iamasmith

Hi there, I am trying to make a case using 8oz Veg Tanned Leather which is formed into two halves. Rather than try to use a lip I thought it might be cool to try butt stitching the halves together but I'm running into a couple of problems and wonder if it's just not a good idea with leather this thin. So far I'm running into trouble with my flat test pieces. Here's my process at the moment.. Grooving the edges because I want the stitches to be recessed. Securing the two pieces together at the back with Duck Tape. Marking the stitch holes with a wheel on both sides (grooves). Placing Duck Tape over the leather outside the grooves on both sides to try to avoid awl marks beyond the the channels. Using a curved awl to go to the middle from both sides then push through to complete the cuved hole. Stitch through with curved needles (diamond shape are the only ones I could lay my hands on for the moment). The problems that I'm having at the moment on my test pieces are.. 1. Still getting awl marks beyond the channel although these are better now I'm masking with Duck Tape. 2. When I start to stitch I'm getting tears in the upper part of the leather that aren't there when I'm doing the awl work. Can anybody offer any pointers? Cheers, Andy

Great tutorial, I set some brewing just over a week and tried it out today on a piece of scrap veg tanned leather, it produced a lovely deep black so I think I'll start using this for some things. I have a couple of questions though about transfer of the ferric acetate once dried and a concern over transfer onto tools etc. I may want to tool some of this leather at some point. Would you suggest tooling first then applying the vinegaroon with a brush rather than soaking? I'm concerned about some of the compound sticking and transferring to my stamps etc. Is it probable that if I make a mixed piece of natural and vinegaroon treated leather that I will get some contamination and darkening of the natural leather? I noticed on the test piece that even fingerprints were transferring to the bit I was holding. Would a coat of supersheen stop this? Cheers, Andy

OK, I didn't read too much into the needle as a stylus idea when I first read it since the stylus I'm using is almost like a slightly rounded leather needle at the point.. am I missing something here?

Cheers, that's a top tip, at least it should stop the tracing paper bulging

Hi, I'm fairly new to this but I feel that I'm getting happier with the results when it comes to cutting in with the Swivel Knife and am starting to get nice clean and smooth curves in my work. The one thing that's really causing me problems is getting the pattern onto the leather prior to carving. I have a nice, neat outline, which I then trace and that looks reasonably neat too, then I move onto transferring this with a stylus with the paper taped over (using lo-tac tape) the leather. I'm finding that moisture from the leather is causing bulges in the tracing paper from time to time and that invariably I find the tracing to be a fairly nasty and crude representation of what I originally drew. I have started to compensate a little trying to work the stylus to the side of the line so that I can smooth out with the knife and hide the stylus marks in the bevel or in the background but I feel there should be a better way of transferring a design to the leather so I can start with something more accurate. Does anybody have any other approaches to using the tracing/stylus approach? I'm guessing there must be a way of printing an image from a computer and transferring in some way but I haven't come across this yet. Any ideas folks?, regards, Andy

So far I've been using this stuff over the top of Super Sheen.... http://www.picreator.co.uk/articles/3_renaissance_wax.htm Seems quite nice and quick to dry before final buffing ^^

Cheers Hilly, yes it was prewaxed thread and I hadn't heard that tip. Many thanks, Andy

I hit on this idea and wondered about your thoughts folks. I know that putting a welt into a knife sheath is critical to the longevity but playing around with edges and trims I wondered about rolling the edges to produce a welt. What I did was to cut down into the wool side of the leather, marking off using my swivel knife then skived off about 50% of the thickness and rolled the edges back, glued them and then glued the rolled edges together prior to stitching but close to the centre rather than at the edge where it may flow. (apologies for the grimy keyboard). I didn't take too much care with the sample but with a little more work on a sheath I think a regular welt could be made with the overlapped leather.. Can you think of any reason that this may be a bad idea for finishing the edges of a sheath? I think if the welt is regular enough then it should provide the stitches with a reasonable protection. I can see that when the leather is curved then the folds may need to be trimmed inside to avoid bumps etc. but I figure a combination of wet forming the roll, good pressing and skiving off the bumps may make a good regular edge that also provides the welt. Anyway, I'm sure it's been done before and I'm just asking if anybody has any thoughts about the downside (other than extra leather when planning) whilst doing this..?

I made a project recently (only my second) but I put a lot of effort into the stitching and was turning the piece constantly in my hands whilst working with it. It was a small folding knife sheath with a lot of stitching and I'm not sure that a stitching pony would have been of any help here due to it being wet formed with close seams (which I trimmed also). By the time I had finished I was conscious that the Beeswax in the thread that I had been using had polished the stamping and the sides of the piece quite considerably so I was a little nervous of the dye taking evenly. It didn't and I didn't like the look of the piece at all. In the end I buffed most of the dye off afterwards to leave a kind of antiqued look but was wondering if this is a common problem and how you may re-prep a piece for a solid tone of dye if there has been some wax transferred... or is the answer to glue the piece, dye it and then stitch it?? The piece in question, that raised the question is...

Thanks again Brent

OK, since I'm fairly green at Carving and I had a Spartan Swiss Army Knife nailed down with a piece of 8-10oz leather that had dried out today I thought I would experiment. I got a Triweave stamp today from Tandy, had a bit of a play around and thought it would serve at least to show if the tooling would suffer on a wet formed piece. I only had the 8-10oz leather but had a Skiver also turn up so I decided to hide the black marks made by the tacs I used by making a simple Trim. As this is only my second Leatherwork project it was all experimentation. Including the colouring which I didn't like so I wiped most of it off to make it more of a worn look. Anyway, the thing that I did notice most of all and need to figure a better way around is that when stitching I inadvertently ended up polishing the case whilst working with it since I built up a lot of Beeswax from the thread on my hands (I don't have a pony of any sort). For now this doesn't matter but if I want solid dyes then I guess that will cause me problems and I will need a better option. Anyway, I thought I would post up my second attempt at making something...

Cheers guys, some great pointers there and I love those holster designs Lobo I'm just getting started with carving so mine won't be that intricate. I lie your suggestion JRedding since it gives the leather chance to relax relax in uniform across the piece rather than trying to constrain the tooled area and stretch outside the area. Sounds much more likely to work for my purposes although on something so small it may make the carving even more interesting. Ah well, it's all good practice, I'll give that a go

Sorry, I should have mentioned, the tooling will be on a flat portion with the forming beyond the extents of the carving. I'm not trying to form a tooled section to shape.

I plan on trying a wet formed sheath for a pocket knife. In the forming I'll be moulding the leather down around the knife and tacking it to a board so that it forms and dries shaped around the knife (wrapped in cling film). I fancy putting some decorative carving onto the case and I was wondering about the best way to avoid having the shrinkage distort the carving. I was imagining doing something like this.. 1. Carve the leather. 2. Allow it to dry completely. 3. Case around the carving. 4. Form and tack around the knife. 5. Leave to dry completely. 6. Remove, cut and stitch on the back. Is this the best approach or should I be doing something else such as staining and sealing the carved portion prior to casing it to wet form? Any thoughts folks?

Actually I just found that my Fallkniven DC4 was the most practical tool for sharpening this properly. I didn't use a jig just a steady hand. On the diamond side I got it fairly sharp and then brought it up to something I was happy with using the ceramic side using push strokes. I then swapped to pull strokes using a good deposit of jewellers rouge on a piece of card and the mirror finish came back instantly.

OK, I've got Bushcraft knives, field dressing knives and wood carving knives and they all came, and I maintain them so, they are sharp enough to shave hairs. I got a kit from Tandys recently with a swivel knife in it that will cut leather but I don't really consider sharp. At the moment I don't feel that the cuts are particularly crisp and am tempted to sharpen it properly rather than just strop it with Jeweller's Rouge as suggested but wanted to check first on how sharp they really should be.. am I aiming for shaving sharpness like my other knives or is this more a matter of preference? If I do sharpen it then I'll probably use a DMT Diamond Hone followed up by a Fallkniven DC4 ceramic side and then go to fine honing and polish with Autosol on card an then when I'm happy I'll go to Jeweller's Rouge to strop and maintain it.. sound practical/sensible?

Cheers Buddy, that's one worth remembering I'm not sure that's going to lift it out this time because it's a thin layer of glue that was pushed into the skin as I was turning it to push it flat against the cardboard backing.

I'm just getting started up in stamping and carving and have decided to try mounting the leather by using Duc Tape on the back of the leather glued down to card. In the hope that the Duc Tape will be relatively easy to get off the leather once finished. I mounted up a piece this way today and was pressing it down after applying the glue to the tape backing, turning it as I did so and then to my dismay I found that some of the glue that had pushed out on the side had been picked up by one of my fingers and firmly deposited right in the middle of the tooling area. I'm not completely distraught in writing this one off but I was wondering if there is a good solution to these kinds of accidents? The glue in question is Tandy's Eco Flo Leather weld and it seems to provide a complete mask where it is spilled. I started to case the leather after the glue had set but in the area of the spillage there was no water absorbed at all. This obviously means it isn't going to take any dye either later. So, is there a remedy to this? Will things like Acetone work to take this off or will it just drive it into the skin?

And to close the topic off in terms of the original question I did some Basketweave today and was pretty happy with the results in terms of getting the tool to produce the proper marks so it looks like it is all down to the casing which is getting more intuitive to me now. I may use some on my next project as the quick go I had looked rather good even in this leather. Many thanks again for the direction and comments folks, Andy

I also see there's a dedicated area for Guitar Straps http://leatherworker.net/forum/index.php?showforum=96 (in case you hadn't noticed it). Folks there may be able to help with some of the other things such as choosing leather and design

Actually I think I'll use this one for a while until I get better

Dyed and stitched (it's a necker but the loop is big enough for a belt carry).. Tomorrow I'll see if I'm happy enough with the colouring before giving a coat of Super Shene and covering in Renaissance Wax (first attempt at stitching or making something with leather btw also)

Welcome, and as you can see, I'm a brand new learner too Good luck with the project, and I would love to see the results. My only observation is one that I thought out and that is that letters are probably very hard to do nicely unless using letter stamps or irregular lettering that isn't a specific font. The only reason that I am surmising this to be the case is that if you take a look at any work that has even single letters the eye picks out irregularities in the font very, very easily indeed. I think if I was going to do letters I would get a stamp set for the font that I was working in if I wasn't going to try to do a stylised version where the adherence to the font wasn't too important. You have a question about colouring also. There are many dies around and it's quite probable that from a distance the design won't show up without being dyed but then again it's probably going to run over a shoulder anyway. You are learning like I am. Quite probably your friend has no idea what they will get. I suggest do some mock ups on pieces of scrap leather and see what they like ^^ The advantage that I have is that for the moment I only have myself to please so good luck

Well, it was the casing. I didn't use the Basketweave for my first attempt at decorating anything though. Here it is, even though a little rustic I'll work it up into a sheath since I need the practice I guess this cheap leather will help me practice some smoother and more controlled cuts with the knife and get me used to the other tools.

Well, it will take tool impressions but not deep ones, I think I'll persevere with trying to case it properly and see what the results are. I really do need to make a sheath anyway so it may serve for a first attempt at making an untooled sheath if I still find it too hard.