Mike Craw

Ohhhh, there's another magazine cover! Great job, Beez. Mike

If your bet doesn't cover more than two tries, your $5 might be in serious jeopardy! Thanks again. Mike

Man, that worked fantastic. Thanks!! Anybody wanna start a pool on whether I can remember how to do that next time?

Been there, done that...

Thanks for the plan, Cecil! Now, could Johanna or Monkey please tell me - and speak slowly and use really small words - how I can print out the second page of Cecil's diagram? I used all the computer skill I could muster, right clicked, clicked on print, and I got 1 of 1 pages with about the lower right 1/4 of the plan on it. Thanks! Mike

I think it looks great, Kevin. You have shown us some really creative work in a short period of time. My question is...have you been saving these up, or do you not sleep? Mike

Man, every time I log on I see another idea I can steal...I mean - incorporate! Great idea Don!

Ken, Outstanding idea. Thanks so much! Mike

Hey Pip! I think the sheath looks nice. The photo is a little small to see much detail, but the stitching looks good from what I can see. I wouldn't worry too much about the back. Of course, you want to do it as well as possible, but the front is all anybody will see when it's worn. How the heck did you break five needles and an awl??? Do you have a stitching horse? Is your awl really sharp? That will help with getting the holes to go straight through to the back where you want them. Mike

Add my vote for "Like the Color" and I think you could probably call it russet. In my dyeing experience, if I got the whole thing to come out all one color, I'd be a very happy camper!! I think it looks great! Mike

Welcome Cecil! Maybe I'm doing something wrong, but I didn't get a photo... Mike

Thanks for the nice comments everybody. Johanna, I appreciate the short course on lace beating! I'll try it again with a little more hammer! Michael, this was Tandy kit lace, so I'm betting it ain't hand-cut or veg tanned! Mike

Whooo, Trial and error is right! After I got past the antique, I figured I was out of the woods. It's amazing how, even after all these years, I am still willing to try a brand new technique on a project I worked so hard on! You'd think I'd know better, but then you'd think I'd stop and ask directions, too... Thanks Dan! Mike

Hey Pip, Thank you for the compliment. Rayban, Thanks! I have been tooling for about 27 years, and I'm getting to the point where I'm satisfied with some of the results. I think a lot of it has to do with the availability of instructional DVD's. I learn a lot more by seeing somebody do something than I do reading about it. I have learned a lot watching Chan Geer and Jim Linnell's videos. As I've said in other posts, I think Jeremiah Watt's carving video is one of the best. Last year in Sheridan, I had a chance to watch Jim Jackson work for a couple of minutes at Don King's Museum. Unfortunately, they were setting up for King's reception, so Mr. Jackson had to vacate his bench so they could set up a drink station. I could have stood there and watched him stamp all night. What I wouldn't give to have a tooling DVD by him! If anybody knows Mr. Jackson personally, could you persuade him to put one out? I have certainly heard of Wickett & Craig, but have yet to try any of their leather. Thank you for the tip. I'll see if I can't talk Carlos into ordering a side or two for the shop. Johanna I don't know how lucky Mrs. Craw really is. She's hung in for 33 years and got 29 years of me running around enforcing the local and Federal laws with the shoot-outs and car crashes that go with it, two daughters who have yet to come up with a grandchild, and two purses. Anybody who know us will tell you that I'm really the lucky one! Thanks for the tip about the lacing. The only instruction I've ever had on it has come from that little slip of paper that comes with the kit. It says "tap" the laces, which is a little like saying use "warm" water...how warm is warm and how hard is a tap? I'm not all that crazy about the idea of lacing that whole thing and then busting a lace by leaning on the hammer too hard. I tapped it, but apparently not enough. I really don't know how much pounding the lace will take. Any advice would be welcome. Mike

Hey Pip! You have gotten some good advice here, and I would agree that "saddle stitching" - double needle - is far and away the stronger stitch. JohnD did a great job of explaning it, and an outstanding diagram!! I'm not only amazed by the leatherwork skill on this site, but also by the computer skill exhibited! I'm challenged just adding a reply, and posting pictures is a real adventure for me! One thing I would add is about the time it takes to saddle stitch. When I started almost 30 years ago, Al Stolhman's book on saddle stitching showed a method of stitching that called for holding a needle in each hand and also keeping the awl in your strong hand without putting it down. Well, you could have sold tickets to that! I never did seem to get the hang of it. When I started helping Carlos in the saddle shop a year and a half ago, he hadn't gotten a sewing machine, so everything was hand stitched. Sewing new wool skins onto old saddle skirts can take a VERY long time when you put the awl down between each stitch, so I started trying to keep the awl in my right hand. We went out to Sheridan for Saddle Week last year, and I got to see Don Butler sew the cantle binding onto the project saddle. Talk about a light bulb going on! He holds the awl in the palm of his right hand, securing it with his middle, ring, and little fingers. He holds the right needle between the tips of his pointer finger and thumb. He makes a hole with the awl, and before he pulls it back all the way through the hole, he locates the tip of the awl blade with the left needle. (This is especially helpful when you're sewing woolskin onto saddle skirts. You sure can't see that needle in all that wool.) As he pulls the awl out, he inserts the left needle. As the left needle comes out to the right, he lays the left needle at 90 degrees across the right needle and traps it between his thumb and pointer finger. He pulls abot 12" of the left thread through the hole. He then turns his right hand 90 degrees to the left, so that the right needle goes into the same hole the left just came out of. As he pushes the right needle through, he pulls on the left thread just a little so that the right needle doesn't pierce the left thread. If you allow the point of one needle to pierce the other thread, you will have knots that sometime have to be cut out of the thread. Not good! With most of the right needle showing through the hole, wrap the needle two times with the left thread and grab the shaft of the needle near the point. If you trap the left thread against the shaft of the needle, you can actually use the friction of the left thread to help pull the needle through. Holding the tip of the right needle (I guess it's now the left needle) you can pull it all the way through. If you keep those two turns of the left thread by holding just the tip of the needle, your thread is already twisted for this stitch. I do this EVERY stitch, so that each stitch is locked independently. I don't know if this makes any sense at all. Maybe JohnD can do some diagrams! If it would help, I can have my wife take some photos of some of these steps and post them. The bottom line: This goes a HECK of a lot faster once you get used to it, than it sounds like when you read it. I hope this helps. Mike

Hey Dan! You are right about the leather quality. I just posted a purse in "Show Off" that's an Ashley, and I replaced the leather that came in the kit with 4-5 oz. tooling leather. I don't know what has happened, but some of that stuff looks and feels like paper. It must be happening in the tanning process. Mike

I just finished a purse for my wife today to replace the one I made for her in 1982. The sorry thing only lasted 25 years. Any way, this is the first project that I have tried the finishing techniques listed in Bob Likewise's book, Sheridan Style Carving. The carving went OK, and the NeatLac went on without a hitch. The author mentions that putting on the antique paste can be a little alarming since it looks like the project is ruined until you wipe off the excess. So, fine, I wiped off the excess and let it dry over night so I could do the final step, putting on the Tan-Kote. He says, "This will wash a small amount of the antique off." A small amount?? Holy moley, I had stuff smeared all over the place. I think I managed to get most of it off, but you talk about stress! I had no idea it would be quite that exciting. Now a question. I made a duplicate outside piece out of 4-5 oz. because the one that came from Tandy was very thin and looked and felt like paper. I asked in a different post, has tooling leather changed in the last year or so? Veg tan used to be a light carmel brown and had a feel like, well like leather. What has happened to tooling leather? I don't think that the color on this project came out looking anything like what's in the book. Everything in there has a much more redish-brown tint. This may be the way the photographer lit all the items, or it may be that some of these artists are getting an all together different quality of leather to work with. Now I can go back to the other projects. She doesn't ask for much, and when she mentioned a new purse, it went right to the front of the list! Mike

Kevin, Beautiful work! You say you're still learning (we all are, admit it or not) but do you do this as a business? I especially like the use of the embroidered silk inside. As for a tutorial...let 'er rip! A lot of folks are too shy to ask for one, on any topic, but will certainly view it with interest and learn from it. I've been doing leather work for over 25 years, but I learn something every time I log onto this website. I also own and regularly watch tapes and DVD's of saddle makers and leatherworkers. I could watch the Dale Harwood DVD with the sound off and learn something new, just from watching him move around the saddle he's working on. I learned enough new stuff from watching Jeremiah Watt's tooling DVD to make it worth the purchase price. I wonder if there's any chance we could talk Jim Jackson into doing a Sheridan tooling DVD? Oh well, your stuff is excellent and will only get better. Please know that there are plenty of members on this site who can learn from you, just as you learn from some of them. I sometimes wonder what I might be capable of today if this site had existed when I started. Oh wait, there was no such thing as an internet then...never mind. Mike

Is it just me, or has anybody else noticed a change in tooling leather? I think in recent years that the veg tanned leather we have been getting in saddle sides 13 -15 oz in the shop, commercial belt blanks, and leather in kits has changed dramatically. The new stuff looks and feels like paper. It looks whiter and has a papery feel to me. When it's tooled, the burnishing looks a copper/bronze sort of brown. It doesn't seem to make a whole lot of difference who the supplier is. I was going through my scrap bin the other day and was struck by how much deeper and richer the color seemed on the older pieces, and how much more like leather it feels. I cased a piece and fooled around with a beveler. The leather took the impressions much easier and the burnish was more brown and shiney. Any ideas? Mike

Really nice job, Tim! I especially like the basketweave job. A lot of folks think that stamping is a "no brainer" as opposed to carving, but there is a real touch needed to do a clean basketweave. You have the touch. Also, is the welt around the edge of the flap part of a lining, or is it a decorative touch? Mike

Hey Kate! As your photos show, changing brands of tools introduces variables just as changing sizes does. One thing I haven't seen mentioned in the other responses is that changing to a smaller size beveler will require a change in strike. You can strike the larger beveler relatively hard and move the 1/2 tool space and cover most of your tool marks. The force of your strike is spread over the width of the tool face. A smaller beveler will focus the same amount of force in a smaller area, causing a deeper impression and more noticable "edge" marks. Mike

Hey Ed, Johanna makes a good point about getting tools that will serve you well in the future. Rather than buying a poly mallet large enough to do you any good, a 2 pound maul will serve to do other jobs as well. The point I was making was to use something that won't mushroom those rivet tools. I've seen some of them that started out 5/8 th in diameter that were mushroomed to over an inch of split, jagged metal on top. I like the delrin or nylon headed mauls rather than rawhide, because rawhide mallets tend to flake and deform. My full-time tooling mallet is a 16 oz. nylon head I got from Barry King when we were out in Sheridan for Saddle Week last year. I saw a photo of Chuck Stormes at his tooling bench in the latest Western Horseman. He's using what appears to be a 1 to 1.5 inch square piece of wood about 18" long with rawhide wrapped around each end. Both ends look like they have been tooled with. It just depends on what works for you. I have almost as much fun trying new stuff as I do tooling! Mike

Guys, One thing to watch for with the Douglas rivet tools - Don't use a steel hammer on them, they mushroom bad. Don Butler had a set at Saddle Week in Sheridan last year that looked like he used a sledge hammer on them! Carlos and I use a good size poly head hammer, and they work great and look like they just came out of the box! If you're going to set many rivets and they will show in your work, these are worth the money for ease of use and excellent function. Mike

Well Bruce, If ya gotta show up on YouTube, that was a pretty good way to do it! Thanks for sharing. Mike

Wow, When I get a look at some of the projects turned out by people who are "new" to leatherwork, I am astounded! Really nice, clean job! Mike