Dennis Oakley

Thanks again for everybody's help. I tooled everything in and then used the Cova colors to carefully paint in the shamrocks and the lettering. Gave them a couple of coats with the Cova colors. Let that dry for 24 hours and then went over the Cova color with Super Sheen. Waited 24 hours and gave it another coat of Super Sheen. Then started the USMC black with a tiny brush around the tooling, changing to a dauber once I was safely away from the Cova color. (Huge difference between the USMC black and the Tandy black by the way. Thanks for that tip!) Tonight I came home and buffed out the USMC black and burnished the edges using beeswax and the burnisher on my Dremel. During buffing the Cova white picked up a bunch of the black to the point it looked bad. So now I'm repainting the white color. I'm wondering why it did that? Did I miss a step or was there something else I should have done? My plan now is to recoat the white before covering the whole thing with Super Sheen.

David, when you buff it out do you use a soft cotton cloth? Or is there something better to use?

Thanks everyone for the advice. I ordered the USMC Black today. I'll be sure to post pictures as soon as it's finished.

Try this place http://www.freundcontainer.com/brush-in-cap-bottles-plastic-hdpe/p/v1905B01/ Excellent service.

I haven't been doing this long and am about to embark on a new project. I purchased a kit for a guitar strap from Springfield Leather and have some questions before I start on it. I have a set of celtic stamps from Tandy that I'm going to use to put a border along the edge of the strap. Down the length of the strap I'll be tooling in 3 or 4 shamrocks, about 1 1/2" tall. I'll also be tooling in 3 or 4 sets of initials, also about 1 1/2" tall. I want to dye the the shamrocks green and the initials white while making the entire strap black. I have Eco-Flo water based leather dye in Coal Black. I also have Cova Color in white and Cova Color in kelly green. What would be the best method to use when dying? Should I dye the shamrocks and initials first, then use Super Sheen as a resist before dying the whole thing black? Or should I dye the whole thing black except the shamrocks and initials and then come back and dye them? I'm a little nervous and would like to get some advice before I screw it up. Thanks

I'm very new to leather work and this was my first project that didn't come from a kit. It's a doffee cozy like you get at Starbucks but out of leather. Instead of lacing I used elasctic cord so it will stretch to fit different size cups. I also put a hook on it to clip to a backpack when not in use. I know I need to work on my tooling and dyeing but I'm pretty happy with the way it came out.

Thanks Johanna, glad you were able to fix it.

I should clarify when I say it gets locked in a loop. The PC doesn't lock up, just the browser. When the google link directs to a different website the malicious website will open a pop-up prompting you to click on it. Attempting to close the window will open another pop-up asking if you're sure you want to leave the close the window. Clicking no takes you back to the first window, clicking yes closes the window and it immediately pops up again. The only way to kill the process is to go into task manager and tell it to end the browser session. I run Microsoft Security Essentials on all of my PC's and never have any problems with virus' getting through. Tonite I scanned my main PC with Malwarebytes and it also came up clean. I agree it seems like it happens at random and is a Google problem. Sometimes I can do leather topic searches on Google and not have an issue, other nights it will happen multiple times and only with LW links. If I come across it again I'll try to do a screen cap and send it to you. Thanks

Hi Johanna, I just wanted to make you aware of something I came across lately in Google searches. Not sure if it's just me or if anyone else has had a problem. When doing Google searches for variety of leatherwork topics the results will show a link to leatherworker.net but when clicked on it it takes you to a different site that has malware and locks the browser into the site. I end up using Task Manager to kill the browser. For instance, tonight I did a search for "Leather guitar strap kit" and the 6th link said "Tandy guitar strap kit - Patterns and Templates - leatherworker.net". When clicked on it takes the browser to a different website, popups come up, and it locks the browser into a loop where you can't close without installing something. This has happened to me a dozen times over the past two weeks, only on links pointing to this site. Also happened to me on more than one pc, my home pc and my office pc. Really strange.