immiketoo

We order from Die Ledermacher or Rickert. Shipping to Greece sucks, but if you want it, you have to pay. DHL standard isn't horrible. https://www.rickert-werkzeug.de http://www.ledermacher.de

Yes, but GEL is GEL! Hence my confusion. The Fibbing's didn't come in until later

This is a topic that comes up often. Most makers don't charge nearly enough for the their work, and this is a source of much contention from folks at the top of the game. They feel that craft level prices devalue pro level work. There's some truth in that as we are a digital world and it's easy to compare one source to another. However, you have to be honest with yourself because if the skill isnt there charging top dollar is inappropriate and self defeating. When I started, I could see good work even though I couldn't do it, and I charged for materials and a little bit for my time. As my skill, and ddemand for my products has increased, so have my prices. Just make sure you enever take a loss and you'll be fine.

Ah HA! It's in the title. Antique gel. Not the same as gel antique I guess. I knew I wasn't crazy!

My mistake. I could ha sworn I read gel antique. That stuff penetrates most finishes unless you apply so many coats that it looks shiny and plasticky. I've never had a problem with RTC and past antique.

Your best option is to switch to Fiebing's paste antique. I never combine a water based resist with a water based antique. My go to combo is Bee Natural RTC and Paste antique. It never penetrates the resist and you only have to wait 10-15 minutes. None of this 24 hours BS.

Lol...sure!

Good advice. If you can't skive, and you want to avoid the caved in appearance, you can always add a filler between the ends of your rolled edges so that your piece has a consistent thickness. We use craft foam in the middle of ours to give a little padding. The dog doesn't care, but the owner does.

Your glue should work, but I would definitely test it on scrap first. Follow the instructions to the letter and see if it works. Chances are, it will.

Rob, you don't owe me anything, but I'm always down for a beer with a leatherworker. I get that life gets in the way, so no worries. If you need any help, just let me know

Have you considered going to the ELWATS show in Arnhem in October? I'll be teaching a class there. Otherwise, I LOVE to travel!

Welcome.

Welcome. Carving is the good stuff!

You're absolutely correct. Its to transfer a design to leather. The same can be done with a piece of paper and a pencil. Or a stylus or whatever. They are handy if you want to reproduce the same image multiple times, or you have a shaky hand. The quality is up to the carver regardless how the image is transferred to the leather.

Cool.

Thanks for the heads up about the boost, Johanna. FB is a necessary evil, unfortunately. Jeff, even professional athletes pay for coaches to critique and offer new techniques. Pro golfers have others evaluate their swing to get the hitch out of their giddyup. Leather carvers enter contests to have their work judged by pros in order to get a critique and maybe a prize. If you think you have it all figured out, and you're happy, then so be it. But, you might be surprised at what you could learn from someone else in a class setting. You're using a logical fallacy regarding my statement about carving and content. "But if "carving and content go hand in hand", then everybody who used the craftaid would all look the same, right?" Wrong. Obviously, everyone has different abilities and perceptions. Different TOOLS. Some have finer control of their knife or tools. Some have better attention to details than others, and some are perfectionists, while others are not. No matter how many people carve a craft aid, no two will look the same. Period. However. I will grant you that the results 100 people carving a craft aid will look more similar than the results of 100 people carving a portrait from a photograph. The variances involved in interpreting the image and applying it to leather are much greater than when its spoon fed with a step by step photo carve. Much like the dance steps where you put the shoe outlines on the floor and try to do them in order. Eventually you might be proficient at putting your feet (tools) in the right places, but it doesn't make you a dancer.

@Railrider1920, here's that quick tutorial I promised you. I hope it helps you on your journey. If you have ANY questions, feel free to ask. Mike

No sir. You can find them only from Robert Beard. However, you can get decent figure beveler and checkered beveler from other sources. Barry King and old, pre-letter craft from Bruce Johnson are an excellent place to start for less expansive tools.

Me? Defensive? Mmmmmm... no. Not at all, just having a discussion about my second favorite thing I'm here trying to offer my opinion and perspective from things I've learned along the way. Things that you can't find in any Tandy book. That is all. All the extraneous commentary about dating Kathy and originality has nothing to do with this thread, so I'll leave it at that. You mentioned learning to carve without having to bother with tracing and design etc. This, in my opinion is the point you're missing. Carving and content go hand in hand. When you don't have the crutch of a craft aid, you will never learn the carving aspect. Where NOT to cut is as important as where to cut, if you cut at all. You may have learned how to manipulate leather, but that isn't the same as interpreting the image you want to carve from nothing more than a photograph and making it look right. What lines should be double beveled? What ones shouldn't? This is what I mean. How do you interpret what's completely black in a shadow, or completely white in a highlight? How do you make a two dimensional image look there dimensional? Interpreting and applying this onto leather is the difference.

Did you know that Bob Park sells edge solution and applicators?

Jeff, you have truly captured the essence of Tandy kit carving. Even the coloring is right out of the book, stroke for stroke. Well done! The only problem with those kits is that they teach nothing about how to interpret complex data and then manipulate or apply it to carving. When you're told where to cut and where not to, you never really learn how to develop the intuition or skill to look at a piece of art and understand it. Sort of like painting by number. You mention Kathy a lot and its funny you did it again here. Kathy is a good friend of mine, and while we were both teaching in France a couple of years ago, we had this exact conversation about interpreting information while on a break. It's one of the the aspects of figure carving I teach in my classes, whether live or online, because its so important. Many people find a piece of art that looks awesome, but they start tracing it without knowing how to interpret the dark shadowy areas where there is NO information. The brain can manage it visually and you KNOW whats there, even if you can't see it. The problem comes in when you interpret it while tracing. Missing data causes all kinds of derpy looking things to appear on a leather carving. This piece was what I taught at ELWATS that year, and it is one of those where the lack of data can get you into trouble if you don't know what to look for. Kathy did her wolf right across the hall. Good times! At the end, you can see all the student's work. I was proud of their accomplishments.

They are also pre letter craftool, the best of the bunch of what Tandy has produced.

Bruce Johnson usually has a great selection of old tools that are worth looking at. https://brucejohnsonleather.com

These are what is known as hollow ground. There is great debate as to whether or not this is a useful feature. I don't think it matters too much, but I have some of Barry's blades and they are quite good. Yes, if they have the letter, they are too new. Look for tools without it. So that tool would be just a 678. Proleathercarvers is a new company that Jim Linnell created after he retired from Tandy last year. They carry a range of tools from other makers, but frankly you can get them elsewhere for less, and his son makes some tools.

The trick to figure carving is being able to think in 3D. A large figure beveler will make your life a bit easier, but you can do the same with a spoon. Remember to always carve whats closest to you first, and then work your way down to the background. Faces are difficult, and yours is fine. They require a lot less cutting than you'd think. I am not an artist either. I can draw a little, but not nearly as well as I can carve. Like anything, its about practice. When I started I couldn't do anything except smoosh leather. Correct.