Chavez

Hi! I've quickly drafted a wee pattern for a tooled dog collar and carved it on a scrap of leather just to see how it will look like (see pics attached). My problem is that the tooling cannot be wider than 14-16mm as I need to leave some space for stitching, so the draft piece of leather in the picture is the same width as I will have between the stitching grooves once I start making the collar. I would be grateful if you could advise me how to improve this pattern. Do you think I should shift some of these flowers, increase/reduce the distance between them? Reduce leaves overlap? Do you think I should background all the area, not just the places around flowers, but around the leaves too? Another problem is that the collar will be 26 inches and this pattern is only 8 inches long. I don't mind leaving the rest of the collar untooled as long as the pattern fades in and out of it nicely, so if I was to background the whole area around the tooling I might have trouble with the rest of the whitespace. Thank you for your help!

Thanks Aaron!

Hi! I've got a set of cheap chinese tools for general carving at the moment, however, I need to expand my stamp collection to be able to do smaller work. I know that good tools are always better, but as I'm on a tight budget and I paying 3 times more for each stamp is a bit steep... Is there much difference between Barry King's bevellers and cheap bevellers (or, say, stops) or is it possible to save on some tools and go for cheaper alternatives at least for the fist couple of years? I guess I'll just wait a bit and then buy proper tools but I'd like to hear your opinions. Thanks!

Same problem here. I failed to make my first batch of 'roon in time so just used Fiebings oil dye. Finished the belt with leather balm and the crocking was absolutely dire. Stripped off the balm, put on some carnauba creme and now I hardly have any crocking at all. Just waiting for one of my shirts to come out of a wash to check that some of the dye that crocked can be washed off =)). From what I read here black dye always crocks unless you seal it with resolene and I don't want ot do that yet=)

Nice carving! I need a black belt to wear to work but I thought that carving would not look great in black, so just made myself a plain one. Is the carving easy to see when you're wearing it?

That is one amazing bag there! What type/weight of leather did you use?

Hi! This baking soda trick sounds very interesting. I'm still trying to make some roon, but as soon as I get it, ill try the baking soda method. My only concern is that soda is going to interfre with leather's ph balance and ruin leather...

To follow up, heating it up did not help, so I had to take the finish off with saddle soap. Will now put some carnauba on instead once the belt is dry, but I'm very surprised to see that leather balm is so glossy. Is there a special way to apply the balm or is it just a very glossy finish? Thanks!

Hi! Was finishing my first belt today (just a plain black one) and decided to use some leather balm that I've just bought. After waiting for it to dry and giving it a buff I ended up with a very glossy belt, so I'm looking for ways to reduce the sheen. I'm considering putting a coat of carnauba creme or aussie conditioner over it or just heating the belt up with a hairdrier and hoping that the wax will melt into the leather so I could put another finish on. Are there better ways of doing it? Don't wanna throw my first belt away =) Thanks!

Hi! I've got myself some 18/3 and found it too thin (good for small projects but I'd prefer a thicker thread for general use). Ordered 18/4 - lets see what its like. I've been advised to mix beeswax with pine pitch 60-40. I mixed pure beeswax with violin rosin and it turned out great for waxing thread. Good luck!

Thanks! I'll try the conditioner method. How often do you reapply it? If I'm making something for myself, I don't mind having a very light finish that needs to be reapplied, but I'm starting work on a collar for my uncle's dog and it would be silly to tell him that he needs to buff the collar with wax after every walk in the rain (i.e. every walk cause its Scotland ). I'm thinking light resolene + wax should be a good compromise between fully sealed and unfinished leather. I've used kiwi shoepolish before, but it also seem to get into sviwel cuts.

Thanks! I'll try some aussie then. How do you finish your bike seats to keep th ewater away?

Hi again! I'm finally getting better with my finishes thanks to everyone's advice on this forum. For leather that hasn't been tooled, I either use mink oil & carnauba wax (for the most "natural" feel) or oil&wax 50-50 mix followed by some carnauba for items that are expected to have higher exposure to water. Unfortunately, I cannot use the above methods for tooled leather due to wax getting stuck in swivel knife cuts. I would use a bit of resolene to increase water resistance of leather, but I still need to put a final coat over resolene and thats where I get stuck with carnauba or wax-oil mix that ruins tooling. I'm soon going to order some more leathercraft supplies, so I'm looking at the following finishes to try, and I would really appreciate some advice on these products: 1) Leathersheen - my understanding is that this is a "weaker" resolene. Am I right? If that's the case, I don't think I need it... 2) Tan Kote - I understand this is a non-water resistant finish, so I don't see any point in using it instead of, say, carnauba, unless it is particularly great for tooled leather. Even then, I would prefer my tooled leather to have some water resistance. Am I missing something here? 3) Leather Balm with Atom Wax - read a lot of good things about it, so I'll give it a try. How good is it in terms of water resistance? 4) Mink Oil paste (regular or golden) - is this purely an aftercare conditioner that can be substituted with liquid mink oil + wax&buff? 5) Aussie Leather conditioner - as above. Do these two products get on well with tooled leather? I know that the best thing to do is to buy them and try them, but I'm hoping that some of your advice will help me narrow my choices. Thanks, Chavez.

Sorry for a slight offtopic, but has anyone managed to get a decent colour from fiebing's mahogany? It just comes out either very dark purple, or very weird red... Is there a special way to dye an item mahogany so it would look nice? =)

Oh, I was referring to a clicker's (clicking) knife Apologies for confusion, I forgot about the clicker press =)

Oh, right, now it makes sense=) Thanks=)

lol, Well, of course you're not going to get an amazing quality for you lifter, but it saves some money on more important tools. After I bought a good quality round knife and felt the difference that a great tool makes, I'm focussed on getting high quality essentials, and a lifter is not on that list. I just thought that a very slight improvement that I would get from pro lifters is going to improve my work less than a pricking iron or a good qualty clicker (I've been using cheap chinese "hobby scalpels" so far and they sometimes bend.)

I happened to get the steel rods (12cm long, 5mm in diameter) from a broken paper tray holder that was going into the bin at work. Got a few surprised looks, but who cares =)) Just used a general-use file and a bit of elbow grease to do all the work and then sandpaper to polish. Some rouge polishing is in my todo list. That's a very good workout btw so you also save money on the gym =))

Wow! I did not realise that Fiebing's was Tandy. I thought I read that they are tryign to stay away from spirit-based dyes and all other non-green stuff. What a surprise! Thanks for the info!

Very nice briefcase!!!!

Hi! I've mixed beeswax and rosin 60 to 40 and the result is good at first glance. It's easier to wax the thread now but the wax is rather sticky. Guapo, is that something you get when you make this mix? Just a bit concerned that such thread might attract more dirt =( Well, there's only 1 way to find out =)

Hello from another newbie! I would really recommend fiebing's products. I've got a bottle of eco-flo all-in-one and it does a pretty bad job - only used it twice before switching to Fiebings. Perhaps other eco-flo stuff is better (e.g. separate dye and finish) but I'll stick to using Fiebing's pro oil dyes. If you get spirit/oil dye, don't forget to buy some iso-propyl alcohol to cut the dye. Finish wise - that's something for me to find out. I've tried a few and I'm still to find the best solution. Edge kote is not a necessity (see Bob Park's howto). PS I'm just a newbie, so I'm sure pros will give you a better advice=)

Hi! As I'm only a beginner carver, I wouldn't know how to use a petal lifter properly even if I had one =) And as I'm struggling for cash to get the basic tools (£40 is ok for a quality tool but when you need 30-50 tools and leathercraft is just a hobby, that's an outlay I can't afford), I just took a couple of steel rods (happened to have some lying around - surprised my mrs did not throw them away , looked at a few pics of petal lifters, filed the rods to a required width and angle, polished them and voila! - I've got two basic undercutters that do the job for me and are filed exactly to the sizes I need for my current carving. I'm sure I'll get pro lifters when I get better, but the homemade ones are doing a decent job at the moment, and would shurely be better than the mulefoot PS The money saved went towards a dixon pricking iron PPS: Having said the above, I just recently learned that an undercutter is more of a knife than a stamp, so my lifters are more like the craftool B-series lifters. I just angle the cutting edge in a swivel cut and tap the rod with my mallet.

Well, got myself some plastic folders which come down to about 40p per an A4 side. The plastic is good and they are of different colours, so its easier to find the required pattern. Thanks all!

Hi! Just a quick question: I'm getting a good quality awl (Joseph Dixon)and I'm wondering what size of the blade to go for. Valerie Michael suggests 2 1/4" in her book but as I understand, the blade's width depends on its length (am I right btw?). I've only been using tandy 4-in-one blade sanded to nearly half of its width so far and one of the problems was that the blade would cut the leather outside the groove. I'm trying to improve my stitching quality, so I would really prefer the blade cut to stay within the groove. I've got a standard craftool groover. PS For those of you who own a Dixon pricking iron, can you please tell me if its marks fit within the craftool groove? I'm getting a No 7. Thank you!