WinterBear

Wait, wait! I have to ask. The syntax on this can read either way, and either way is funny. Either: your son who is your critic and who is a monster, or your son who critiques monsters?

It's pretty brittle Glendon. Try scraping the top edge with the back of a knife blade (obviously not on the cutting surface of either tool). Once you get an edge lifted up to grab a hold of, it will usually break up and sort of peel off.

Thanks Cheryl, chancey, and PL01.

Here is mine. Little Tom Thumb kit, very very thin leather, I'm surprised I was able to get any tooling on it at all. Tiki is a quick scribble I made. And yes, i finished it--I have no pictures of it naked--I needed it to use immediately to cart around a spare set of batteries and a flash drive. I used the EcoFlo Highlighter and a caruaba cream. Reverse side is a "quilted" pattern with the seeder swivel knife cuts, but since I also used a camo tool, I'm not posting that side. Lace is goat. Tools: swivel knife seeder backgrounder pear shader

Hi Neillo. Some of the topics I read here seem to be of the opinion that over-oiling anything that starts out as veg tan is as bad as not oiling at all, and maybe worse, degrading or rotting out the leather, or simply stinking when the excess oils go rancid. If you want weather resistance, it might be better to start with something that has oils and waxes as part of its tanning/finishing process, like latigo leather. Drum stuffed or hot stuffed leather might also be a possibility? You'll trade off the ability to carve or do much molding, but gain water resistance. Can I also suggest talking to the folks in the saddle and motorcycle subforms? Their products get exposed to a lot of weather, and they will probably have some suggestions.

Nice, nice work. Can I suggest something on the black wallet? Maybe take a little dye on a burned dauber to the cut edge of the binding strip? It's very much paler than the rest of the inside, so it is very noticeable (either that or it's a burnished edge that's picking up the light and I need to get my eyes checked).

ebay sells a lot. But you'll really want to watch the shipping--especially if you are buying a full set of "Foundry type" which is quite heavy. http://www.ebay.com/itm/1-Vintage-Wood-Type-Ampersand-Symbol-1-x-13-16-Block-4-Antique-Old-Letterpress-/370603310503?pt=LH_DefaultDomain_0&hash=item5649adbda7 Here is a metal on wood ampersand. With these letterpress blocks, the best way to get a good impression is by using an arbor press or similar, but I can get good results with a c-clamp and a few blocks of wood to spread the pressure between the letterpress and the clamp, and on the backside of the leather. (Essentially, you make a sandwich--one side of the clamp, block of wood, cased leather, letterpress block, block of wood, other side of clamp.)

I'm sorry to hear that Spinner. She looks like such a sweetheart in her pictures.

Annealling the metal before shaping or after a lot of working to prevent the metal from cracking. The methods are varies, but essentially, one heats the metal, then cools it very slowly. The metal will then regain its softness and can be worked. Afterwards, the metal can be tempered, or heated and cooled quickly (as by quenching) to regain durability. I think if you investigate the forums used by jewelry fabricators (those that make jewelry from ingots, sheet, and/or rod--you might try the ganoksin orchid forum archives in fact) you'll be able to find the best methods for tempering and annealing for the size, shape, thickness, and alloy of brass you are using, plus how to remove or prevent fire scale and how best to polish it (e.g., a brushed finish, mirror polish, and everything in between).

Am I understanding it this right?-- it will be any 4 of the tools from the Basic Seven (swivel knife, pear, veiner, camo, beveler, seeder, and matting)? (And for those that don't have a basic 7, I assume whatever is equivalent?) No modeling spoon on this challenge then--that means I'll have to work harder at walking my tools correctly!

So tell me. Is the wife going to slap a bumper sticker on your but that reads something like "certifiably insane" after you finish all of that? I'm betting you didn't measure the time spent on that in hours, but rather weeks. Gorgeous work.

It's all about the salvage when an ooops happens.

You can vinegaroon the whole thing black to cover it up. You can try to bleach the mark off with oxalic acid ("bar keeper's friend") or lemon juice. You can try to incorporate the mark somewhere that will be dyed near-black (very dk. blue, dk. brown, dk. green, dk. burgundy, or ...black). Last resort would maybe be to wet it and put more junk on it, then run it over with a car, and beat it with a chain and sell it as "industrial distressed?"

My neighbors KNOW I'm loonier than a web-footed bird, so nothing I do is likely to surprise them much. But even so, I don't think I'd care to have all those eyeballs watching me either.

What are you using to color your coasters?

Well, at least a couple of canteens will weight less than a saddle tree. You planning to make some leather-covered canteens? I'd love to see them when you are done.

I've seen it all ways, but haven't yet figured out which is best. I've seen stored rolled into concrete forming tubes laid on their sides (available at hardware stores for forming deck footers), and another person stored theirs in a dark room with one edge of the leather clipped onto over-sized "clothes hangers" that hung on bars. Some store it flat, some roll it op and stack it on a shelf and some store upright rolls in a box. I think each method has it's pros and cons. The flat method takes up a lot of space and it's easy to scratch the leather. Storing it rolled up on a shelf can mean that the ends can get stiff and change color where light hits it, but be of a different temper and color on the inside of a roll--storing it stacked on a shelf may mean that the roll may get crushed as well, so you may wind up with creases. Storing the rolls upright in a container means the bottom end gets smushed and the top end may suffer from exposure. Storing it hung from hangers means that it takes a lot of room, and the clips may damage the leather, or let loose, dropping leather to the floor and damaging it. The big concrete tubes seem to be the best to my eyes. The tubes can be bolted together (and a bit of epoxy covers any bolts so there is nothing to scratch the hide) into a simple frame bolted to a wall or stud, it's hard to put so much in a tube that the lower rolls are squished, you can sort by leather type and color fairly easily, and you can hang blackout curtain material or a bit of dark vinyl or denim over the tube openings to protect the leather against the light.

Knut, as far as I know currently, the injection molded variety are made by Oasis Canteens here is the US, and I don't know of any other suppliers outside of a Chinese supplier that requires a cargo container's worth. Oasis Canteen's US website is (http://oasiscanteens.com/products.html). They are slightly less at Cal Camp (http://www.calcamp.com/product_reviews.php?cPath=21&products_id=39). I'm afraid I don't know of any suppliers in your neck of the woods, so I'm afraid shipping might eat you alive, regardless.

Knut, which type of Scout canteen are you looking for? Is it the round plastic one with the spout on the front side rather than the top?

Like Spinner, I use sanding drums. The disks are more difficult to use. I also have some Dremel/Ryobi type coarse grinding wheels and cones which are pretty good to use as well.

And don't forget to wear a mask and goggles when you grind those nubs down. You won't want to breathe that stuff or get it in your eyes.

Glad you're back. Being in the hospital and sick is for the birds. Now, I don't know the first thing about holsters, but it looks pretty good to me, and I love that rich black color.

Oh I have plenty of paint...it's just in one of these boxes...somewhere. I'm still unpacking. And it definitely seems like this board is all about taking it to the next level. I spend way too much time rooting around in the old threads, just being boggled by all of the talent.