a very short length of lace left before trying to dry splice in a new piece. Sometimes I get stuck around a corner and either need to backup my lace to before the corner (wasting a lot of lace) or push on past the corner and end up with a very short length for splicing in the new section. It happened enough that I finally took a standard Tandy two prong lacing needle and cut it in half. I then filed down the newly cut tip, just to remove the sharp edge, and made the point a bit narrower like the original tip would have been. The result, a half sized lacing needle that I can swap in and finish the splice. Bob

Hi Al, I think that is a tough one, and based on the fact nobody else is answering I'm assuming there isn't a good answer here. It the leather is truly scratched so the grain surface is broken a bit, that is probably opening it up to allow more dye to penetrate. I can't think of a good way to stop that without using something to stop up the 'broken' surface (like a resist) but then you would have the opposite problem. You might try applying the dye in that area with a brush and applying in light thin coats. That might give you enough control to make the area look even. I've seen light dye coats used to make very subtle color gradients in leather, so I think it might work with some practice and luck, but I haven't tried it myself. Bob

Hi Daniele, I found a picture of a day planner that had 2 oz. pockets installed in it. The pockets are layered on top of one another and skived at the bottom (out of view) to reduce thickness. They are just glued at the bottom to each other but they are sewn along the side where they are visible. This pocket assembly came out kind of bulky in my opinion, and I would probably try to use something thinner (like a chrome tanned leather or the pigskin with a rolled edge) next time if I make something similar to this. I have carved leather this thin but it is very tricky. It is very easy to cut too deep with the swivel knife and end up punching a hole in the leather with a beveler. The pocket below was cut and beveled as you normally would. However, I tried this again on a different notebook and broke through the leather while beveling. Now I just trace the celtic knot design onto the leather and then bevel it without using a swivel knife. I think that so much of leather's strength is contained in the grain surface of the leather that on these very thin leathers I don't want to actually cut through that surface, so I just bevel or use a modeling spoon. However, if you are just planning on stamping the surface I think you will be OK as long as you have it attached to some sort of backing to prevent stretch. In the pocket picture I have used a pebbled backgrounder across the whole surface. It's a big tool that you have to hit hard, and the leather stood up to it just fine. Hope this helps, Bob

Hello Daniele, I use either pigskin or 2 oz. (.8 mm) vegtan leather for my interior parts. The pigskin is very thin but durable, but it doesn't look as nice as the vegtan. Vegtan is bulkier but I like the burnished edge I can make on the exposed parts. There are also other thin leathers (calf, goat, exotics) that people use but I don't have any experience with them. This is just what I use, others here who make more of these sorts of things probably have other suggestions. Bob

Interesting idea, but I've never run across a stamp shaped like that. I think that would be a good design challenge for Bob Beard! He enjoys coming up with the unusual tool designs. I'm pretty sure it's just a matter of technique. I look at the "Fun With Basket Stamping" articles Chan Geer writes in the Leather Crafters and Saddlers Journal and I'm always amazed at the creativity it take to come up with the ideas he does. I'm pretty sure there are a lot of great techniques that some experienced leatherworks out there have for doing this sort of thing. Just hoping someone out there can share some little nuggets of wisdom..... Bob

The Columbine Leather Guild is hosting the IFoLG show this year in Denver, Sept. 27-29th. Lots of good classes, I'm hoping to get in on at least one of them. Planning on making something for the contest too. All the details are in the link below. http://columbineleatherguild.webs.com/ifolg2013show.htm Bob

Yes it is addicting, welcome to the club! Bob

Hi Stef73433, I've wondered about this too. I've looked at square geometrics on saddles and I think every time I've seen them used on swells I see they end up with the same kind of distortions. When you think about it, it's probably just about impossible not to have some problem like this due to the tight curves of the surface on the swell. HOWEVER, I have seen some that look better than others, almost to the point where you don't really notice the distortion unless you are looking close. I'm not sure how they are adjusting when they do this, and it probably is just an experience thing, but if someone has tricks to this they would like to share, I would love to know them too. I think the square geometrics or 'box stamps' are some of the hardest stamps to operate well. Bob

That looks great! I hope you get a lot more orders for it. Bob

Hello Cantankerously, and welcome to the forum! When I am making a prototype of something, I usually make the template out of thick paper. I often end up using junk mail cardstock flyers for this if they are big enough. Once I have made the item and I'm sure about the dimensions and I know I will make future versions of it, I make a template out of plastic. I get a thin clear plastic sheet from the craft store. I find it in the sewing section at Hobbly Lobby and I think it's used to make templates for quilters. I have also used thin cardboard for this too, and I've seen people use the brown paper that sides of leather come wrapped in (think brown butcher's paper) for making templates for big parts like saddle fenders. Bob

Hello roam, and welcome to the forum. That is a great looking wallet. I really like the contrast of the tooling to the red border and your antiqe looks outstanding. The only criticisms I can see are in a few places the beveling looks a bit choppy, but maybe that is what you meant by 'not smooth enough'. Also, in the first picture the flow of the vine around the bottom flower seems to merge with the flow of the vine above it, reversing the flow. From the picture it appears the flows clash at that point. But otherwise this looks really good. Bob

Hello GhostWind, and welcome to the forum! I'm not a saddle maker, just interested in doing it some day. I don't know much about tree makers but I know of one that has a good repuation and maybe can help you out. Rod Nikkel: http://www.rodnikkel.com/content/index.php. Don't know if they have any experience making your kind of tree though. Bob

Yes, thank Bud, it would make sense in cold climates that saddles and tack would freeze all the time. Leather is pretty amazing stuff when you think about it, and all the stuff we can do with it still today. Bob

That turned out really great. You should be proud! Bob

This looks great too. And I agree with you for what it's worth, their logo would look better if it were red or a darker color. I like it, and I'll bet they will be thrilled with it. Good luck on the other 6, that looks like a lot of work. Bob