NoName

Finally found time to post this...25 and counting. Top row: AFAB inc. custom, Bob Beard, Chuck Smith, Henley, Barry King, Hackbarth, Hackbarth, C.S. Osborne. 2nd row: A variety of Craftool products with different blades 3rd row: Midas, Midas (with Craftool yoke because the Midas one fell apart), Midas, Develbiss, (unknown), X-Acto, (unknown), (unknown). If anyone can identify the unknown ones please let me know.

Mighty fine looking work for "just getting started"! Welcome to the forum.

Your work looks top-notch. I hope you do well with it!

Contact cement will work as I described previously. Be careful not to get any on the grain side of your leather prior to dyeing. It seals up the pores and prevents the dye from penetrating. I would not recommend using the lockstitch awl. Get "The Art of Hand Sewing Leather" book by Al Stohlman. This book describes the best methods. When you get the awl, it will come blade and a handle seperately. Plan on spending some time sharpening and polishing the awl blade. It will probably not work well when new. The edges need to be sharp and all sides need to be polished to a mirror finish. Jewelers Rouge on a felt buffing wheel (Dremel tool) or on a leather strop will work. Yes, the number of the overstitch wheel is the spacing of holes per inch, and no it does not punch the holes. It only marks them so the stitches are even. For the jaws of the pliers... I used contact cement and water. I coated the jaws and the backside of the leather with contact cement. I placed the leather on the inside of the jaws first, then dampened the leather and started trimming and wrapping. Word of caution...When working with wet veg tanned leather make sure your hands are clean and your work surface is clean. The wet leather picks up dirt and stains very easily. An Oxalic solution will bleach out some stains.

That is why I started lining mine. I like to hide the hardware.

I cut out my pieces 1/4 inch or so oversized. I case the leather (not soggy, just cased throughout). I then trace the exact shape and cut it out. A polished Hyde knife goes through cased leather like butter.

I did this to some saddlery tools the following way: Cut a strip of 3-4 oz veg tanned leather about an inch longer than the handle you want to cover and wide enough to wrap around it with about an inch to spare. Apply contact cement to the flesh side of the leather and to the handle. Wet the leather until it is soggy. Wrap the leather around the handle and pinch a seem along the inside of the handle with a pair of glazing (glass breaking) pliers. The leather will be too wet to hold a good form at this point. Set it aside and check on it periodically as it dries, each time pinching the seem again. When it is dry, hand stitch the seem as close to the handle as possible. Use a #6 overstitch wheel and a sharpened and polished awl (no stitching groover as it may weaken the seem). Trim away the excess leather about 3/32 inch from the stitching. Stain the leather the desired color. When dry, burnish the edge and seal the color in with lacquer. It helps to wrap the jaws of the glazing pliers with very thin neutral colored leather to keep them from marking up the leather you are trying to form. Best of luck!

might be able to help you out. I will dig through my collection in the next few days. Post an e-mail address or else add it to your personal info on your about me page and I will get back to you.

(bump) Good price for small quantities...Thank you.

Okay, I'll bite.....Why do you want a Midas swivel knife?.....I have two of their "higher end" models and one of them fell apart all by its self.

Excellent design. Very well thought out and beautifully done!!!

Welcome. Any particular area of Colorado?

Your decorative work looks great!! One of our local departments changed their gear and went with a different style of pants and suspenders. The issue suspenders are cloth and no one likes them. I picked up a little extra work duplicating them in leather. Here are a few pics. I know they look too long in the photo, but there is a good explanation.

Rolled grain side in, inside wooden (1/2 in OSB) boxes with lids and off the floor. The lids prevent UV damage.

Rubber cement your project down to Hot Press (Crescent) Illustration board prior to casing and tooling. The thin leather will emboss into the hot press board slightly and the tooling will appear deeper. Wait until completely dry to peel up. This will also keep your leather from stretching out of shape.

Here is a reliable method of keeping the leather from stretching during tooling, Before you case your leather, rubber cement it down to the hot-pressed side of Hot Press Illustration Board available at any art supply shop. I use the Crescent #201 with good results. Apply Rubber cement to both the flesh side of your leather project as well as the hot-pressed surface of the board. Do not get any glue on the grain side of your leather! Wait until the tooled leather piece is absolutely and completely dry before peeling it away from the hot press board

I just recently began keeping a log book of the exact finishing process used on each project. Unfortunately this was built as a Christmas present for my mother in 2010. (about 6 months before I began keeping track of the details) To the best of my memory here is how it was finished. The background dye is Feibings Dark brown spirit dye. All untooled leather is airbrushed lightly with Feibings Saddle tan spirit dye. Neat Lac was applied over all surfaces. Feibings Tan (paste) antique was applied next, and buffed off. When dry, Feibings Tan Kote was used as the final finish. NoName

As promised, here are the pics of the vacuum table I made. It is approximately 12 inches square and has roughly 1500 holes 5/64 inch in diameter, drilled 1/4 inch apart. The wooden box is drilled to fit a 2 1/2 inch shop vac hose. In order to pull a good vacuum, cover the hot Kydex with a piece of cloth, then lay Saran Wrap over the whole thing to cover all the holes.

If you are willing to buy 250 at a time, theclip.com does a good quantity discount.

I tried recently to order from JRM. I called and talked to a real person only to find that they want to sell by the thousand. They would be happy to send me a free sample but only on a single basis.... sure would like to get a couple dozen of the #3006 in black!

Ace hardware

You can buy the paddle seperately at Reactgear.com.

Thank you for the input Wyo. I thought it was the old Tandy pro knife as well when I first saw it, but it can't be. I have an one of the old blued Tandy models and this one is far superior.

Only modification so far is to relieve the leather for the pistols operating lever(s). This was done by repeatedly gouging the flesh side of the leather with a nonadjustable stitch groover to the desired depth, then removing the material between the gouges with a french skiver, and finally , wet forming the grain side down into the void with a bone folder and modeling spoons. Also found a one pass method of making the border. I had to go a little "Bob Douglas" on an old Tandy Edge Cutter. That is to say that it is somewhat reshaped and fully polished, but it now works the way it was meant to work.

A friend recently acquired this swivelknife. The box it was is said Old Smoothie on the outside. I have a couple of Chuck Smith's Old Smoothies and there is not much resemblance. The barrel is quite similar to a Gomph Hackbarth. It takes a blade with the standard size shaft. The yoke shape is much more crisp than the old blued Tandy pro knife and swivels smoothly with no wobble. Thanks for your help.