footrat

I peen with the flat of the rivet directly on my granite slab. For thick folds, such as around buckles and whatnot, the alignment is tougher, so I might have to hang part of the piece off the edge of the slab to make sure I'm still setting and peening straight up and down. Any odd angles will make thick leather shift and lead to bent shafts on the rivets. You'll end up with the flat of the rivet digging in on one edge and sitting high on the other.

That is a beautiful stitching punch.

I use synthetic wool daubers from Tandy. Big bag of about 100. I wait until I have several pieces to oil, and one dauber usually fares well for the entire lot. The rough sides of leather will usually smash the dauber down so it's not as fluffy and absorbent, but it still works fine. What I make is expected to last years in the hardest environments (structural firefighting), so I use heavy harness leather, and I oil the crap out of it. I oil it front and back until it won't hold any more, and I also oil the edges. Then I rub it down with Aussie Leather Conditioner to hold the oil in.

I use 1" #12's, and I drive the setter with a 16 oz. framing hammer. The striking surface of my setter has mushroomed down a LOT. I peen with a ball pein hammer, and then dome again using the setter/doming tool. I finish by flattening the top of the dome with the framing hammer.

I hate messing up with copper rivets, but they are all I use. They hold better than stitching for what I make. The three or four times I've had to remove a copper rivet, the easiest way was to drill it out.

I wear nitrile gloves when applying Aussie, and I do it by hand. I get just a little bit at a time, enough to do a few inches. The gloves don't hold the product, so I lose almost none. When I'm done, I come back and wipe it down with a rag to get any excess off. By the way, Aussie is mostly beeswax, petroleum jelly, and a petroleum distillate like naptha to keep it thin. Once the petroleum products evaporate, you're left with a mostly beeswax finish.

I buy hardware from two different places. When I want solid brass, I buy from buckleguy.com. When I need something else, I usually go to Ryan's Products. Both have done a great job at shipping a lot of hardware quickly and accurately. If you go through Ryan's, opt for USPS priority. It isn't added at checkout, but instead later before actually shipping the stuff. It's way cheaper than UPS.

What did the original leather look like, color wise, before stamping and darkening oil?

I use a rubber mallet for strap end, oblong hole, and button hole punches. I use a framing hammer for letter/number stamps and for driving the burr on copper rivets. I use the ball of a ball pein hammer to peen the copper post over the burr, and the face of the framing hammer again to drive the doming tool and to flatten the dome. I use a poly mallet for tooling only. It is THE least used striking tool on my bench. Use what works.

I like a waxy feel, so even on domestic stuff, I use Aussie Leather Conditioner. It's basically beeswax and petroleum jelly, with probably naptha to thin things. Once the petroleum distillates evaporate, you're left with a durable waxy finish that lasts a while. It's not permanent, though, and use will wear it off. It does very slightly darken the leather, but so does oiling it. I do both.

My problem with snaps is that I only work with about 13 oz. leather, either harness or saddle skirting. It's almost impossible to properly set a line 24 snap in that thickness because there's not enough post above the snap to roll over. I've had to skive areas down that I would otherwise leave full thickness. Now I just use long Chicago screws.

I've always wondered how guys paint the lettering so cleanly. what's the trick?

I would definitely sand or otherwise slick the flesh side down a lot more than in that picture. If you plan on making more than one of these, do yourself a favor and make the crown mold from a block of wood. You can wet form over it, and then tack the leather to the block to prevent uneven shrinkage or movement as it dries. If you were doing felt hats, you could use something else that would mold easier to an existing crown for the pattern. But a wood mold would be best for this, so you can really stretch the leather against it.

I don't just pull on the handle. I also push on the head. I'm a lefty, so my left hand controls the handle pitch and yaw, while the right thumb pushes on the head. The outside sides of my hands stay planted on the leather, keeping it still while the skiver moves. I skive my straps where they fold or have to double or triple up in thickness, so I want a nice, even skive across the width of the strap, with a "scooped" look to the skive down the length of the strap. I could never do that by using only one hand for control. The handle of the skiver is often NOT in line with the direction of the cut, but angled just to the side. At the edges of the strap, this makes the blade contact as little leather as possible, reducing the drag and the force needed for the cut. There are several big problems I run into with the Super Skiver. Firstly, the blade ends up bent convexly. This makes a deeper cut in the center of the tool head than toward the outsides. Just something that has to be worked around if you want your skiving completely smooth across the piece, instead of cut concavely in the center. Secondly, the blade is angled very aggressively down from the head. This makes the blade bite harder into the leather, increasing drag, and often taking too deep a cut. It also leaves a gap between the head and the blade where little pieces of leather pack in and push the blade FURTHER from the head. I have to stop from time to time and clean that out. I change blades when it's apparent that poor cutting is due to dullness, and not due to bad blade angle or crud between the blade and tool head. If I wanted to strop things, I wouldn't own a tool with disposable blades. I'd throw down on a good skiving knife that would last for decades. I don't want to strop things right now, so I stick with disposables. I've never wet-skived. I've wet-edge-beveled, and I didn't like it as much as dry. I might have to try this. Remember, however, that if you wet a piece and then turn it grain-down on a cutting board so you can skive it, you're going to texture the grain side with the board, or whatever is down there.

I use the Super Skiver, and a sharp blade is critical. Cleaning bits of leather out from between the blade and knife is important, too, otherwise you end up changing the blade angle against the leather, and it digs in harder than normal. For me, it's a two-handed motion, with my left hand (I'm left handed) pulling the handle, and the right hand holding down the piece and pushing on the head of the skiver. In this manner, I get more control, and can lift up out of the skiving where I want. I use saddle skirting, so have to skive almost everything at some point, mostly to make folds, or to make a piece of leather thinner in one spot so the layers don't add up so much.