Michael Sheldon

Yes, always. Nothing else would glue down securely. I probably made more of those turquoise collars for males than females, but here's two others: And basic black never goes out of style:

This thread has a discussion on setting stones, along with my procedure for doing it.

My specialty is in making collars for sighthounds (greyhounds, borzoi, deerhounds, etc). These are a couple of my pieces: A collar carved with roses: Another using turquoise gemstones: The stones are real, solid turquoise.

Yeah, current stats I have run about 72-80% IE for visits to consumer-type sites. Visitors to tech sites run closer to 50-60% IE.

I do a bit of woodworking as well as leatherwork, and had been in the market for a sharpening system for my woodworking chisels and plane blades. I ended up getting a WorkSharp WS3000. This is a relatively new machine on the market, and differs from most in that it is a dry system instead of wet. This machine uses thick glass platters that spin on a "turntable". You put an adhesive grit disk on the platter, which becomes your sharpening surface. My machine came with two platters, which means that each of the four grits can be mounted, you just have to exchange or flip the platters to change grit. There is an optional platter with a leather surface for stropping. Because it's a dry system, you do have to pay attention to how much heat you generate on the blades, but I found that was not a big concern. The plus side is that the machine is much smaller than wet systems, is always ready, and is a lot less messy. After using it to sharpen my chisels and plane blades, I decided to try it on my head knives. It put a very nice, very sharp edge on them. Easily as sharp as any edge I had put on them using my arkansas stones. And the time needed was around ten minutes, as opposed to 45-60 using the stones. The WS3000 model is the more expensive one, for most leatherworkers, I suspect the WS2000 would be plenty sufficient, and is only $100 in the local shops. You can buy it online direct, but a couple of the woodworking shops like Rockler carry them, so you might be able to find it locally for less money, plus no shipping.

What are you using to cut with? I use a head knife for almost all my cutting and can get some good curves by rolling onto the point of the knife. For REALLY sharp curves, I use a punch or strap end cutter of the proper diameter to punch the apex of the curve, then use the knife to cut the rest.

I don't usually use sealers unless I've painted the surface. Especially with strap-goods, where the constant flexing tends to leave visible crazing of the finish. My favorite finish is Fiebings carnuba wax. It comes in a liquid, and you apply it much like car wax. Wipe it on gently leaving a visible film, them polish it off after it dries.

Thanks. I'll post more pics as I can. I'm working on getting my website back up and operational. That last collar was dyed with a standard tan antiquing solution, then painted with acrylics, and sealed with neat-laq.

I've never ordered from Leather Unlimited, but I'm not sure I'd blame them over the quality of belly leather. Belly leather is the lowest-quality piece on the hide. It's stretchy, inconsistent, and weak. For strap goods, I use only back or shoulder. You want something that will not stretch or deform and can take a decent amount of stress. When I buy sides, the belly part usually just goes into my scrap bin. It's fine for testing new patterns on, or for small pouches that won't take any strain and other such things. But I wouldn't use it for anything I really cared about. Just my opinion.

Celtic designs aren't particularly difficult, just very tedious and time-consuming. And on complex designs, you have to constantly pay attention to which way the bevel should go. They're some of my favorites on finished products, but I don't do too many of them.

Very nice.

Carved tank panel I did for my Springer Classic

I actually had a problem with Fiebings doing it that way. After sealing it, the finish would eventually start to peel off, because the dye kept it from bonding properly. I ended up switching to Weaver's dye, and also switched to using carnuba wax to finish it instead of acrylic or lacquer. Now, if I'm not carving the leather, I use Wickett and Craig's black-dyed veg tan.

I use Thunderbird, with the server type set to IMAP. Messages stay on the server, so I can access them from anywhere. In my experience, there's only two types of people who use Outlook: 1: Those who are required to by their employer 2: Those who haven't tried something else yet.

Thanks. My early work was definitely not as "polished". It took about a year to develop into what is in those pics. I've still got some of those early collars. They were plenty functional, and they looked OK, but side by side with my later work, the difference is significant. The first collar I make will be for one of my own hounds. Poor guy, I made a really fancy one for him, with carved and painted oak leaves just before we went to a show. A lady there wanted one like it, and didn't want to wait for me to custom make one for her. And the collar happened to be the right size for her hound. So we literally sold it right off Fox's neck, and he's had a plain collar ever since. This was the one:

Hi, I'm Mike. A few years ago, I ran a part-time business making collars for sight hounds (greyhounds, borzoi, etc) along with some miscellaneous greyhound-themed items. I did this for a couple years, then things got crazy for me, so I stopped doing paying work. But, I missed it, and the extra income never hurts, so I'm re-opening my shop in the next couple of weeks. And yeah, sight hound collars (martingale-style) are different from regular dog collars. Sight hounds have thick necks, and narrow heads, regular collars can slide right off. Martingales have a small control (choke) loop to tighten it down behind the skull if they try to pull out. They also are often made wider, to distribute the force if the dog lunges forward.

I've used gum trag, but the method I ended up settling on is to use saddle soap. I take an old washcloth or hand towel, dampen, rub it on a block of saddle soap to lather it up a little, then burnish the back side of the leather until smooth and slick. It takes some elbow grease, but it has worked quite well for me for a few years.

I've never had really good results with Fiebings black dye, tons of rub-off, and streaky results. I've used Weaver's black dye and I like it much better. I haven't found any commercial black dye that didn't have more rub-off than I would have liked, just some that rub off less than others. Iron oxide works great, since it actually changes the color of the leather itself, but it's difficult to get consistent results with.

Thinking about it, I realized I hadn't covered some issues: Use cabochon-cut stones (flat backs) The reason I use the fabric-glue for the gems is that it remains a little flexible. When using larger stones, keep in mind how much the piece might flex, and in what directions. This is why the larger ovals I use are always cross-wise to the collar, not parallel. If the stone is large, and the leather flexes a lot, no amount of glue will keep it from peeling. The more extreme a piece flexes, the smaller the stones you can use. OTOH, a sword scabbard with a wooden liner does not flex at all, so the limit is only the size of the piece itself. Obviously, the thickness of the leather affects the "bezel" you can knock back. On the collars, I use 8oz leather, which gets me a decent bezel. Good bezels keep things from prying at the junction, and "deflect" lateral forces that might knock off the stones to a point higher on the stone, where the slope of the stone is less, and thus results in less force on the stone. Corollary to this: taller stones are more susceptible to damage/being knocked off. Cutting the bezels for small round cabochons is easy, find the right size hole punch, and use it to cut the bezel. Very small stones often end up sitting deep in the bezels, which really protects them.

This is a pic of the collars: Gem-set collars

I use the wooden strap cutter myself, never had any problems with it, and can't see why I'd want the metal one. One day I really should get a proper draw gauge, but other things always seem to take priority. For making the initial straight edge, I just lay out the line with a pencil and long straightedge, then cut with my round knife.

I've got some experience with this. I set semiprecious stones into dog collars. During the carving of the collar, I trace the stones onto the leather, cut the outline, then use a backgrounder to depress the area the stone will sit in, creating a bezel. I then complete and finish the leather as usual. After the piece is otherwise finished, I use am abrasive tool (usually a coarse backgrounder) to rough up the inside of the bezel. I then glue the stones in place using a white glue designed for gluing stones to fabric, it is sold by the jewelry suppliers. I've yet to have a stone fall off this way, and considering these are dog collars, that's a pretty good deal. I get my stones and other miscellanea at Fire Mountain Gems