Spencer G

Again, thanks for the comments. I think that the variation in stitch length comes from the increasing thickness of material as more of the card slots pile on each other. It isn't very dramatic, but enough that it slows down my machine's feed rate slightly. As to contrast color, I often do a light antique, but the person for whom I made this prefers an all natural look. I have seen some pieces that I admire which have background painting or dying, but I don't usually feel that it is worth the extra time. Spencer

Thanks for the suggestions. I use Barry King's checkered back grounders. I have found that it is difficult to get really smooth and even texture with them. Perhaps it's time to learn to properly use bar grounders instead. Spencer

Here is a roper wallet that I recently completed. Soli Deo Gloria, Spencer G

My advice is not to get a cheap one. I have used several different types and brands of inexpensive stitch groovers, but recently got the one made by Jeremiah Watt at Horse Shoe Brand Tools. It is incredible what I had been missing. Night and day difference. True it's about $80, but if you want to cut consistent and accurate grooves, it is worth every bit of it.

I'm glad I could help. I've only been leatherworking for about five years, but I've been messing with knives for most of my life. One thing I have found is that you really do get what you pay for with blades. Sure it might not be a big difference between 50 and 60 dollars, but there will alway be a difference between 50 and 200 dollars. So, remaining in the bracket below simply art (500 and up usually), I would suggest going with the pricer stuff. Also, take a little time to do some research on steels. But, don't put all of you consideration on the steel, the heat treating is just as important. You may well be better off with somewhat lower performance steel heat treated well, than with better stuff treated poorly. Well handled 440 may beat out messed up ATS-34. Because of this, there is some variation in the spend more rule, but still stick to it unless good evidence to the contrary is available. Take Buck knives for instance. Most of their knives use lower middle to upper middle class steel, but they are very good at their heat treating. So they very often will often outperform middle ranking Boker knives, but are typically less expensive. This is usually the exception, however, and neither of these can touch a VG-10 Falkniven. Check out J. Cook knives. I don't have one, though I wish I did, but I've read good things about them, and he has a bunch of nice woods for handle material. Send him and email and he'll tell you what he has currently. Spencer

Check out Barry King for stamps. They are a relatively economical, yet good quality. I don't have any experience with his other tools, but I would be very surprised if they were at all lacking. I do use some Watt edgers, a creaser, cantle pliers, and a tack hammer. I'm happy with all of them, but they are not cheap. I have some Weaver "Master Tools" end-punches and hole-punches, as well as their round knife. They all work pretty well, but the shape of the round knife is not my favorite. You can never have too many knives, but buy only those that work. If you know the size and shape of blade that you want, then buy the best (so, probably most expensive) that you can. Otherwise, try out a few different styles until you can distinguish what features are important to you. I have a Don Carlos large head knife also from Weaver that I use exclusively for skiving. However, I am not too impressed with it, and I wouldn't recommend it if you don't want to give it a fair amount of modification. I recently bought the new small Al Stohlman round knife from Tandy. Though I haven't used it much, it seems to hold a pretty good edge. The handle is poorly designed though, and needs to be reshaped. The round knife I use most is one that I made from A2 tool steel, so I would probably suggest going with a custom grade knife if you can. For straight knives, I primarily use the right hand bevel "marking knife" from Lee Valley Tools. It took some work at first to get the back flat and the shape right, but now it can slice 13/15 oz. skirting leather like nobody's business. I have the Al Stohlman trim knife, but I find the hawk-bill blade shape inconvenient to sharpen, so it mostly stays in a drawer. With most tools, the best is simply that which allows you to do the job most effectively. So, I would suggest trying as many of different types and styles as you can before committing. Regards, Spencer

That's a great start. Here's something that would be a help, a Center Shader. It gives a little bit more of a refined look to your flower centers. I notices a marked improvement when I started using one. Spencer

On the subject of new knives. Has anyone had a chance to get a hand on any of the new Al Stohlman knives from Tandy? I haven't been all that impressed with the the Stohlman tools I've used previously, but these look like they might have promise.

I have a couple of Jeremiah Watt's from Weaver, and they are nice, but pretty pricey. I mostly use Barry King's and I am always more than happy with them.

That looks good. One of the little things that I do, which I believe helps a lot, is to go back with my beveler after backgrounding and smoothen out the corners. For example: on the left one where the swirl meets the flower stem, the backgrounding makes the transition not quite as even as it could be. Not through something wrong that you did, it's just how it works, but fortunately it is easily corrected. On the whole, well done. Spencer

Thanks for the input. Spencer

Does anyone have experience with and opinions of the Danny Marlin head knives sold by Hidecrafters? What about the ones sold by Jeremiah Watt? He doesn't say exactly what kind of steel is used, does anybody know? I've got the Weaver head knife as wells as the Don Carlos also sold by Weaver which I use for skiving, and I'm looking to upgrade. Both are functional enough, but I'm somewhat obsessive compulsive about knives, and these don't quite cut it (pun totally intended). Any other suggestions are also welcome. SpencerG

It sounds as though you are decided on the use of cow rather than elk, but I have a tip if you ever do use elk. I made a pair of chinks with the it, and discovered that when sewing elk to elk (or I suppose anything equally soft) it feeds slower, at least through my machine. This means that even though you haven't changed the stitch length adjustment, the stitches are much closer together. Fortunately I noticed before I really messed things up. Soli Deo Gloria, Spencer G

Your work is truly top notch. It's good to see somone new to the forum who likes the traditional western floral designs like I do. It seems to be one of the least common forms on here. The integration of the slightly celtic style knots in your borders is an exellent touch. Not that I'm in a position to pass judgement, but you're an ace in my book. Soli Deo Gloria, Spencer

For me, the best part is holding the project up to the light after the very last step is finished, looking back on the entire process, and being able to say, "Yes, I made this."

I rarely listen to music while I'm making somthing, but I almost always have an audio-book going. My family has a subscription to Audible.com so we get a couple new books each month. Unfortunately, I usually end up finishing both of the new ones before we get more and I have to do some repeat.

Well done! There aren't as many people doing Sheridan style carving any more just because of the time involved, but in my opinion it's completely worth it.

I tend to avoid eBay, especially for camera equipment, so I can't give any advise about how to deal with that. However, in regard to the batteries themselves, personally, I would buy the genuine, if more expensive, batteries. $89 may seem like a lot, but it's way less than replacing a $3000 camera when the cheap battery explodes, or leaks acid all in it. That isn't to say that they will, but I have heard of it happening.

As I understand it, one of the other characteristics of Sheridan style carving is using just the tip of the thumbprint on flower petals and leaves. This has the effect of making the impression made by the tool start deep and fade out very quickly.

Those are nice!

I use a Nikon D80 for all my photography, leather and otherwise, and couldn't be more happy with it. I have a comment on what TomSwede said about blurring the background. In my opinion, it would be better to simply have a background that isn't distracting and therefore doesn't need to be blurred. The reason is that when you use a really shallow depth of field, you risk having parts of your work out of focus if it is something small and you need to be close up. If you have a large enough aperture that the background is out of focus on a close up, then what is in focus will be a very thin plane, such as the cool butterfly picture that TomSwede posted. That picture doesnt have or need more than a few millimeters in focus, however, if you have a project that has some curvature to it, you want it all to be in focus. On the note of backgrounds, this web site has a pop-up soft box that would be a easy, albeit more expensive, way to accomplish the same thing as the do-it-yourself project with PVC pipes and paper.

Those look very nice. It appears that the top tension is a bit tight on your sewing machine, or the bobbin tension is too loose. I'm no expert (not even close), but that's how it seems. Other than that, great work.

Very nice.

Thank you all very much for your posts. Sorry I didn't respond sooner, but I was down at the WESA show in Denver yesterday. Thanks especially to pete, your tips are helpful. As I said in my first post, all that I had for these projects were Craftools which are not designed for Sheridan style stuff, or in the case of the bevelers, not designed particularly well at all. However, I saw Barry King down at the show and picked up two bevelers and a flower center. Just from the doodling that I did last night I can tell that it is going to be extremely helpful to finally have some quality tools. Ken, I didn't actually dye them at all. The checkbook just has a coat of Neatlac on it, and the pencil jars just have a little oil and some Skidmore's Leather Cream.

I made the checkbook cover for a friend for Christmas. I only had about three days to finish it from when she vigorously dropped the hint, so it was a bit rushed. I am fairly happy with how it looks. However, I did discover that using the inexpensive Craftools on such a tight pattern is similar to trying to fly fish for trout with a rod meant for trawling for salmon. Since both sides are basically the same pattern, one is just slightly smaller that the other, I only attached one photo. The pencil jars were also Christmas presents, and they very difficult to make. It sounds simple, "I'll just make a cylinder out of double layered leather." but it is most definitely not simple. Since the inside has a smaller circumference than the outside, the lining layer has to be significantly shorter than the outside. This means that to sew them together and have the end product be round, you have to keep it in basically the same shape up with which you want to end. They also just happened to be a little too small to do that on my sewing machine, so I had to do them by hand. I also made the letter openers out of 1095 steel with the handles out of buffalo and olive wood respectively. The buffalo horn one was finished the afternoon of the 24th (whew). I would welcome and tips, comments, or, best of all, critiques.