Bob Blea

I've had some success dealing with this sort of problem with my antiquing. I apply a lacquer resist and then apply and wipe off my antique. This darkens all the leather a little bit, and it also leaves a little variation in the color of the untooled leather. If you are careful about how you wipe it off, you can blend in the 'suntanned' areas a little bit and make them less noticeable. It's even easier if that area happens to fall into a tooled area. Here's an example of a custom notebook I've made, and as you look at the spine you can see a little variation in the coloring due to the antique. Also where it has been backgrounded around the state of Texas the coloration varies a lot due to the texture of the backgrounding. If you made a project where those marks are in a backgrounded or tooled area I doubt they would be visible once you were finished. I've also had areas that are darker due to light exposure and I've cut out the leather so those lines end up around where my lacing holes will go. Between the antique effects and the lacing I can't see the difference in coloration of the raw leather.

I've had some luck with chrome tanned leather and a warm dry iron. You have to be careful because some leathers have a plastic coating on the outside that can melt and stick to things if it gets too hot. Also, it's possible to scorch the leather if the iron gets too hot too. I've kept my iron on a low setting and placed it grain side down on my tooling stone, then put a dry towel between the leather and the iron and applied pressure. It has been able to get a lot of wrinkles out.

It really is a matter of personal taste or style, but many would say that in Sheridan style it should traditionally be bargrounded. I think it used to be more common to use a checkered backgrounding tool in floral carving but when Sheridan style became more dominant, the bargrounder became the 'proper' tool to use. But you can use what you like and feel most comfortable with.

Looks sharp and that is very fine looking stitching.

I once made a set of small napkin rings on out scrap leather.

Thanks for the compliment. You might find this set of stamps to be easier than a basket weave. It doesn't require as much lining up as a basket weave and it goes much quicker! On the lacing I was taught to use angles slits for things like double or triple loop lacing because the angle of the stitches makes them lie better. But for something like Mexican round braid, you want the straight slit lines. Just depends on what you will end up doing more often. For the pockets, there is a nylon ribbon glued inside the pocket that separates the two card slots. The ribbon is about 2 1/2 inches wide and is folded accordion style and glued between two pieces of leather that make up the pocket. The construction is covered in the article I mentioned and there was a long post on here (somewhere) that I was involved in where I made up a test version and abused it by sliding a card in and out of it really hard for a long time. It is still on my desk and showing no signs or failing.

Thanks! Barry King makes several variations on this shell stamp design but this one is my favorite right now. I just love all the detail to it.

Just a simple little wallet that just holds the essentials, recently added to my Etsy shop. The design comes from Chan Geer in an article that was published in the Leather Crafter's and Saddler's Journal several years ago. The stamp on the outside is a Barry King shell stamp and filler that I'm beginning to fall in love with. I laced the edges on this one but the next one is probably going to be hand sewn. I've got a custom order for a personalized one and I want to make a few more for the shop in time for Christmas. Thanks for any feedback you might have.

Looks great, very impressive carving and stitching. That is a lot to stitch all by hand.

Looking great! I especially love the first one.

Nice work Chief, love your lacing as always.

Those turned out pretty nice!

That's amazing and very cool! You should be proud!

Really nice. I love your wolf carving on the back of the cantle on the first one.

Both the leaves and the basket stamp look great. You've got really nice dimension on the leaves.

Grey Drakkon has excellent advice! Try the techniques on scrap first so you can become comfortable with whichever one you choose first. That is a really nice carving and it would be a tragedy to ruin it.

Mujician I routinely apply Neatsfoot oil to my projects and then after it soaks in overnight add a coat of lacquer (Wyosheen or Neat lac/Clear Lac) or Resolene as a resist and I never have problems with it adhering to the leather. Same with using acrylic paints after oiling. If you put on a light coating it should soak into the leather and you won't have any problems. But try it on some scrap and get a feel for it before trying it on your project.

Nice job on the tooling! It looks like you have some good detail there. I wouldn't want to dye it black myself because you will not be able to see the detail after your done unless you look really closely. If it were me I would resist the whole piece then antique it. That will highlight your dragon carving and darken the rest of the leather a bit. If I really wanted the leather around the dragon a light brown, I would resist just the dragon and antique the whole piece. I use Tandy Gel Antiques and when they go on bare leather I get a nice brown color from Saddle Tan or Tan, but the dragon with the resist would maintain it's more natural color but get the highlighting effect from the antique. (NOTE: I haven't tried this trick with Feibings antique yet so I can't guarantee it works the same way. It should.) Probably an easier way to get the same effect would be to dye the untooled leather by hand with your brown dye, being careful to keep it out of your carving. This can be hard with a large area because it's easy to get unevenness with dye (at least in my experience) and you have to be careful it doesn't bleed into your carving. After the dye is good and dry apply a resist to the dragon and then buff the whole thing thoroughly to remove the excess dye pigments. I would then finish resisting the whole piece and apply antique to the whole piece. Anyhow that is how I would handle this. Hope it helps.

Thanks for the compliment and your right it would have looked better to make the stitching groove and then color the leather. In this case it's just an antique on leather with no resist, but I could have easily saved the antique step until after it was assembled and I had made the groove. That would have made a better overall finish.

Nice simple design. I like it!

Thanks all!

I like it. I've thought of trying to make one of these too. Yours turned out great.

I think you did a pretty good job!

Thank you very much!

This was a small card holder I started near the beginning of this year. It was mainly to test dyeing techniques that I was going to use in a custom order I had for a large 8x11 notebook. I liked how the dyed flower came out but I never finished this up until just recently. I finally added the back pocket and stitched it all up and posted it to my Etsy site. Minimal card wallets don't get much more minimal than this! I like how it turned out and I definitely need to be using more color with my carvings.