NoLifeTilLeather

Thanks, everyone! I’ve got several options to try, thank you all. I recently decided to try to keep everything super sharp and it’s very defeating to make the blade even more dull than it was. Very frustrating, especially when you just wanna do leather stuff and all your blades start catching and going off the reservation. thanks again!

I am not good at sharpening things in the first place (trying to get better), but can anyone give me tips on sharpening a blade with this shape? I tried sharpening it on a stone and it got worse, so clearly I’m doing something wrong. I’m just mangling it and I love using this knife. (Used to, anyway—and hope to again.) There seems to be a different curve to the blade (bowing?) to where it doesn’t make total contact with the stone while the ends make contact. Not sure if that’s apparent in the pic. Any tips or advice would be much welcome, thanks. I do not know what I’m doing.

My girlfriend and I have been altering and customizing leather jackets for a while, something she has been doing for years on her own, and recently I decided to get back into making leather stuff from scratch so we can collaborate on that kind of stuff as well. She uses Angelus acrylic paint and I was wondering about the best way to use those paints on veg tan and chrome tanned. It's been years since I did this kind of thing and the finishes I have are not great, so I know some of the recommendations will be to get different/better finishes (and I'm open to hearing what those would be too), but in terms of process, when should I let her apply the paint? The other day, I let her paint on an old notebook cover that I made years ago, which I believe was finished with Eco-Flo supersheen. She painted on that with the Angelus acrylic paint, and then we coated it with Angelus acrylic finisher. It seems like it has held up for the time being, but it has only been a week. If I'm making something with veg tan, should I apply a finish first, then let her paint it, and then apply the Angelus finisher over the paint? Or would it be better to let her paint on the unfinished surface and then apply the paint finisher over the paint, and *then* finish the entire thing? Or maybe something else entirely? I'd also like some insight into painting on chrome tanned too, but for the moment, I'm trying to figure out the process with veg tan first. Thanks! -Eric

I'm sorry, I meant to reply to this earlier. Thanks to you both for your insight! I went with the pure neatsfoot oil, and it really turned out well, I think. Hopefully it'll please my friend as well. Thanks again!

I'm making a camera strap for my friend who saw one I made for myself and liked it. She is a minimalist and likes her leather products to abide by the dictum, "let the leather be the leather." She's fairly famous and is sent top-of-the-line products to feature in her editorials, etc., and some of those have been high-end leather bags and such. (I only mention this as context to show she has a well-informed opinion of what she likes, and though I'm not doing this in order to be featured or promoted in her work, I do want to give her the best I can do, since she's an old friend and I know she has high standards.) She prefers the aesthetic and tactility of unfinished veg tan leather, but I've never given someone something without a finish of some sort, and I'm worried that since it's a strap, and she uses a camera constantly for her work as she travels 11 out of 12 months in the year, that heavy use might take its toll more quickly than if her strap did have some sort of treatment applied to it. Maybe it would be a negligible difference. I just don't want to give her something that forsakes utility over aesthetics. So, is leaving it unfinished a terrible idea? And if so, is there some finish that best retains the color and texture of veg tan? She also likes the way it looks and feels to have veg tan take on the patina of use over time, so I don't want to deny her that either. I'm mostly concerned that it might affect the structural integrity of the strap, especially when it has a several-thousand-dollar piece of equipment on the other end, though it's only just under 2.5 lbs.

Could I get the pattern as well, if it's still being offered? aedoes@gmail.com Thank you, e

Could I be added, please?