Sona

So well, I guess there is no need for two threads, so I´ll reduce it to one I had a work mate some time ago I came along with really nice and who teached me a lot for my daily job. So as we are both craftsmen and therefore like well (hand)made stuff I decided to make him a belt which turned out to be the best I made yet. For those of you who mention the different colour of the edge all along and the edge where the keeper sits (might be hard to see on the pictures... didn´t do a nice job on the pciture stuff this time): I started with the buckle using edge kote. But after that I visited my father who owns one of my belts and recognized, that the edge of hos belt - which I finished with some edge kote, too - was just fuzzy all along.... so I cried a little for help here, got some fingers pointed again on the thread "how to finish edges" and did it (nearly) as descriebed there... finally I got a nice (even nicer!) edge the with edge kote which hopefully should hold up much longer, as the only substance sitting on top is a really thin coat of Tan Kote finished with some parraffin. Thanks for that already guys! Acutally I never saw him since I gave it to him, but he was full of joy, so I assume the hours put into this piece were worth it. The belt itself is some 3,5mm belt croupon lined with some 0,8mm ... neck (I guess... ordered that seperately), hand dyed as always and handstitched with 8 SPI all around. The bucke is made of solid brass and the width is just about 38mm. As this is the second lined belt I made, I tried out some things like skiving the loop where the buckle sits down to the lining plus tapering the tip of the belt for a better sliding into the belt keeper. work worked just fine. The second piece is a sheath for a... "fancy" knife of a customer. He just wanted a simple sheath but made a lot more sturdier than his last one where the knife is hold by friction at least a little as is came out sometime before... The sheath is dyed with a light brown. After that I applied one coat of oil, let it dry and applied some heavy coat of my leatherbalm. The plan was to fit the handle colour of the knife which turned out quite good. I guess those are the moments where it´s good to know how the individual hide darkens when you use your "stuff (the balm) on it!! So always do a sample guys.... really! I guess If I didn´t know and wanted to be it light brown I´d have stuck in this head->table->head->table motion.... XD So here you see the difference between the old one the ne sheath As the blade got a little curve near the tip, it even cut a little hole into the old sheat... that was made poor and a little tight, so everytime the customer pushed the knif back into the sheath he unwillingly forced the tip into the leather.... poor little thing ^^

So you want the "easiest way" to finish a piece of leather... In my brain "easy" also connects with "hard to make mistakes" I´d go for 1) just one coat of oil -> let it sit for at least a day [2a) just buff it with some cloth (actually might not be neccessary, but I do it ^^) ] 2b) apply some thick coat of leatherbalm (I don´t mean exspecially the one from Fiebings, I use some made bye my leather supplier himself... just some different sort of wachses and stuff...), but don´t wipe it of, so let it sit for like half an hour (if it soaks in: apply again) and after that just wipe it of and buff the hole piece again.... quite unexpensive, no varnish or similar stuff needed, hard to fail on that procedure! PLUS, applied it that way, I got no bleeding of my brown dyed pieces and it is resistant to water at least like resolene! The way Ian tests those finishes is usefull if you have no idea what you are doing, what it also depends on how you apply them!

Wow, as said above: great Corner design and nice work! I really like this one!

Wow... that is some gorgeous clean carving work.... I love it!! I guess I just save them and... if you´d be okay with it, I´d take it as inspiration if I ever need a pencilcase again Really nice work!

Yap, my friend is quite satisfied with it thank you!

echt schick geworden! Farblich hast du nen echt schönen, weich anmutenden Kontrast hinbekommen und der weiße Skorpion ist n schöner eye-catcher!

So this is my first sheath this year, ment as a present for a good friend of mine. He got this old boatsmen knife (he teaches shooting for the german armed forces) and wanted me to make him a new sheath as the old one was starting to fall apart. This is what I came up with: And here you can see the old sheath (on the right) compared to the new one (on the left): The sheath is "butt-sewed" around a plastic inlay, I took from the old one. The knife fits in snugly and won´t come out without pulling it. Hope you like it

I had and used some japanese ones, also the chisel types. I sharpened them just normally with a waterstone, exspecially if you have multiple teeth it saves time and you get them aligned nicely, I just worked on the two long sides (> I <) and didn´t try anything between the teeth as I think that wouldn´t work... and if it would it would be to time consuming Just a tip for those; even if they are sharp, think about polishing the sides you can reach. If the sides are smooth instead of rough, you can pull them out quite easily....

Moin dietmar, willkommen im Forum. Bisher ist das hier der ort mit dem meisten gebündelten wissen den ich kenne... Zudem ist die gesamte comunity einfach sehr nett und hilfsbereit. Darf man fragen woher du genau kommst?

Sounds like a great idea. I'll try to take part in this one even if I don't know whether I find time for it...

Thanks vor the good ans fast answers. I read that before ans i don't know why i came back to edge kote if I am honest, but I'll give the dye-and-seal Version another try. The thing is, i used edge kote in the buckle area already to habe a clean edge there (i statt stitching at that end) so I have to try to get a similar look over the rest of the edge... Let's if that works out. To the buckle-thing (roller, square) I saw that point and starter using only square buckles as the most roller buckles don't look that nice. But it might be a very good point. I'll have a look if I find some nice rollers I think. Thank you all for the input! Greetings from Germany Sona

Hi guys, first of all a happy new year to all of you! I whish you al the best in private as for your leatherwork! But as I visited my father for these days, I just recognized the edges of a belt I made for him like half a year ago, especially the edges. Back then they were really nice and smooth. I used some edge kote, burnished it, applied some bees wax and, if I remember right i used some saddle soap to polish it again. But now the edges look quite worn out, fuzzy and I really would like to prevent that in any way... But I don't know where to improve. I know that some of you use some paraffin on the edge as fins coat, but i doubt that this would fix the problem.... I ask because i am stitching another belt right now for a friend and I'd really like to do it better this time... Any ideas, guesses or tips? I'd really (!) appreciate them! Thank you Not the best picture I know, but it is the best my mobile phone creates at the time ... Hope it helps to understand/see the problem.

Thank you! Craftsman: Nope I bought that. I think (exspecially without the phone iself) I wouldn´t be able to do it that good

Thanks monica, I came up with it, because I needed a way to decorate the sheath and the belt quite similar, plus it is less work to draw a tooling pattern by myself. After all I like it and I have used (and will use) the "style" with some changes here and there some more often I think. Danke Jimbob Bist du "Exil-deutscher", oder sprichst du nur Deutsch, wenn ich fragen darf? Gruß/Greetings

benlilly: Loden is, like byggins says, a natural material made out of (sheep!) wool. actually there are different kinds of it. With some you could have a shower over an hour without getting wet (a reason why I often prefer traditional or natural stuff over modern ones.... they just work and keep working, besides it might get warm under loden, but you don´t swet In this case I just like it because the surface allows the sword to slide in and out really gently and easy and it won´t suck any silicon spray of the weapon which is often used on them. That stitched on knife sheath... right... I thought about modeling it out of the swordsheath itself, but I gues it might have needed one or two times to get it nice, and after it would have ben neccessary to stitch some hard lining on the bac, so the knife won´t hit the sword.... so I decided to use this version. As to the safety rules for larp, I used 2 medium neodym-magnets to secure the knife a little more so it won´t com out that easily.

Your second one... wow. I am looking forward to a project you might present in a year. Great job! And about those cost intense hobbies.... sadly I know what you mean. As I see in your interests, we got some in common (furniture making - I am a cabinet maker, leatherwork - check, same here, photography - same...) But luckily I get some money I spent for leathertools back by selling custom stuff... not that much, but it helps ^^. Keep up the good work!

That´s really neat! Love it. Exspecially the decent, yet very clear nautic design... great job. May I ask, how you you made the impression on the front? Looks like you used some model or similar from behind.

And here´s just a new sheath I made some time ago. Sadly I was a little late, so I didn´t get the chance to make some photos. Luckily, the new owner send me some I actually can use It is lined with loden and formed over a wooden model. The design was a special whish of the customer (including the knot-thing on the upper end). Hope you like it.

So this is my first flip case for a Sony Xperia Z1 Compact (what a long name -.-), It closes with two magnets, got some room for three cards and some bills and is decorated with a heating iron. As the customer likes Japan a lot, the design was set quite fast. Oh well, and besides my first flip-case with my first burned decoration it´s the first time I used some kind of a stiffener (some plastic boards with like 0,3mm) and I sort of like it... but i don´t know, whether it´s similar to the stiffener i.e. Tandy sells. It´s just crappy if you gotta stitch through it or if you have to punch some holes (like for the camera) through it as you won´t get that sort of a nice and clean edge on it. So I hope you like it and if you got some critiques or ideas, I´d be very interested to hear them

great work!

Okay, sounds logical. Thanks for the info! (and keep it up!)

To answer your question Immiketo: I think they are awesome as everyone else. That´s a fantastic nice and clean work and I´d love to have the pleasure sitting on one of your stools (just to get up again and look at it for... a while) As I made some braided pillows for my journeyman's piece (carpenter), too, I´d like to know whether your stools are "breathing" like mine. So if you sit down your press some air out of the braiding holes and if you get up again, it soaks it back in. Do you have the same "problem" (isn´t really one, but I´d like to ask) or did you do it in another way? (I braided completely around every pillow so there are just the braiding holes where the air can go through....) And as always: lovely work!

Hi Barbara, willkommen im Forum! Wegen dem Englisch mach dir mal keine Gedanken, solange alles verständlich ist, bist du hier herzlich willkommen. Und wenn es schwieriger werden sollte (wovon ich nicht ausgehe) fragen die Leute nach. Liegt u.a. auch daran, dass hier viele Leute aus aller Welt mitlesen und -schreiben. Außer dir sind auch noch einige andere Deutsche hier unterwegs, auch wenn es bei dem hauptsächlichen Englisch meist etwas untergeht und nicht so auffällt, aber ich kann dir nur sagen, dass es ne gute Entscheidung ist, hier ins Forum zu kommen. Wenn du Infos brauchst und suchst wirst du hier fast immer fündig ^^. Ich wünsche dir einfach erstmal viel Spaß beim durchstöbern des Forums und man wird sich hier oder da sicher nochmal lesen

I am referring exspecially to the upper edge where you can see, that the awl is exceeding over the thread, the direction the awl is turned fits to the drection of the stitch. Don´t get me wrong, I don´t want to devaluate the sheath, not at all. It was just ment as a tip.

all in all really nice. I just don´t like the stitching. I´d use some thicker thread and maybe a thinnger awl, but that´s all. Besides that you did a really nice job!