DoubleC

Paul, looks really good. Clean, easy to navigate and reminded me mine needs a ton of work :-) Your products really are nice. Cheryl

Thank you Cowboy Don. I was pretty happy. These aren't high ticket items like a lot of things people sell but I like to make them and make them really well put together. The set I sold in the picture has a Jeremiah Watt's buckle on it too. I try and use the nicest things I can find on them (for the riders, all they need is bells to work right) and not counting my time, I made about a 300% profit on this set. And a set like this I can do in a night watching TV. The more intricate ones, like where I round braid rawhide on leather take a little longer but I find this more relaxing than my 'In the Eye of a Horse' products I make which takes a lot of intricate painting but less time to do. When I'm really hitting it I can make at least 3 products a day and if I sell them all, I make about $100.00 bucks a day. And when I get this business really kicked off I expect to sell at least that much and have a waiting list. Thanks for noticing. Cheryl

I know this may not be exactly a leatherworker sale since this set is on the braided trim I have, but I do them on leather, round braids, different ways. Double C is officially open for business!!

Hi Shpati. I'm not an expert on anything but decided to try and help because anything I tell you isn't going to make it much worse. Black is the hardest color in the world to work with. I had a brand new bridle set I bought that came where part of the leather wasn't covered in black. I used a black dye on it for two weeks and then burnished it afterward and it kept turning dark brown. I finally used black acrylic paint on it watered down, a couple light coats and then sealed it. Another technique you could try on it is called vinegaroon. If you do that you'll never have to worry about the top finish wearing off because it goes through the leather. You take white vinegar and a piece of fine steel wool, put them in a jar with the lid lightly on, and let the vinegar work on the steel wool. It 'rusts' it and breaks it down and for some reason that turns leather black. If you were going to do that then I would suggest the alcohol to remove as much of the old protective coating (which obviously it doesn't have much) before dipping it in the home made dye. I am putting a picture of a piece of leather I dipped in my solution on to show you how well it works. I had the letters dyed green AND had put a coat of resist on them and the vinegaroon went right through it, just a hint of green left. But the solution took at least a week to get to this point (because I didn't use fine steel wool) so it's not a 'today' fix. I hope this helps. Cheryl

Ray I'm going to just give you an opinion which I think you asked for some where. Really interesting topic and not one I've actually thought about before, especially as far as specialty things. When you mentioned history I went pretty far back. I mean back to when we crawled out of the primordial slime or whatever happened. We needed clothes to keep us cool and warm. I can't imagine what it was like for people before they were tribal. One person had to do everything for themselves and that seems so incredible to me now. At least animals are born with their clothes on. When you think about it survival probably lead to folk living in a group as much as the need for socialization. If you look at now and how many people live alone by choice. I wonder if the first tools started then in a rudimentary form along with leather work being more specialized. I see a say woman who makes clothes for her social group from skins brought to her. Then a young boy or girl watches her do it for years and they snare a rabbit and make something. Suddenly there's competition and the woman starts dyeing/making/finding doo dads to add to her clothes. I mean I use a stick as a matting tool. Twin Oaks suggested when I was trying to learn about negative and positive space that I just find a stick and pound the dickens out of it on the concrete. I did and I'm still using it, design changes with use. This may not be the least helpful because I'm kinda thinking out loud and for that I apologize. But I think it's a great topic. Cheryl

I'm no expert but all I use are water based paints, and mostly water based dyes too. I paint on 2" conchos and water is way more forgiving. I picked an odd specialty for someone with shaky hands.