lightingale

Hi! Are you me? Fellow leatherworker gal here, also in Toronto, and also do dog collars (albeit selling online exclusively). Our guest room suffered the same fate as yours! Let me know if you ever want to get together for coffee and compare notes!

Ugh. All the more reason to source supplies elsewhere. Zelikovitz is still good for a lot of things, last I checked, but they don't sell hides online (and their veg tan is kinda pricey in-store). Ordering from springfieldleather can sometimes be ok as long as they don't ship UPS, and hopefully you don't get nailed by duty fees. Speaking of sourcing hides, anyone know of a good Canadian source to get Hermann Oak, one or two hides at a time?

Very nice mask! Nice photos too. Never seen anything like this so I can see why it's popular.

I'm a lucky new owner of an Artisan Toro 3200. My awesome husband surprised me with this belated Christmas gift, and I'm over the moon! I've been pining for one like this for years! I haven't had the opportunity to play with it yet until we can procure a second workbench for it, as it's the benchtop version and it weighs a whopping 150 lbs. I don't have a lot of experience sewing with machines yet. I'm trying to figure out how to sew a buckle and dee on a leather dog collar on 8-9 oz. veg tan leather, which is my primary product. I've attached a photo of how I do it by hand. It seems like most machine sewers of collars and belts just rivet the thing shut. I'm not a fan of rivets, as I've seen them come loose sometimes, so I'd rather sew the hardware in. Is there an acceptable way to machine-sew the hardware on a belt or dog collar? I'm told it's bad to sew across the width (weakening the leather at that line).. is this still a concern? Thoughts?

LOL Bill, I can get behind that! The husband and I are planning a wine-tasting for two this weekend.. because what's the difference between Chianti, Beaujolais, Bordeaux, Pinot Noir and Cabarnet? Hopefully we'll be sober enough to remember the difference the next day... I'll make sure we get bottles with corks!

Bearman mauls and burnishers are fantastic: http://www.leatherburnishers.com/ Barry King, as mentioned above, makes excellent quality tools for an affordable price. Careful of duties if you're not in the USA though! Bob Beard tools: Ah, the Cadillac of leatherworking stamps and tools. Expensive, his work is top-notch (and the best custom tool maker I've worked with), and worth the wait. goodsjapan.com: A great source for knives, skivers, burnishing compounds and the like. I have their edgers (Craft Sha), stitching set (Kyoshin Elle), and their burnishing compound. Very happy with all. turtlefeathers.com for Angelus dyes

If you have an airbrush, a metallic airbrush paint is probably your best bet. I believe Createx has a line of metallic pigments for this. I've had success mixing metallic powder pigments in leather sealant to paint in small areas on dog collars. I can't speak for how this would behave on such large areas.

This is extremely informative, thanks! Since I started this thread over a year ago, I've been including a small 10ml container of leather conditioner (my own recipe) with every belt/dog collar I ship out, and I've also been using it on my own leather items without issue. With balancing the wax and the oil, it's just a matter of proportions to get the right consistency. Ultimately, the ingredients I settled on were Neatsfoot oil, lanolin, virgin beeswax, and a few drops of vitamin E oil (I have a background in biology and nutrition and vit E is often used to help slow fat oxidation in food products). Your post is the first I've heard that neatsfoot is anything but the "Best Thing Ever" for leather. My understanding is that neatsfoot oil is derived from the legs of swine, the fat therefrom being special in that is has a very low melting point (rendering it liquid at room temperature). The general consensus from some googling is that animal fats are less oxidative than vegetable fats (although no one seems to know why). Can you explain/source how or why Neatsfoot might speed the oxidation of the oils in leather? It's not that I don't believe you, but the chemist/biologist in me is very curious! Do you believe mineral oil would be a better alternative to Neatsfoot? For my conditioner formula, I need an ingredient that has a liquid consistency at room temperature to help balance out the solidity of beeswax and lanolin.

Gemstone cabochons. I developed this habit of checking the expiring listings on ebay and picking up very interesting cabs for very cheap. Moonstone, labradorite, turquoise, dinosaur bone, chalcedony, ruby, emerald, sapphire... some bizarre ones that have taxidermied insects in them, some that change colour with temperature... you name it. While I can embed cabs in dog collars, I'll never use up all the cabs I have. I like having the option of using them, and once in a while I pull them out to admire and think "my preciousssssss!". I also learned how to knit this year, and OMG I'm a yarn hoarder. Leatherworking always comes first, of course, so I rarely find time to knit a project. That doesn't stop me from buying yarn for future projects. I kid you not, I just noticed that my dog got into my yarn stash. There goes the rest of my evening untangling...

This. Apparently, this is a lesson I need to relearn every few months or so. Usually, it's when I'm sewing leather, and I support the back of it with my thumb while stabbing through. Like this: Ouchie. I'm slowly training myself to use a block of beeswax instead of my fingers, but old habits die hard. Chief, the only thing that has worked for me to keep trucking through a busy time is to wrap it semi-tightly with a bandaid or two, so that the wound is held together even when you need to put pressure on your finger, but not to the point of cutting off circulation. Use an antibiotic ointment, and use latex gloves when doing the dirty dyeing work so you don't get your bandaid(s) wet when you inevitably need to wash your hands, so you don't have to change it a dozen times a day.

Muse: YES!!! A PEGASUS! DO IT NOW!Me: But my client wants a Phoenix... Muse: So let's just look a pictures of pegasi on google. You know, for future inspiration. Me: Ok, pegasi are rather attractive. Gee, there's so much inspirational art out there! *two hours pass* Me: MUSE! What about that phoenix wing design you INSISTED I draw up at midnight on Friday last week? I haven't put that to leather yet! Muse: That was nice, but SO last week. The pegasus.. an image of such power and beauty.. You should do that tonight! You can do both wings AND horses! See? I can compromise! Put on some symphonic metal (like Nightwish or Within Temptation) and start drawing! You know you want to. Me: But my client is waiting! Muse: Have you EVER won an argument with me? Seriously? If you insist on doing wings... Fine. I'll leave. Have fun without me. Me: No! Don't leave! I haven't dyed these phoenix wings yet! What if my airbrush fails me and I need you? Muse: That's not my problem, is it? However... What if you do fire wings on a pegasus? You can do my design AND practice the phoenix for your client! It's better to practice a technique before selling it, isn't it? Me: I can't argue with that. I'll draw a Phoenix Pegasus tonight. A Phoenegasus! Or Phoenipeganix? This sounds familiar... and.... She wins again. Edited to add: http://acornah.deviantart.com/art/Phoenipeganix-34488053 This isn't the first time we've had this conversation. That was from back in my photomanipulation days as a teenager.

I'm glad I'm not the only one who not only converses with my muse, but often has arguments with her! Seriously... sometimes I think she needs a therapist and/or some good drugs... but she's usually right or leading me in a better direction. Your pony looks fantastic. Loving the greek vibe, and the proportions/anatomy are spot on. Your muse has a great thought process going with the quiver, for which I think ponies are a great match for the reason you stated above with the greek archers. Great. Now my muse is whining at me that I should do a better job of studying equine anatomy. I'm doing birds/wings/feathers now. Muse, be quiet!

Just wanted to add that you might want to consider using dye instead of paint. Dye penetrates the leather and is much harder to rub off, whereas paint can rub or flake off with a lot of wear, even with a good finish. If you're making this for a client, people can sometimes be very rough with their product and have the expectation that the paints will last without any TLC. For this reason, I try to use dye whenever possible. As a caveat, I make dog collars, which probably take a lot more abuse than most leather products out there, particularly in a multiple-dog household!

I have the Badger Renegade Krome 2 in 1. It's a fantastic airbrush, and was about $100. The hard part for me was the air compressor. There are some very nice and reasonably-priced brands in the USA, but they cost double in Canada, and the USA dealers aren't allowed to ship them to Canada. So, I got a tiny little $70 compressor, and it works just fine.

For a couple of years now I've been wanting to learn how to craft saddles (and other tack, although the other stuff isn't quite as involved). I have the Stohlman saddle making books, but it seems wise to take an actual hands-on course to learn things "the right way". I'm based in Canada, and would be willing to travel to other parts of Canada or to the USA to take a course/workshop to get started. I have a leatherworking friend who would come with me to take the course too. We would prefer a shorter, more intensive course, as we'd have to pay for accommodations, and can't be away from home for weeks at a time. Has anyone had experience with such workshops? Any suggestions?

How's your current living situation? When we lost our home in a fire in 2013, we moved into a TINY, less-than-ideal place to life. Insurance hasn't paid out yet so we're still there. You'd be surprised what you can do with a small space. It's not comfortable, but you can usually make it work. I found a wall, got a sturdy workbench to put up against it, and bought a few of those plastic drawer units to store my supplies. I got an ikea-style closet to put up against another wall to store leather and other large things. This meant there was no room for a dining room table, so we got a small fold-out table for my husband to eat from (he doesn't mind). My handpress is on a windowsill, and some of my supplies are on the windowsill too. We drilled some holes in the wall, and some of my supplies are hanging from there. My workbench doubles as my dining table and office desk, so I have to clear it as much as I can when I'm not using it. It's not pretty, but it's enabled me to keep crafting for my Etsy shop. I love to dream about what kind of workshop room I'd build if we were to build a new house. If your living situation is temporary and money is tight, maybe you can find a small space in your current residence to put a workbench.

Wow, we really think alike. I started putting the images together in Photoshop a few months ago to make a belt pattern, but orders happened and I haven't gotten around to finishing it. I've been going about it by painstakingly screenshotting the video on my computer and stitching the pieces together in photoshop... then drawing over the image to create a line drawing with my tablet. If I finish any time soon, I'll see if I can post it here.

I'm starting to run into the same problem, so I've been giving this some thought recently. My scrap drawer is overflowing, and I keep accumulating more. If only cows were made 1-2 feet longer, then I'd be able to manage my stock to have a lot less waste on strap scraps! Think about what -could- be made with your scraps, and work from there. The two square feet pieces in particular sound very promising. There's a lot that can be done with that size. In my case, I have a lot of strap ends from dog collars and belts that aren't long enough to make into smaller collars. Looking at them, many of them would work being made into cuffs, keychains, and other little things like this. I've been so busy doing collars and belts, that I haven't had time to deal with the scrap pieces. If I had another me (or even two of me) working for me, we'd make the smaller pieces into ladies' cuffs to match the collars and belts I make, and embed gemstones into the smallest pieces for novelty keychains. Another interesting avenue would to sell the scrap to the DIY (do-it-yourself) market. I'm thinking of selling similarly sized strap ends in DIY bracelet or cuff kits. I'd cut the ends of the straps nicely, and maybe punch some holes for lace and install eyelets. Perhaps I'd include some lace in the lot for the purpose of fastening the bracelets together. I think for such a listing on Etsy, my market would be the crafty types who are mostly non-leatherworkers, so I'd write up some instructions on how to texture/tool the leather with some basic things around the home, and what readily available paints/dyes/finishes could be used. I haven't tested this idea yet, I'm hoping to try this once I've finally gotten to the bottom of my open and pending collar/belt orders and designs (haha, that's not happening anytime soon! ). Or, you could sort your scrap into various sizes and sell it at cost to other leatherworkers. I'm sure there are many who make smaller items who would love this.

Wow, that's impressive! Especially the intricate braiding!

I purchase my martingale chains from this source and I've always been happy with them. A word to the wise though, shipping tends to be $80 for a box of assorted hardware (at least, in my case, I tend to order a few hundred buckles/dees/snap hooks), and it comes from overseas, which means steep duty fees. Despite these added costs, I still find their hardware cost effective and of better quality than Tandy and a lot of ohiotravelbag stuff, although they're a bit limited in the number of styles.

Hey there, I was surprised to see your links, I'm the crafter of these collars. It was fun coming up with ways to distress it... It's not often that you deliberately try to beat up leather! Basically, what TomG said. There is a tool used in there to touch up some of the rough spots (and by rough, I mean the areas that are too smooth). The tool you're looking at is the E294.

I've had to section off a special part of my whiteboard for remakes titled "for people who don't know how to measure". As long as the dog collar or belt isn't personalized with a name or number, I usually take it back to list as "ready-made", and remake it for the customer (though I require them to pay for return and re-shipping with tracking, as it was their mistake). It's extra work, but I don't want them to be disappointed, as I'm doing this more as a hobby than a business, and I believe that I've developed a pretty good reputation in the field. Sometimes, even if it's the customer's mistake, they can still leave a negative review (which Etsy still has no way to dispute) or try to make you miserable with name-calling and harassment (even when you're trying to help them!). The number of incidents where customers have provided wrong measurements has gone way down since I began including the attached diagram on every listing, but it's still not completely idiot-proof. Never underestimate the ingenuity of idiots! Some people make honest mistakes, and I can appreciate that it does happen once in a while (inches to centimeters for Americans vs. the rest of the world), but some of them just make you facepalm! You're welcome to use the attached image if it can help. I created it myself in Photoshop, so I hereby make it available under a creative commons license! Good luck!

Skiving has been a challenge for me as well. I find that with veg-tan, it helps a ton to wet the leather before you skive. As you already know, new blades also make a difference. But skiving garment leather to a feather edge for folded linings? Pffft. I need a magic wand for that!

I just made one for an acquaintance of my husband's (attached). It's very simple, just a strip of veg tan with some holes to attach it to your arm with your cord/lace of choice. Both my husband and I shoot compound bows, and he shoots recurve as well (I will too, in the near future when my bow parts come in). This is really all you need for an armguard. More than that is just for looks and decoration. Ultimately, if you have perfect form, you're never going to need a guard. If you wear a thin shirt, you probably won't need one either unless you're really having trouble with your form - and in that case a lesson is probably in order! We all have the "oops" moment, and after your first one you'll see why many people like wearing one. You really only need one to two inches width and 4-6 inches long (depending on your arm size). Punching holes in the 4 corners (and possibly two in the middle if it's long) with bungee cord is a simple enough way to attach it. I've seen some complex ones with leather straps and buckles, though I find them too bulky.

If you're near Toronto or Montreal, Moore Pearsall can be a great source for leather. The only downside to them, is that you usually have to play a game of phone tag with (the owner, I think?) just to come up with a date to meet them in one of their warehouses. Other than that, nice and friendly service, beautiful leather, and reasonable prices.