Bob Blea

I'll throw in a plug for Barry King tools. He has a recommended size list on this site: http://www.barrykingtools.com/sizelist.htm. Bob

Thanks for the compliment, but I've still got a long way to go. My carving skills are starting to get good but I've got a lot to learn when it comes to construction! Posts like this really help me learn too. Bob

Unfortunately I'm seeing this trend in American business more and more lately. It's a drive to increase profits or increase share price at the expense of all else, to the point of destroying a company in the pursuit of short term gain for a few individuals. It's a trend I hope to see come to an end in the near future, but it probably won't end soon and won't end well.... Bob

Thanks, I see why now. It's still wet formed. That would be tough to burnish. Bob

Forgive my ignorance and I don't have my copy of the book handy, but would it be possible to trim the flap before assembly? That way you could trim it on a cutting surface while clear of the bottom part, and probably burnish it easier too. Not sure if that is possible here or not... Bob

I can recommend Jerry VanAmburg, http://vanamburgleather.com/leathers/. He's a great guy to work with. Bob

Hi Robert, Speaking as one of those with shrinking arms, I can understand what your dealing with. A couple of suggestions. Move your overhead lamp so it is located behind your head and (if you are right handed) to your left, so the light can get in under the hand holding the stamp. On occasion, I have used a led light on a headband to get light right on the tool so I can see exactly where it goes. I do this when I have a stamp (like a box stamp) that is really tricky to line up, when I'm making my very first row of angled basket weaves, etc. When you are making a row of basket stamps, how do you orient yourself to the stamp and the row you are stamping? I try to always orient my work piece so I can see the longest side of the basket weave stamp but also see the short end. I place the stamp, and then take a good look at how it is oriented compared to the one next to it (on the side) and the one behind it. If I like the way it sits, then I hit it, otherwise I try to tweak it a bit till the angles look right. I'm not very fast this way, but I can usually get a big basket weaved area to look straight. Another thing I suggest, don't completely overlap the legs of the basket stamp with the previous stamp. I don't know a good way to describe this, so I drew a crude picture: This shows the second stamp (in red) spaced just a bit away from the center bar of the basket weave. This gives you some wiggle room as you stamp, so you don't end up having your rows of stamps compressing in on each other. If you try to put the end of the leg of the next stamp right up against the bar, you will end up having rows that are too tight and won't fit. It's just not humanly possible to stamp that precisely. The little extra allowance lets you adjust things if you start getting out of alignment or get too close together, and stop it before it becomes a problem. It's your room for error. The trick is to always try and stamp with that same little bit of extra allowance. Hope this makes sense. Also, when I first start off making that first row of any kind of geometric stamp, I take lots of time and make sure that row is straight. I always have a guideline down on the leather as a reference, and I make sure that first row lines up it as perfectly as I can. That first row will be a baseline I reference all other stamps to, so I want it to be a good as I can get it. As I work, I take a break and look the whole thing over again, and sometimes put a straight edge down so I can accurately tell how I'm doing. If I am getting wavy, I try to use my wiggle room (as mentioned above) to straighten it back out. I haven't quite mastered that yet, but I'm getting there. Hope this helps. Please let me know if you have questions. This can be a really hard thing to do and make it look good. Bob

Looks like he's got a new way to convert a leather sofa into a saddle.

No problem, I didn't think you were saying I was doing anything wrong. If there is difference in how we go about casing, I think it's slight and we probably both end up at the same destination. Maybe my way is a little quicker, but it might not be. But we both end up with a well cased piece of leather in the end. I'm no expert, that's why I hang around here, so I can learn. Thanks again. Bob

I don't know that I buy the argument that you need to soak it in water until all the bubbles stop. The idea is to get the fibers of the leather rehydrated which takes time, hence why you case leather. The bubbles just represent air trapped between the fibers in the leather, but they don't mean that there isn't already enough water in the leather to fully rehydrate the fibers. To my thinking if the leather has already reached the wet noodle stage and is dripping water, it has enough to fully rehydrate everything as it sits overnight and the water fully soaks in. I get bubbles coming out of the leather even once it is out of the casing bath, which suggests to me that the air bubbles are a result of the fibers swelling as they take on water not just water pressure forcing air out. The fact that we have to wait many hours for the leather to return to normal color tells me that there is more than enough moisture to fully hydrate the leather. At least that's my theory. Like I said before, there are many great leather workers out there that do dip them till the bubbles stop, and they do great work. Bob

You do great work so maybe there is something to soaking it that long. And the whole time you are working on it you don't refrigerate the piece? Thanks again, Bob

Hi Harag, Yes, it is the Listerine you find in the stores. Many people here swear by it. However, I've also been told by some pretty good authorities (Bob Park) that it's just the alcohol that is helping. That's why I just put alcohol in my casing solution. Also, I didn't want my leather smelling like listerine.... I case pretty much like you do, but I used to do it like Benlilly does. I do make sure my leather is very wet before setting it out to case. In my mind, letting it soak till all the bubbles stop coming out just makes it take longer to dry out but I may be wrong about that. I've heard on many saddle makers who do great work that case that way. Thanks, Bob

Thanks Jimbob, I'm thinking like you that it was discoloration too. Just didn't seem right that mold would pop up like that after only a few days except that I let that piece sit out at room temperature more than I usually do. It was a brand new stamp that may have had something on it, or maybe I got something on my hands. I'm hoping that's all it was. I had never heard that the acids still in the leather resisted mold formation but that does kind of make sense. I clean up that piece and put it back in the fridge in a new bag, and so far no more mold.

Thanks again all. Based on all the experienced advice here I'm just going to keep it bagged and just try to work it through quickly. I don't use the Saran Wrap method but I do keep the parts I'm not working on inside the bag and also use a piece of plastic to cover parts I'm not working on, and it works pretty well. When working things that I keep in the fridge I've gone for several weeks before finishing, so hopefully if I'm quick now I can get it done without any problems.

Thanks Benlilly and Cyberthrasher. If I can work so quickly that I can finish in the next few days I wouldn't worry to much about mold either. But, life has a tendency to get in the way. Having the leather on ice would buy me extra time. I normally leave stuff in the fridge for a couple of weeks sometimes without any problems, but just this week I had a problem with a piece of leather that had only been casing a few days. It looked a little like mold but it only showed up where my hand had been resting on the leather while using a brand new basket stamp. It may have been residual steel filings that caused the discoloration, but I'm treating it like it was mold. It's got me a little gun shy now. Thanks for the input! Bob

Thanks Mike, great idea! I'm not sure I have a cooler big enough to fit this but I might. I had thought about using it somehow but hadn't thought of using tupperware as a spacer like that. I will see if I can make the leather fit the big styrofoam cooler I have. I don't need long term storage, just something to keep it cool during the day. If I come up with a neat solution I'll post it here. You've got me thinking of a rig that might make this work and guarantee no contact with the ice. If anyone else has solutions let me know. Bob

Hello, I am starting on a large notebook. It will hold a legal size writing pad, the front cover will have a floral carving and the back with have a basket stamp covering it. Also, it will all be one single piece of leather, measuring roughly 16 x 21 inches. It's not huge but it will take a while to tool and stamp. I work a day job so evenings are the only times I get to work on projects, and normally I store smaller projects in the fridge when not tooling. However, this one is too big to fit. There's all that unecessary food in the way but the wife and kids won't let me get rid of it. And even if I did the door would still hit it. So my question to everyone out there is this: When faced with a piece of cased leather that is too big for cold storage, do you have any tricks for how you handle it? I'm just planning on a couple of late nights and hopefully a lot of time on Saturday to get this done quickly before any mold gets a chance to grow. I added a little alcohol to the casing solution this time in an attempt to give some mold resistance. But does anyone have a storage solution for large parts to keep them cool until you can get back to working on them? Thanks in advance for any advice, Bob

Just a question on this subject: I think I was told that using denatured alcohol prior to carving leather made the leather surface harder and made using a swivel knife harder because it is difficult to cut. Is that true, or am I thinking of oxalic acid that does this? thanks, Bob

I just recently tried Quik Slik from Sheridan Leather Outfitters and was amazed at how much easier it was. Just like treybecca I am sold on it now. Bob

Hello and welcome to the forum! I don't have a sewing machine myself (yet) but what I'm thinking about getting is a Tippman Boss. It's manually driven but can sew heavy leather and doesn't cost as much as a motorized machine. However, I do hand sew on occasion and I just use a very sharp awl and a stiching wheel to lay out the holes. I can make them pretty uniform that way, but if I wanted the spacing more uniform I would get a pricking iron, which can mark holes in a row with all the same spacing between them. You still need to finish each hole with an awl but they will be spaced evenly, and it's a lot cheaper than any machine. Just takes more time. Bob

I find that the longer I leave the antique on the resist, the more it colors it. I've gotten very light tooling sometimes when I remove it quickly, but not always. I haven't been able to get that light tooling / dark background consistently yet. You might want to try a darker antique than what you are using to get the backgrounded areas to look really dark. Bob

I'm also a Leatherwranglers SK-3 user, and think they are great. I upgraded from a Tandy knife to the SK-3 and haven't looked back. Their knife blade material is different from the standard hardend tool steel that most good knife manufacturers use. They found a steel alloy that is used in the medical field due to it's corrosion resistance. Paul Zalesak did a lot of reseach and found the reason you need to strop your swivel knife so much is because the residual acids and chemicals in the leather react with the blade causing microscopic pitting and buildup on the blade's edge. You feel this as drag when you are trying to cut leather. Stropping rubs off the build up and polishes out the tiny pits. The beauty of the material Paul uses is that it resists this corrosion very well, and you don't have to strop or sharpen very often. These blades work great and are worth every penny, at least in my opinion. You can get a Leather Wranglers blade that will fit in your Tandy knife barrel. All of their blades have a flat shaft but if you contact them they can make one that has a round shaft that will fit an existing knife. Regarding blade size, I started off with a 1/4 blade in my SK-3, but after taking a class with Bob Park he convinced me to work with a larger blade. His argument is that while a small narrow blade makes it easy to do some of the fine detail cuts and curves, it covers up bad carving techniques and doesn't make you learn to hold and handle the knife properly. He recommends starting with a wider flat blade (3/8 inch or 1/2 inch) and once proficient in it's use, working to narrower blades and angled blades. I now use a 3/8 wide blade in the SK-3 for general carving and I have a Barry King swivel knife with a 3/8 inch blade that is thicker than the SK-3's blade for my decorative cuts. I just find the thicker (more standard) Barry King blade is making better cuts in my somewhat inexperienced hands than the thin SK-3 one. Like Aaron said above, the SK-3 is very sharp and it makes very fine cuts and I've always struggled with getting good decorative cuts from it. However, there are a lot of pros out there that use it for making decorative cuts and theirs look great, so it's just my not knowing how to do them well. For me personally, I find the bigger blade easier to make nice open decorative cuts. Hope this helps, Bob

Very nice work! I have been wanting to make a tool roll for my stamping tools. You've given me a completely different idea about what I might want to make. Thank you for sharing! Bob

Hi Grandpa, I know what you are going through. The modern Tandy pine tree tools are thicker than the original ones. What Al Stohlman worked with appear to be a bit thinner than what Tandy supplied recently and I found them very hard to work with. I just recently got a set of pine tree tools from Robert Beard and they are 1000% better. Now I can make something that looks like a tree, however they do take practice and skill to make even with a good tool. I was able to talk to Robert Beard about these tools at the Sheridan show and even he admitted they take skill to make a good looking tree, so don't feel bad that your first attempts aren't looking that great. I found there are a lot of subtleties in how you tip the tools to create different lengths of branches, and you also need a small matting tool to get between the branches and matt out the parts that aren't supposed to be part of the tree. I'd keep an eye out for the old craftool pine tree tools. In the meantime practice the the modern ones to try and get the look down. Bob

American Leather Direct (ALD) has a pretty neat tool on their web site that shows what parts of the hide you are getting when you order a piece of hide. It makes it so you can see what part of the animal you are getting, but it doesn't show actual lengths since animals vary in size. http://www.aleatherd.com/cuts.html However, if you go to the button on the top of the page entitled 'Yield' (http://www.aleatherd.com/performance.html) they do show you what generally to expect as far as size, and they give you some handy tips about quality of the leather. Bob