prc77ro

Your absolutly right! Alot of people but not all, see leather products in the stores and expect you to bang it out in minimal time for the same price. They don't care if your drawing the design from scratch, cutting it from a hide, carving, stamping, or even hand stitching(sometimes they say"why don't you get a sewing machine"). But Cyberthrasher is right you have to know or at least be in the ball park with how long the project will take+ materials. But lets say your going to make a holster that anyone could get from the many online websites, but your going to hand stitch vs machine sew do you charge more? or just base it on hrs worked.

Jay Fisher has done an entire page on his website about copywrite infringement as people have saved photos of his knife blanks from his website and tried to make copies and sell them for less. Any photos from a website wether stated or not are copywrited as soon as the website owner posts them. As far as leather patterns, if the design has been in the public domain, which the majority of sheaths, holsters, and cases of all types have there is no infringment. I had emailed Jay to ask his permission to use his leather sheaths as insperation for my own because i wasnt sure of what if any the ramifications could be if i just made one. His reply was that his retention methods and even the styles of his sheaths have been in the public domain for years and normally that type of stuff isnt patented or copywrited. As was stated before there is only so many ways to make a boat, and if the design has been around in the public domain then your not copying someone elses design your just using an exsisting pattern. You could make your own cell phone case by measuring and cutting, stitching or lacing but it would more than likely match someones somewhere, it doesn't mean you copied theirs. If you have the time go to Jay Fisher's website( just google him) and read his copywright page.

is the swivel knife still available?

In Al Stolhman's The Art of Hand Sewing Leather, there is a layout on the last 3 pages of the book. I'm in the process of building mine, just waiting on the latigo strap and some buckles. The entire 1/4 horse as it's called can be built for $60 or less depending on your materials.

Each pocket has welts that fit the blade and spine profile almost exactly, then I skived the welts down so they were thinner than the knives thickness and wet formed each pocket to the corresponding knife. Then as mentioned I added Neodymium magnets, two for the smallest and the middle knife and three for the gut hook knife to aid in retention as the pockets see wear. Also, the angle of knives in the sheath was done purposely so that they can easily be drawn while kneeling. This angle, as I discovered must be retained in order to draw each knife out of its own sheath, you cant just pull them straight out. Believe me, they had to be drawn and replaced after wet forming just so they would come out.

Did you use a template to make them or did you have a pair of spurs so you could get your measurements. Does anyone know if you can determine the lenght from a pair of spurs and a boot or are there standard lengths? For the pair I made I used a free template form Tandy, here they are:

I have found out some of that the hard way, books, or sites like this are great for the how to's but then once you start cutting, stamping and stiching things change, or you missed a step that you should have done before you cemented your pieces together. But all in all i find it almost therapudic and once my stiching pony is finished it should make a BIG difference

This is a custom sheath for a Remington 3pc Skinner set I did for a buddy of mine. 8-9oz leather shoulder, skived the welts to wet form the pockets to each blade. The leather is dyed Angelus Russet( I think i prefer the Angelus dye, not so solvent smelly after drying) and the stamp work is airbrushed Angelus Medium Brown. All stiching is saddle stiched with white waxed linnen dyed medium brown and it kinda turned out rustic looking. Each knife poket has Neodymium magnets sandwiched between the two back layers( i routed out 1/2" pockets for the magnets to fit). My buddy wanted to be able to have it slung across his chest to hang at his side so I came up with a shoulder strap that I hope will meet his need. I modified a style from another knifemaker's website and I am really pleased with how it came out.(so was my buddy) The spur straps are also from 8-9oz shoulder, basketweave stamped(it took me two tries before i figured out why the pattern loked good on one side but a mess on the other-rotate the stamp duh!) The star pattern at the holes was done with a veiner and hand painted med brown and resisted so that the straps could be dyed light brown. The teal I had to mix from blue and green Angelus Leather Paint. Their last name is Brown and because i only at this moment have 3/4" letters i put the "B" higher than her first and last initials, my friend and his wife both understood why i did it this way but he told me that people at their stable asked why the last name initial was in the middle(monagram?). Needless to say she was very pleased with them only they wouldn't fit on her working spurs so she ended up putting them on her show spurs. Not too bad to a novice at leatherworking I think

Hello all, Leatherworking is something I have always wanted to get into, for a hobbie or profit, and I am at the point in my life where I can afford such a thing. I have really enjoyed brousing the pages here(of which there are so many) and have learned so much in the short months I have taken up this craft. Unfortunately I am a perfectionist so I have tried to do as much research as possible before taking on any builds. So far to date I have made 4 sheaths, 1 pocket type(posted in the rate my work threads) 2 stacked leather and a custom one for a friend's 3 piece skinning setI have also made my first pair of spur straps, nothing fancy, but a buddy of mine wanted a pair to give his wife with her initials on them for Christmas before he deployed. Currently I am working on making an Al Stolhman Stiching 1/4 horse( I could post photos if anyone cares to see) and also a pair of leather and mink slippers for my wife( which is turning out to be more invloved that I first thought). I look foward to interacting more with members here and learning from those who are more experenced than I.

I'm new to the site and to leather work and I wouldn't want to infringe on anyone elses work so i have some questions as far as patterns for knife sheaths and spur straps( as this is what i am currently working/practicing in). There are alot of custom knife, knife and sheath and sheath makers on the net. I have done alot of reasearch, read "how to's" watched the Youtube vid's and watched the vid's on Tandy. So my question is this: is it an infringement on a custom maker if I look at their website, and use the design of one or several of their sheaths as an insperation for my own? For example: the first website I found was for a Canadian custom knife maker who put a tutorial on his website for making a pocket type sheath, seemed a good place to start so I ordered some leather(I started with a Belly) dye, stamps and gave it a go for a cheap Frost skinner that I had. the second site gave a pic intensive how to for a stacked leather sheath by another custom sheath maker(but he only makes sheaths for a certain brand of knives). I tooled the front and over 3/4's of the back and did a double row of hand stiches (ladder stich) for another Frost, a 13" fixed blade. I am currently working on another sheath for another Frost knife that I wanted to have the spine and a portion of the blade grind exposed on. For this I found another custom maker who hand makes all of his knives and the sheaths are custom to each knife he makes, but he does not make sheaths for any other knives. He makes several exposed spine sheaths with different types of retainers and that is I guess my real question, I don't want to "steal his work" but the designs are incredible, and i was hoping that through my own practice I will be able to draw the curves and lines without needing to take bits and pieces of others work. 2nd as far as spur straps...Tandy has patterns for download so i was wondering if I do the tooling all on my own as far as choosing the stamps, the layout and any carving and the buckles then that would be considered original? Like i said I'm new to this trade and I just want to do it right. It's mainly for fun and a hobbie but since I finished my first two some of the guys at work are asking for sheaths to replace canvas or worn out leather ones and holsters too. Oh, i hope to eventually get photos uploaded of the work that I have done so I can get some feedback. Phil