And yes I cut thru many times and the swivel knife blades don't like granite. Had to start doing the swivel knife on my cutting mat. Eventually you'll learn just not to cut thru. Then you have good control to get half way when you move up to thicker leather.
Tandy had those 2/3 oz. hides on sale really cheap so I bought 2. I made those backgammon boards and all the stuff my wife is carrying right now. I started tooling in the 7th grade and then picked it back up 15 yrs ago. So a lot of practice. This forum and Bob Park were extremely helpful.
Both of these are on 3/4 oz. The practice piece is in some Brazilian Import from Frogjelly leather. Practicing on thin leather will teach you touch. In my albums there is some backgammon boards and they are both done on 2/3 oz. The pictures are 10 yrs old so you can’t click on them but you can still see what can be done on 2/3 oz.
From tracing to finish it took 6 hrs. I ordered a diamond tuck stamp from tuningstar in Bulgaria off EBay.
Getting ready to make my wife all new stuff. Purse, wallet, make up bag, check book cover and tablet case.
The skin care company my wife works for has a Foundation. They asked to make a wallet for an auction for the foundation.
Outside cover is 3/4 oz Herman Oak
The inside is made out of some 1 to 2 oz veg tan. So I can dye the inside to match the outside.
The dye is 50/50 Feibings Chocolate and Light Brown and then reduced 2 to 1 with reducer.
This is the six swivel knives I use now. Leatherwrangler
Green Regular 1/4” .0625 for cutting borders.
Black 1/4” Ground down to .046 cutting the vines and leaves.
Silver 1/4” Ground down to .027 for decorative cuts
Red 1/8” angled for the flowers and detail work
Craftool 50th Anniversary with a back beveler blade.
Barry King 5/8” barrel with a beveler blade and a yoke off some swivel knife from Ebay for smoothing long bevel runs.
I got a gift card for Christmas so I decided to buy some new tools from Barry King. I called them so I could ask how to use that gift card and Lindsay told me no problem she could probably get it to work. After I gave her the card info she said she would have to wait until she processes the order then she could run the card. She called 4 hrs later and said the card wouldn’t go thru so I told her to just send a PayPal invoice I would pay it. Between the time I gave her the card info and she called me back someone used the gift card for a $1 charge and then a $190 charge at Goat.com. The scams on these gift cards are a real drag.
They only charged me $15 shipping and I got the tools the next morning in Texas. I do have 51 of his stamps already.
New set of #35 bargrounders
3 15 degree smooth bevelers
and a swivel knife beveler blade
I just happened to be in the Ft Worth Tandy today and they have moved the Al Stohlman museum inside the store. Every piece he tooled and she hand sewed is on display. Unbelievable work.
You can see the tracing lines in blue ink. Top one pretty much traced the pattern and the background gets bigger.
The bottom one looks much better and you can see how outside the lines I was tracing.