bruce johnson

Jack, Sometimes without knowing the intended market or price paid for something, it is hard to critique work. Obviously these were not done by Jim Jackson, Don Butler, or Cary Schwarz, but then again these guys probably are not getting $200 as a base for this kind of carving either. The devil and dollars are in the details. I am going to call these close, almost a tie. It looks like the one on the right has had some kind of antiquing or highlighting done. This skews things a bit. Left side first. I don't particularly care for the random seeding around the flower center. I think it makes the flower center look "ragged". I like the decorative cuts on the petals, they appear to be going towards a focal point. The are bold and then fade well. I like the selective use of the cam on sections of the stemwork. I think the stickers tend to flow into the stems a little cleaner on the left. The mulefoot use follows the flow of the stem. Looks like good use of the undershots on the left. Overall carving depth looks deeper. The beadline border looks cleaner on the left. Right side. I prefer this flower center, makes a smoother look to my eye. The flower decorative cuts don't really come to a focal point, the are almost parallel in areas. They have no "dimension", they are the same depth start to finish. I think the cam use all the way around the stem looks overdone. In my mind there is no crime in having some untextured space in a carving. The mule footing on the top right and lower left don't follow the flow of the stem. The beveling around the flower is more distinct, but this may be a factor of the antiquing? I like the decorative cuts on the stickers better than the left. All in all, I see these two works as being on a par. Just little individual style things that some people like or don't. I don't think one is clearly better than the other, although if these two carvers got together and borrowed from each other, this would be pretty good. . Bruce Johnson

HC, Barry King makes the swirl in 6 sizes for $45 each. I thought maybe Wayne Jueschke did also, but waited until I got home to check his impression sheet to be sure. Wayne does not. I did have one from Gore that was good, but it is lost and Gore is no longer in business. Not sure if Bob Beard or Ellis Barnes make the Hamley swirl or not. I will probably pick up a couple from Barry next month in Elko. kind of blowing the tool budget this month already. Timely question, I have the need for a better swirl than what I have at the moment, have some work coming up that will need it. Bruce Johnson

Holly, I am assuming here we are talking about the TLF X513/X514 style baskets. The legs have a curve to them, so when interlocked the weave is slightly oval. I have alternatively heard them referred to as "flare" basket stamps or "Mae West" basket stamps. Some makers put more curve in the legs than the impressions in the TLF catalogs. Mine did have more flare than the TLF ones. My problem with running them is the curve in the legs. If you slightly lose alignment in the right to left aspect or the up and down alignment, the legs do not form a graceful curve. There is a "stair step" in the margins of the weave. With a normal straight basket, you can fudge a bit on the horizontal alignment and bring things smoothly back in line. Likewise if the vertical alignment gets off. These flared baskets can be used successfully, but it takes me about twice as long as with a normal basket. The extra care needed for perfect alignment is the issue. My eye is trained to "run" with a straight basket by aligning 3 points. On the flares I need to see all 4 corners, plus the center. Bruce Johnson

Romey, Those stamps are not very forgiving. If you get off in either dimension, the legs don't follow the prescribed curve and the pattern looks bad. On smaller pieces it is not as obvious, on a briefcase it looks like an apology is necessary to the steer who donated his skin. The more you go the worse it looks. I gave up on them. I don't particularly like the finished patterns with the globby looking weaves, anyway. Being harder to use made it pretty easy to get rid of them for me. Bruce Johnson

Johanna, I wish I could pick 5 or 6 top carvers who have passed on or no longer carve. Being partial to the Sheridan style (my first wife really didn't like it), I like the works of most of the good practitioners and pioneers of it - Don King, Billy Gardner, etc. I still think Chester Hape took it to his own direction and he is one of my heroes. The saddle I posted pictures of is 30 years old. Blows my mind, it is timeless. Regarding the west coast toolers, all I can really go on is what came out in the early Tandy Books before they were exclusively Stohlman patterns. Lad Haverty, Cliff Ketchum, Al Shelton, FO Baird, I am gonna forgot some here that should be on a short list. There are the Arizona guys - Ray Pohja, Bob Dellis, the guys who taught them, and more. I am just glad these guys went before and we can build, borrow, and steal from their insight. Some of this stuff is pure innate talent, but most is recognising some little thing someone else did, and then incorporating it, modifying it, or just plain copying it into our style. These guys all did it. Don King didn't just wake up one day and say "I'm gonna tool some swirls and sine waves with smaller flowers and more stemwork and call it Sheridan style carving". All this stuff evolved (he saw at least rudimentary elements of it somewhere) and is still evolving. I am taking a carving class at Elko from Andy Stevens. A young guy from Nebraska whose work reminds me a lot of Chester Hape's. There is some great work in several styles all over. Some of the most awesome Sheridan work comes out of Japan. Lefty Mikuni and his students put most other entries in second place at the contests right off the bat. They come here and take classes, Jim Jackson goes there and teaches. I am glad we have these classes available privately as well as at the shows. We have video lessons and pattern books. We have the internet to see other peoples work and borrow from that. Think how many miles and hours it would take to see this stuff first hand. We have these groups to share and learn on. I am respector and hopefully a preserver of the past. That said, I think the best work is coming out right now (not an original thought BTW), but that is because we are already standing on the shoulders of some pretty awesome guys who showed us the way. A tip of the Crown Royal to all of 'em. Bruce Johnson

Oscar, Depending in thickness of the edge, I allow 3/4 to 1" of extra to wrap around the edge. You are RIGHT, it is a heck of a lot of skiving, and you really say some bad stuff when you skive through an edge. I am headed to Los Angeles on Friday to check out bell knife skivers some more. I can sure see the advantages for a lot of what I do. Once I use one for a while I will share my experiences. Bruce Johnson

Regis, Yes that is pretty much my experience with my leather. If I can keep it wet, then I can tool it better. If I let it dry out totally, then it doesn't tool as well for me on the second wetting. Keeping it wet from the start just works better for me. I like to tool my saddles as the pieces are drying from the casing and fitting if at all possible. Bruce Johnson

Regis, I agree with rharris' reply about going from front to back. For floral and oak patterns I do the same. I do my flowers first, then leaves, and then stemwork. I also usually use my tools in order of size. The one's with the bigger footprints first, followed by smaller tools, and end with the tools with more texturing. I think in one of Stohlman's books the advice is to only pick a stamp up once, use it everywhere necessary on the piece, and then put it away. This is supposed to speed things along. I am not that good. On some bigger pieces I divide the piece into sections. I usually cut the whole pattern at once, but will then only tool one fourth completely, and keep the other 3/4 under saran wrap, covered with a plastic bag, or whatever. If the untooled part starts to dry out too much, I rewet that whole 3/4 section, wetting more on the last sections to do. As I progress across the piece, I am rewetting ahead of myself to try to have no breaks by having a section too dry or wet to work as I get to it. Anticipate how that leather is holding the casing and wet or uncover as necessary before I get to it. I find by breaking it into sections I am not fighting the casing on the whole piece. If I have to rewet a previously partially tooled section to finish it, I lose detail and toolability in that section. I rewet with either a piece of sheepskin or sponge, wrung out to the appropriate moisture content for however much water I am losing. I background with matting type backgrounders first. I use a set of Barry King's finest checkering backgrounders. If I am going to use a more textured backgrounders like the 104's or 888's, or bargrounders, I let the whole piece get pretty dry, at least 8 hours or so and sometimes overnight before I come in with the texturing backgrounders. This gives me good tool burnishing and contrast. Also since the background has been previously matted, it doesn't take much force to lay it down and won't tend to expand in to my elements. Bruce Johnson

From the Sherdian style thread where I mentioned I thought Chester Hape was one of the best SHerdian style carvers. This is a picture of one of Chester's trophy saddles he made for the Professional Rodeo Cowboys Assoc world cmapions for several years. We have it in our local cowboy museum along with several others from Garcia's in the 30's and 40's to modern times, Chester used a lot of over-and-unders in the joining of stemwork in this particular saddle carving. He establishes the stemwork as having as much "value" as the other elements. One aspect of Chester's style is that he brought the lines for the stickers and leaf and flower stems deeper into the stemwork than many others do. He mostly pushed his swivel knife. Chester has not tooled for several years and is afflicted with Parkinson's disease. This saddle is 30 years old, and still is timeless to me. Bruce Johnson

Ed, They price it by the ounce, but sell by full spools. There is a link or phone number on Ferdco's site (www.ferdco.com) that leads to a seller who sells smaller size spools and different colors. AS far as oiling behind the plates - every time I oil the machine. I touch anything that looks like it moves. I use thin plastic tubes (actually urinary catheters) on the end of my oil squeeze bottle to reach them. I also clean my machine religiously. I know of a guy (different company's similar machine) who found three broken needle tips in his race, along with some nasty grooves and a birdsnest worth of thread dust and remnants when it finally seized. I try to learn from guys like him. He doesn't like his machine now. Small wonder. Send me a private email with an address, and I can send you a sample of the thread for color and and a sewn piece. Bruce Johnson

Ed, The peasant color runs me about $1.40 per ounce for #346 It is a pretty golden color, and looks lighter once sewn. I like it initially, and it makes a good match on repairs that may have been originally sewn with white, but have aged. Shipping is pretty average with all my other suppliers except for Siegels. I am usually ordering needles and thread, so try to get a decent enough sized order to make the shipping work. They don't have a minimum order or low order surcharge. Bruce Johnson

Regis, I use Barge for permanent bonds. I have tried the OTC contact adhesives like Weldwood and just didn't get the same bond. About the only thing that Barge won't bond tightly is some latigo or oily leathers. It makes a bond more like rubber cement for me, enough to hold for sewing. My neighbor uses Masters AP and says that it does bond latigo. Masters also has a faster tacking up time, but a shorter "golden period" it remains tacky according to a couple users. I did repair some loose (actually fell off) ropecan cover tops that were put on with Masters by someone else. The Barge held them on. They were put on in the winter in a cold climate, and that may be a factor with Masters?? They have since switched to Barge for the lids. Barge is also heat activated. Can be recharged to tack up or loosen with a heat gun. Barge will etch or dissolve some plastics that Craftsman contact cement won't also. Bruce Johnson

Ed, Just masking tape the wet/dry sandpaper down to anything firm, a table top will do. I used my stamping granite for a long time. Just wipe with a damp cloth when done to pick up any stray metal dust. Peel the masking tape off, and store the different grits in file folders. The leather I use is Siegel's commercial oak. It is pretty firm. As far as oiling the strop, I have never done it. I lightly rough up the grain side with a plain old $1.50 wire brush (old bronc saddle trick to get rosin to stick with out over doing it). I just rub my white rouge or red rouge right on and it sticks for me. I keep one strop of each. Anyone who hads ever seen Al Gould strop a round knife will know why I have a big strop. You can do one whole side of the blade tip to tip without ever lifting it off the surface. Bruce Johnson

Regarding the emery paper. I go it through it so much, and so many grits, I would spend half my time gluing a new piece to the board. I tape a full sheet down to a chunk of marble with masking tape. Gives me a nice wide flat surface. The marble weighs enough it ain't going anywhere, safety factor. I used to only go to 800 and then to the strop - an 8X24" strop, with 3/4 commercial oak leather - the firm stuff, Barged to hardwood, grain side up. Now I go to finer paper before going to the strop. Once you find the kind of stroke you can make on a big strop, you won't go back to a small one. More time on the strop and less time in the air going back to start like on a short stoke strop. As far as glueing down a piece of lace or thin leather to sharpen tools with round edges. If my tool is ground on a radius, I want to keep THAT radius. I find something firm with that radius like a dowel, smooth nail, screwdriver blade, whatever, and wrap the wet/dry around it to hone with. Then strop with crocus wrapped around it. I think that sharpening tools is probably one of the bigger evolutions we go through with leatherwork as we progress. Bruce Johnson

Another use for the piece of safety glass we should all have laying around in our shop. Some of the boot guys who do a lot more skiving than I ever thought of passed this little tip on. Apply rubber cement to a piece of safety glass. Let tack up a bit and put the leather to be skived grain side down on the glass. Skive away (using a second piece of glass as a guide like Art suggested or what ever technique/tool you prefer). It prevents stretch and the piece moving around. The rubber cement will roll or rub right off the the grain side of most leathers. These boot guys can do this adding pieces for build-up inlays and overlays, and turn the glass over, look through it, and make sure everything is lined up. Bruce Johnson

Ed, Maybe I'm not reading enough into this, but I remove the lid off my Barge cans with either a pipe wrench or pair of channel lock pliers, whichever is closer. I put my glue into 16 oz plastic squeeze bottles and can squeeze out a bead size that varies depending on how hard I squeeze and how fast I move it. Bruce Johnson

I just got back from the Wickenburg AZ trade show. It was very well attended by vendors and buyers. For a regional show out this way, it was far and away the best they have had. The class lineup was good, and pretty well attended. I was in two saddlemaker's classes taught by Jesse Smith that had 6 or 7 in each - one was layout of pieces, and the other was covering horns and swells. I also took a five styles of carving (Sheridan, Porters, California, Northwest, and Texas) class. Although there are cross-overs, Jesse kind of lined out the differences and similarities. He then had a 3 flower pattern for each style, and we picked one and carved it. Good fun, and about 16 people in that. The classes were scattered at different locations, so hard to get a real feel for attendance, but heard that classes were the about the same or slightly less overall compared to similar classes at Sheridan in the past. Much better than any previous regional shows. The trade show opened on Thursday. I was curious how that would work. IT DID. Vendors were busy about all day. The initial morning rush, then then a slight lull late morning, busy in the afternoon again. A couple vendors told me that they did as well as they normally do on the opening day of Sheridan, and more than some 3 days shows they do. Friday morning was good early, and we left for home. There seemed to be a lot of newer leatherworkers - some filling out tool sets at the Hidecrafters/TLF booths. Others trading up in quality with Wayne Jueschke, Barry King, Bob Beard, and Rons Tools. Made for a good mix. There was something like 40 booth spaces for vendors, vs about twice that at Sheridan. The major players were mostly all there. They used booth spaces about half what they normally would buy in Sheridan so everyone could fit in. To compare to Sheridan, about 90% of the vendors in the big room and half the vendors in the lobby/open area at Sheridan were there. Missing ones were Ferdco, Big Sky Dies, Dick Anderson, Bee Natural, and the smaller specialty leather sellers. I would really encourage anyone interested in leatherwork to attend these shows. Seeing the vendors face to face, and being able to look at the tools and try out machines is great. The classes and the social aspects of getting together with folks with similar interests makes it worthwhile. Bruce Johnson

Blake, The show at Wickenburg was good. Got more than my money's worth out of the classes. I will post a little report elsewhere. I like the ProCarve better than Carv-Eze. The Carv'Eze I got was in a set of used tools, so can't attest to its freshness if that matters. I think the surfactant action is probably similar with most of these casing agents like CarvEze, ProCarv, and others. I know a guy who uses a surfactant Amway makes, there are the range of dishsoaps, etc. I like the ProCarv for the antifungal now, and the ease of use. Bruce Johnson

Blake, I am an experimenter also. I have used ProCarv, left over Carv-Eze, glycerine, tanning oil, Dawn dishsoap, Palmolive, Lexol, and plain water. To keep it simple, I like the ProCarv the best. Basically the action is a surfactant, breaks down the water's surface tension and allows faster penetration and casing. The ratio is 1:10. It also has an antifungal in it. I used to have a molding problem with overnight casing in my old shop, none since I started the ProCarv. I had a couple guys from Louisiana tell me that they have not had a finished product mold later on, even when just cased with ProCarv. Good enough testimony for me. On draggy kind of leather I use white Fiebing's saddle soap lathered and rubbed in like you describe with the Ivory. Seems to help hold the casing longer too. Bruce Johnson

ED, Another source is Ferdco. website and contact info - www.ferdco.com and phone number is (800) 645-0197. Quicker shipping to the west coast too, since they are in Idaho. Bruce Johnson

Shawn, Other than Bruce Johnson originals, the only liners I have used are C-F. I haven't seen any others that stack up. They announced a while back in something I get that Hitching Post Supply was going to be the sole US distributor for the small orders or hobbyist orders for C-F. The warehouse in AZ wasstill going to supply the large wholesale orders, with something like a $250 minimum order. I have not ordered C-F things from HPS, but have ordered other stuff. I have not emailed Vickie, but have always received great service on phone orders. Phone number is (800) 689-9971. I would not go by just what is listed on her website. She has enough irons in the fire, that web updates are possibly behind. I don't have the contact info for the AZ warehouse handy. I am sure she can let you know that if you have a big order. Bruce Johnson

Stephanie, Oakdale here, you got snowed on last night. I would be glad to look at it after I get back from Wickenburg. Bruce Johnson

Ed, I have one supplier that wraps their leather up in black heavy plastic to ship. I open theirs immediately and let it have air. For the leather that comes in boxes, I sometimes leave the chrome tans in the box, if all the same color. I have found that some mixed colors will rub off onto each other over long periods. If it is one or 2 veg tans, I leave them in the box. On quantities like you are talking I get them out. Seems like on the big orders, they roll and pack them as tight as they can to get as many in one box as they can. I roll them back up looser to store. I am a fan of rolling grain side in. Some distributors roll grain out, and some users think that rolling grain in compresses the grain and makes it raggy when unrolled. I roll mine loose enough it has not been an issue, plus I am protecting a bit from light damage on the grain side. I usually try for minimum inventory on hand for things like leather that I can usually get within a few days, so mine usually is not sitting for months to a year. I do know guys who buy a large quantity like you are talking about. They store it rolled and standing on end in dark closets, and get by OK. Bruce Johnson

Stephanie, My first recommendation is ... I will give you the $150 you have in it and not even ask for the barrel it is in. Second recommendation is that this saddle is 80 years old from one of the most respected saddleries of the time, be careful. Is Antone Soares the original buyer from Hamley's? Antone is a fairly common Portugese first name, and Soares is a real common Portugese last name. Lots of Portugese in this area. The Livermore valley is the next valley over from me, and it was a real cowtown at one time. Still a lot of cattle wintered on the hill pastures over there. The Rowell saddlery in Hayward was over there too. I just got in a "grandpa's Rowell" to restore. I would really suggest you try to find someone to work on restoring this saddle with. It just has too much age and experience on it to be a learner. There are other ones to learn on out there. Bruce Johnson

Ed, In my experience EdgeCoat works better on edges that aren't real slick. It is basically a paint, and sticks to a slightly rough surface better than a slicked one. A friend used to do a lot of craftshows, and he never did anything to the edges but apply edge coat. Never rubbed the first one. He applied it with a sponge brush and wiped it the spill over off the top and bottom with a clean damp sponge. When the edge was almost dry, he took a damp sponge down the edge the "slick" it down. He used it on chrome tanned edges and latigo dog collars as well. He was the one who used an acrylic finish (Future floor wax) mixed with dye pigments. Not sure where he was getting his pigments. Bruce Johnson