Hello everyone. I recently was bitten quite hard by the desire to take up leatherworking and to that end I ordered one of the deluxe kits tandy offers (this one: http://www.tandyleatherfactory.com/en-usd/home/department/Beginning-Leather-Kits/55510-00.aspx ) a couple weeks back. I also had the presence of mind to order a quantity of remnant tooling leather ( http://www.tandyleatherfactory.com/en-usd/home/department/Beginning-Leather-Kits/99500-02.aspx ) to practice on first.
Last weekend I tried my hand at it for the first time and clearly have a long road of practice ahead of me before I can produce anything I'm happy with. Which is okay by me, I got real enjoyment out of it and expect to continue to do so as I learn. But I think I'm a bit hamstrung by the fact that all I have in the way of instructional materials is the booklet tandy includes in the kit and the dvd they provide. Some things are not shown clearly and some results of my own were not what I was expecting... so I'm thinking I need a little personal input, here, to set me straight on where I'm going wrong.
I'm attaching a photo of the piece I worked on this weekend, cringe worthy as it is. Don't get me wrong, considering it was the first time I'd ever held any of these tools I feel pretty good about the results. But I can plainly see all the places I made mistakes and went wrong... and I'm not entirely sure where the problems are entirely my lack of skill with the tools or where they stem from other factors as well.
1. Is it possible to tell from the photo if I used too much or too little water when casing the leather? I wet the top side with a damp sponge several times, letting the water absorb into the leather a bit each time. When it got to the point where the leather held the wet color I put it aside for about 20 minutes before starting to work on it. Not sure I got this step right at all.
2. For this piece all I had for a work surface was a flimsy wood cutting board. I've since ordered a granite slab from tandy that I'm waiting to arrive, but I wonder how much of a negative effect using the wooden cutting board had.
3. Relating to the first two questions, I see a lot less burnishing than I was expecting. Is this more to do with improper casing/work surface than how I'm using the tools, or is the fault with how I'm stamping the tools?
4. When watching videos of others work they seem able to glide the tool across the surface of the leather while tapping consistently. I find when I try this the tool either gets held up by the surface of the leather due to being too close, or it feels like I have it too high and I don't have good control over it. I suspect that what I'll hear about this is it's a knack that I'll pick up with enough practice, but is there any trick to it I should know?
5. I've since practiced using the beveler on a few lines carved on scrap and gotten better at leaving fewer tool marks, but it also seems if I tap it lightly enough to leave less tool marks the bevel doesn't appear as pronounced. Is it just a matter of practice til I find a happy medium, or is it something that will improve with better casing/work surface/tools?
6. Speaking of tools, I've read a number of disparaging remarks on this forum about the quality of the stamps in the tandy kit. Unfortunately, the posters making the remarks that I've seen haven't really said why. Is it because they're flimsy & don't last? Poor construction? Or do they not work as well as they should?
7. With a stamp like a basket weave I can gather that you'd want to hit the stamp with the mallet once lightly to leave a shallow mark and then hit it harder in the shallow impression to get a good, deep impression. But I'm not sure with the other stamps how deeply I should be pounding them. For some reason the video tutorials are all recorded close up on the stamps so the mallet hitting them is taking place entirely off-camera, which makes it difficult to judge what kind of force I should be using. Half the time I feel like I'm not using enough and the other half I feel like I'm using too much.
8. I can see I'm going to need to spend a lot of time practicing with the swivel knife. A few questions about it's use, though....
a. Just how deep should cuts be when first cutting your pattern?
b. In videos of others using it, it appears to glide like a hot knife through butter. It certainly doesn't for me, but I'm guessing this is a combination of lack of skill on my part and the knife not being sharp enough? I did strop it on a piece of cardboard with jewelers rouge as the dvd in the kit advised, but in retrospect I think I probably didn't do enough of it.
Any other nudges in the right direction you think I need after looking at the photo? I've no illusions on the quality of the work, and this is the only place I can get a constructive opinion and guidance. The nearest tandy is too far from me to be feasible to visit, and searching on this forum for leathercrafting resources in NYC seemed to pull up a general opinion that there weren't any. I do have a granite slab, protecto board and copy of Stohlman's 'Tech Tips' ordered, but if there's anything else I should grab please let me know. My goals for now are simple tooling on small items; eventually I'd like to do some construction, but one step at a time.
I appreciate any responses you can provide.
