troy

Well heres the finished articles - not to bad I guess considering I was slightly over come with joy and red cheeks (on my face!!!) during the planning stage - The patterns sort of match up. Oh those damn free samples, one's of the bad things about living near loads of distilleries - sometimes you just feel like throwing away all those fine multi and single malts!! Years back when I drove for a lumber yard, used to quite frequently have to take deliveries to distilleries - in one of them I had to go into the large shed where they poured the whiskey into barrels - Oooh the smell was terrific like really strong whisky, made me wonder just how pissed those guys working there are when they go home!! I was only in there for 15 minutes but I was sure I left quite a few Kg's lighter.

Two things happened the other day which help to bring about the following disater come experiment - one I was bored and two slightly drunk - So started another quiver project with my idea of bracers thrown in for good measure which quickly progressed after a short period of wondering how to spoil all that clean smooth leather in the least most differcult way, into an exercise in stamping. Using only one tool (mostly cause I could'nt find any others) I created the items below using that one tool in as many way as I could think of. It has been months since I had last stamped like this so it was also a practise session which I obviously needed!!? I'm not sure which event happened first to stop me adding more to the THING, i.e when I sobered up or the leather dried, but now looking at the pictures it's probably best I did stop when I did instead of adding more. After they dry I plan to dye the stamping black, edge the normal way (canvas and water) then lace the quiver up.

I know the hooks your on about and I have never been able to find a supplier - where do you get them from? - at the moment I am using something similar from a boat shop, looks similar but twice the size. Cheers for all the advise - it is sort of a narnia quiver I am making so have gone with a arm guard pattern from the film as well.

Hi all, hope this is the right place for this, but keep seeing the odd post by people from scotland and am just wondering who or where you are all from within scotland - after a very short met with ray, would be nice to know if there are similar people local also interested in leather craft.

Thought I'd try my first arm guard to match a quiver I'm making but can't find any info on the sizes of such things - can any body help out?

like them and so glad you showed the underneath - have always wondered how they were joined together - in the past when I did chest plates I normally left shoulder armour out because of that - cheers mate.

Ye I guess after my trip to BC that some similarities are present between the scenery (Canada and scotland)but tree's right upto the summit in many cases is a god send especially in bad weather - no where to escape to on the scottish hills; An teallach or the forge liathach south from ben nevis summit Most of these are north of Edinburgh but then most of the high mountain are but as roy said I expect there are tours to places like fort william under ben nevis but if you come to scotland from may to september - beware the mini vampires!!!!!!!

You could either use the polishing compounds on the same site - here. or I got a kit off evilbay . They do start off brownish but turn black when polished - but you will need a mask of some sort because of the fume/dust created - it's poisonous apparently.

Buffalo horn - can get them here - the one's you have are polished and does'nt take much to do that.

Why do you think whiskey was invented!!!!! I guess when you live in one area long enough you don't realize differences in temperature - at the same time ray was here I was quite comfortable in a T-shirt and yes I wear boxers under everything!!! It was great to meet you and your wife ray, glad to hear you got back OK.

I tend to use those disposiable gloves (Got tired of walking around with constantly stained fingers) and use old bits of shearling (left overs from saddles) to apply the dye to the lace - upending the bottle onto the shearling then running the lace throught that - applying more dye to the shearling when needed - tends to be the least messy method I have used. Then with another pair of gloves apply aussie conditioner to the lace - this binds the dye to the lace and stops it coming off.

Got a few tutorials I have done along the way - not sure if this is the right place to post them but hope they are of interest to some. braided Dog collar with items about prep of lace. Dyeing rawhide and backing bows making bows from ash making bows from yew Making simple arrows

Not being a saddle maker on par with Bruce or dusty or any other the other saddle makers on here having only made 20 in the last three years I really apprechiate these conversations about saddle making, if only to illustrate that I am not the only one encountering problems with it. Comparing the style and type of rider/horse/activity from BC Canada (where I was taught) and back home here in scotland, the idea's about saddle fitting are remarkibly different unfortunatly - in most cases I am making saddles for leasure riders onto horses treated more as pets or prize possesions which span from highly (and expensive) breed American horses to mostly highland ponies/horses. The majority of my customers do have the sense to understand that when it comes to saddle fitting, that it will never be perfect. That the horse will change over the year as will the rider and not to always believe the advise of trainers/vets when saddle fitting is blamed for odd things - plus being local I am always willing to come out to them and sort any problems out. Of course I am not a registered proffessional as in the trainers and vets and over here that is an important point to some - in fact now I just make saddle when and how I like then sale them on as they are - in the long run I find it more rewarding for me - like the saying states 'you can't please everyone, so just please yourself' which I guess is my version if stepping back and recapturing the joy I had from creating saddles in the first case. Troy

If you try the place below - books by Ron edwards - he does a great little book called 'leather lacing manuel' contains about 20 odd different edge lacing techniques. Ram skull press australia

Heck mate if thats a screw up, your 'just OK' must be fantastic. In any case I have the patent in screwing up so your work can't be anything but great. really love the sharpness of your tooling and clear definitions of detail, plus the mustach, thats a real cool bit of detail.

Just had UKray around for alittle visit today (too short really, living in the middle of no where hundreds of mile away from slightest wiff of a few leather possed person) and he mentioned that there may be a few member looking for horn of one sort or the other. The link below is a place near me that has tonnes of the stuff and does ship over the abroad. Highland horn Plus more for ray then anything, below is a link to get precut and selected lemon wood. Lemon wood staves Hope the above helps out some one. Oh and just to show off I guess, have updated my website with largish pictures of some of my pictoral carvings. Pictorial carving

Hi Flatlander - your braided knots look great, I always remember feeling that I was finally getting it the first time I managed interweaves like yours. heres another knife pouch I have just done for a viking saexe blade - It is made from a wide flat braid folded over, this first attempt is not perfect but it's getting there. First off I thing doing a under 1 over 1 braid instaead of 2o, 2u will make the braid wider which it could of been at the end to accomodate the handle of the blade.

Probably A tad late to help with the rounder but when I first started making braided reins and playing around with other patterns in bruce grants cowboy book, I just used an old piece of hard wood with various diameters drilled out of it - probably not good as a permanent thing like the metal versions but it did the job and cost nothing. Plus is you need a hole bigger or smaller, you can just drill another hole.

Thanks for your advise, hidepounder and Tina - Carving the edge first and working your way to the middle is probably the best method, Ive found this when especially carving celtic patterns - also good for scenic carvings but sometimes the order of carving confuses things for me, i.e carving herd of horses where those in front are carved first etc etc. But this next one should work out OK with the edge method and using layers of plastic to keep the inner moist. Cheers for your advise. Troy

Over the years I have had the odd crazy urge to do large pictorial carvings (A3 to A1 size). During doing them I have tried a variety of ways to keep the leather moist in some areas but slightly dry in others to enable carving - this has ended up with a odd assortment of results. On the recent 30 inch shield I did, I carved seperate designs so just kept thos I was'nt working on covered by a plastic bag. On a 1m x .6m picture I did of a huge pictish stone, I did the stone first (which was in the middle) and then the scene after (from the middle to edges), this way did not work out to well and the carving was'nt as good as I'd hoped. Most carvings I have tried to do like the shield but where I allow the whole area to dry, then re-wet as I come to carve it - this has minimal results as the leather is totally dry and does'nt carve great towards the end. Have got the urge to carve another pictorial but this one is quite big again, probably 1.1m x .8m - does any body else do crasy things like this and if so, how have they found it best to keep different areas of the leather moist and dry at the same time. cheers And another thing - when it comes to embossing, I tend to just push the leather out from the back (use thickish leather most of the time not thin) and perhaps apply some grated leather on the back if the area pushed out is large - I find this the easiest way again with large carvings - how does everybody else do it?

Always good, when it comes to celtic degins, how animals are interweaved into a design - Have tried it a few times my self with no good results but you've combined the celtic and horses beatifully - great stuff.

Hi All I have now and again orders to cover what I regard as cheap water bottles with plastic caps - I get these from a guy in Scotland but have wonered if they are avaliable across the pond with better caps, say metal or wooden one's. Would be nice to make something that could last longer. Have inserted a few picture below so you know the sort of water bottle I,m looking for. Cheers for your help.

Hope you don't mind me diving in on this thread, but there has been a few times I have contemplated getting 'the lace master'. Just wondering if any body has experiance with this cutter - like I say, I keep looking at it like you may keep looking at a farrari (sad eh) and if only I had the pennies!!!

I guess the methods of braiding are very similar for each material, its more the way you treat/prepare each of the different materials that matter, meaning rawhide/roo and cowhide. I guess the best rawhide starter book I have used is bruce grants rawhide braiding, then went on to use ron edwards books.

Have uploaded a pencil drawing of the braid I use for saddles and the bags - probably not great as I'm not the best drawing artist - hope you can follow what I've drawn. Start with a long string, half it and start from the middle of the string - thread through the two first holes from underneath to the top side - cross over and thread through second holes (the half circle symbol means over) thread the strings back underneath to the first hole then up and across the top again - the unders and over you do to create the pattern are similar to a turks head - as in you do opposite to what the neibouring strings are doing, i.e if they are over, under - you do under, over. If you have any differculties just shout again.