prc77ro

Hi all, it's been some time since I have posted here. I am currently working on a filigree belt with buckstitcing. The issue I am having is that the white surface is cracking in some of the stitches. Is there any way to prevent this? The lace is several years old so that could be the issue or my slits are still to tight. I waxed the flesh side with paraffin and tried opening both sides of the slit with my fid. I even used much shorter lengths of lace.has anyone ever run into this and if so what did you do to prevent it. Im thinking its because the lace is old and the surface is dried out.

The overall shape looks good. One of the strap loops is off on the mountain side of the scabbard. Did you tool either of the designs or are the both just drawn and colored? It maybe the quality of the photos but the colors on the flower side look too strong and wash out the design for me. If you used alcohol based dyes you can thin them down a bit to reduce the intensity.

dI use mainly Angelus Dyes they work well for me. If the Hi-Liter is water based then more than likely that's why it came off, especially if you didn't allow enough time for it to dry. AS Coloring Leather is a great book for dyes, and acrylic dyes and I was wondering if anyone has tried dyeing their piece brown or blue before using the USMC black to get less rub off? Oh one more thing, Neatsfoot oil darkens leather, like really dark if you put too much on. So if you don't mind your dye job being dark then use it, but I use Lexol because it doesn't darken the leather, before and after dyeing.

do you still have the Damascus?

also order a magic eraser form Springfield Leather, it will take dried or semi dried cement off of leather and dont forget the leather bleach too. Sometimes just rubbing with the eraser isn't enough, there will still be a spot where the cement was and you won't see it untill you apply the dye then its too late. Rub with the eraser, then wash and give a good scrubbing in the area where the cement was let dry and continue on.

For the shoulder straps, in my opinion, I wouldn't lace them for comfort reasons, I would guess that once you finish lacing them they would be sorta stiff and would have the potential to rub in the armpit area. It also depends on the look your going for, do you want a refined high end look or are you going for the rugged, used, unfinished look( like a Banana Republic look). I use two different types of finishes on my edges if I want something more than just the burnishing. I'll use Fiebing's burnishing ink in black or medium brown, for this you really just need to have a decent edge, paint it on then either use a burnishing cloth by hand or a cotton buffing wheel to bring it to a mirror finish. The other edge finish I just started using is Fiebing's Edge Kote, Dura Edge. This stuff is awsome, you can paint it on burnished edges if you want or if your cut edges are pretty much perfect when you cut them you can just brush it on. It states on the bottle its flexible, won't crack or peel or rub off once it's dry. It does give a really good finish even if you only sand the edges. As far as the sinew, I have never used it, I have used Nyltex and am not really crazy about it. It's thick doesn't seem to lay as nice as waxed linen. The waxed linen is what I prefer, if I need it thinner i can pull a strand or two out, can't do that with the Nyltex. I know you can do the same with the sinew's so you dont have large stitches on an otherwise small project, keep that in mind. If you really want to be sure and have some scrap around try making an example so you can get an idea of what it will look like. Hope that may help some.