Sona

As alway you and your tooling is just beyond.... anything. Breathtaking! I´d really love to have a look over your shoulder while those pieces of arts are growing.... lovely work...!!

I think they are good, but I´d leave a little more space between your tooling and the stitching. Like this it looks a bit pressed to me. About the toolig not "popping out": I don´t know whether you mean the depth of your tooling or the colour. The quality of better tools improve the tooling a lot, but not automaticly in every direction. If the tooling isn´t deep enough (looks like it isn´t), you gotta hit the stamp harder or more often. For a colour pop out, you might wanna block the whole thing after dyeing it and after that apply some hi liter or antique finish to accent the lines and deeper parts. Just as an idea.

If you didn´t use it before, resolene is a little bit tricky. Resolene is a glossy finish, that builds up a layer on top of the leather, so the aim is to apply very smooth and thin layers (multiple), so you don´t see any streaks of the applying process on the surface. Try to cut it 50/50 with water, I use a cloth wrapped around a sponge (cased, but not wet) and apply it with nearly no pressure in at least two layers. so apply the frst one, let it dry for at least half an hour, than apply the second one and let it dry for about a day, unless you need more layers. Works out fine for me.

I used the antique gel for dyeing for a long time, but since I switched to oil based dyes, exspecially with adding some oil, I recognized that the colour of the antiqued pieces looks quite flat compared to the oil dyed pieces. For the "regular" intended use: what Monica says. As third option to the gel and the paste there is a product called "Hi Liter" which works in a similar way, even if it is again a different product. But if you search for "antique" and stuff here, you should find a bunch of informations!

That a real nice belt! Personally I would have used some kind of beader on the edge to give it a frame. But maybe that´s just a personal preference

So I got this Swivelknife from Goodsjapan, bought in in a local store with a straight, quite thick blade. Sadly I don´t remember whether it was premounted (so it would be the same brand for sure) or if they gave me a tandy-blade or similar. My problem is that I found a supplier for highquality leather. Problem? Yes! My SK-Blade is sharpened and polished to a mirror and after stropping it´s really really sharp. In the hides I had for a long time (lower quality) it was no problem to cut smooth and nice for a longer time. The new hides I purchase have very dense fibres (even if they are raw it takes some more seconds, before water soakes in for casing and stuff) and I gues that for, the cutting is much more difficult. So if I strop the knife and start cutting right away, I can cut about... 10-15cm before it feels like the blade is really dull and it´s getting hard to cut smooth curves and nearly impossible to cut narrow circles and stuff. So right now while cutting I got my strop right next to me and strop like every or every second minute.... That´s so annoying....-.- So either there is another factor I just don´t see (The blade IS sharp...) or the blade is just ... crap. So I am looking for the best blade I could order here in europe as I just found some Tandy and Craftjapan blades, I am looking for sth better. America might be a possibility but only, if the prices (incl. shipping costs) is under 22,-€ (~29$, Otherwise I´d have to pay a lot more due to VAT and stuff) and I guess a really good blade will cost a little more. So where do i have to search here in europe... any ideas?

Hahaha Well,I think you know that that sort of busts NEED to be shaped, otherwise they´re more like pyramids, etc which looks awful. And you did the same on the tandypattern, right? I think the main point is, that you didn´t just "do" the tandypattern, you saw that you need to modify it and you did. Same here! If you notice the mistakes in a pattern before cutting, stitching, etc. than you start to become a feeling for how it will turn out and that´s the point. Even if it was flat right after stitching, it isn´t anymore... so... you did a great job on here XD

Really nice work! Right now I just wonder why you took that tandy pattern for a corsett if you can make such a nice fitting pattern like this by yourself?

Hi Samuel, First of all welcome to the Forum as this is your first post. Sadly I gotta tell you that you are not the first on this platform who asks the comunity for a little help with your kickstarter project and you will not be the last one. But as you can see in the other threads, there are a lot of answers explaining why you will hardly find somebody around here to copy that link on their FB-pages or somewhere else. I am not that kind of an "oldi" around here, but I came here to get help on difficult problems, tips for the craft itself and maybe some inspiration, too. And you will get that here, exspecially if you try to help and support other members. But asking for advertising your buisness on their social media sites or somewhere else would mean to lead their followers and customers to you, which you might understand is a point, nobody would do that easy. Same thing is that you opened your first thread with this topic which leaves a little odd impression at someone who really doesn´t know you at all. So I think you will not find as much help for your project as you might hope. Besides sth completely different: I know that theese words might seem to be very harsh, but I just wanna give you a little honest feedback on what I recognized while having a quick look at your site on KS. Please don´t take this personal, but as I don´t know whether you wanna make a living of your leatherwork or if it should be just a supported hobby, I think it is neccessary to tell you what I think about your work as far as I can "judge" it. So about your Wallet: Your points for your product are that it is very slim, durable and (hand-)made of a nice sturdy material on a high quality level. As I see it, it isn´t slim at all... To be honest, for a simple card holder it is quite thick. If you have a look around here, on etsy, deviantart, in a store for leather wallets on anywhere else, you´ll see that the "fat bulky" wallets are so bulky because of the load of things you can stuff in there and therefore there are a lot of slots, folds and stuff. But the material itseld is really thin nothing like 3-4 oz (maybe the big front piece, exspecially if you wanna add some carving, but that´s it). So I´d have a look whether you either got a supplier for thinner leather, or maybe invest in a splitter. Second point is the material. The pictures I can see there show a fuzzy fleshside and the grainside seems to be okay, but not the "promised" highest quality you mentioned in your text. The top is quite bumpy, but that´s a point a normal customer wouldn´t recognize like someone who works with leather himself. So for that: I´d either look for better leather if you are interested in getting it, or work on the flesh side. Apply some Tan-Kote on it, sand it until it´s nice and even,.....[lots of blabla following here ^^) In addition I don´t recognize any finish on it and it looks really mat, so if that´s the case, I would at least treat it with some leatherbalm or similar. The stitching looks good by the technical site, but I would stitch at a higher SPI for that little project (and a thinner thread) and if the cards fit in that pocket, I would cut the edge much more near the stitching line, too. Like this you have a lot of unneeded leather just lying around there and the outer edge might open up one day, as it isn´t hold together by thread, just glued (?). This way you´d connect the stitching and the edge in a much nicer way! And believe me, you want to work on the edge much more. It is rough, looking like just beveled with an edgebeveler buch nothing more. Bevel it, slick it, polish it... all that stuff, maybe you wanna add some edge finish. If you´d use the search engine here, you´ll find loads of threads and information about that topic! So all in all I think it is a nice homemade accessoir, but nothing I would show around and open a store with. I am very sorry, but to me it doesn´t look like 20 years of experience, more like learning leatherwork for a few months maybe. To me that´s all just fine, but my expectations of products also depends on the "market" it is made for. So if I make sth for myself, it´s sth different that making presents for friends, which is - again - different to opening a shop and selling stuff to people I don´t know at all. All that leads me to the last point for the tool- and thechnique-stuff.: The laser engraver you´d like to purchase with the money through the KS-project: A laser-engraver is a great machine I´d like to own myself a lot! But it isn´t always the next machine which will take you to the next level of craftmenship, it is your knowledge about your tools, your machines, the possibilities you have with the equip you´ve got and the ways of working with leather and how leather works (with you ^^). I think it might be wiser to learn how to use your equipment you already have than to purchase a big machine you might not be able to take the full advantage of. (Even though, the engraver still is a nice machine and I don´t want to tell you not to buy it if you get enough money ) So for the KS-Site itself: All in all it is okay, but if I´d only read the text I would suggest that you make some bags or similar (phrases like "numerous hours in the development of this product" leads to sth... not to such a cardholder). And... I know I am a european, so it might be difficult for me to understand it for real, but I don´t know why you got to write that you served as a soldier. I know that in america, serving people earn a lot of respect, I read phrases like "and btw. thanks for serving!" from and to people who just write a comment under a Youtubevideo all the time in the internet, so there IS a huge difference in that point from America to at least Germany. But I really can´t say if I would mention that in that kind of advert..... maybe some of our americans could do that ^^. So even if you didn´t ask for it, I just feeled that I want to give you a honest critique. Hope you don´t take it personal and I whish you the very best for your KS... Sona

Right nice stitching I just wonder, what the mdf-construction with the two clamps on your table is used for (Plus I think it would really annoy me to smoke while stitching as the smoke would get into my eyes from time to time ^^) I don´t use any backing, too. pushing the needle into cork or something similar would propably dull my awl much faster than just pushing it through leather. You´ll learn how to do it quite fast (if needed by pain ^^) and you got your left hand free for stitching. But there are some spots from time to time where it´s difficult to support the leather, might be an idea for that situations.

Haha, okay, no problem for me I know that people may read the same lines in just a lot of different ways depending on a whole bunch of circumstances. Everything is all right for me and I gotta say thanks for your kind words My best wishes for your Move and for the rest of your current situation. Hope you´ll find a new home in Bangkok! Sona

Hi Maverick, actually I don´t know why you deleted your comment, but what ever the reason is, I´ll still answer to it. So yes, I was replying to you and I am very sry if my words sound rude to you, that wasn´t my intention. Not at all! Yes I was referring to that thread again, and I know that I did before like two posts above, but as I don´t know where you are from (except that you are from europe) plus you are ordering from Germany there might be the possibility that you know other interesting suppliers here in Germany I might not know. And the thread mentioned is pinned and not that old so I just try to collect some more informations for those who are interested like the TO. So my post was adressed to you more than to handsw. So sry for that little missunderstanding. @Handsw: I got to second Maverick. In large bottles you pay like half the price for the same amount you´d pay for those little ones, plus making one bigger order might be the way to really save some money, as you pay shipping costs just once. If that´s not the way you feel comfortable with, you might have to look for a shop in italy, because I don´t think you´d find that stuff at a lower price (maybe some cents) and the shipping costs won´t differ that much, too.

right, and because of that price, they are also mentioned in the other topic (with an advise exspecially for the colours... the leather they sell is crap) So same for you, if you got some nice suppliers, pls jsut add them to that topic

For europe just have a look at this topic http://leatherworker.net/forum/index.php?showtopic=57101 I added some german suppliers (example: Fiebings Prof. Oil dye for like 5,95), but I don´t know what it might cost to get it from italy. (and if you got some interesting sources, you are welcome to add them

Well, sadly I know, that not all groups are trying to be really historical oriented (as I think that´s the (main) point in reenactment). But its good to know, that the book isn´t about that area, too. Might save the TO some money in this case Besides that I got to mention that your link doesn´t work. Maybe you´d like to fix it ?

Even if I can´t help you with a direct information, it might be interesting to have a look at the book "Stepping through time". I know that it is quite expensive (the reason I don´t own it yet) But exspecially if you are doing stuff like that more often, exspecially shoes, it might be worth the money. Depends on you ^^

What David descirbes is the overhand knot, Nigel describes, not the knot Stohlmann mentions. The overhandknot ("casting the stitch") is - if you use it - used all the way in every single hole (if I remember right, Al writes about that, too, but in a little different way) The first knot mentioned in "The art of handsewing leather" is just a center point which makes it easier to center the thread. As he advises you to prepare a whole bunch of thread from time to time so you just have to grap and us it, it is the way of efficient work flows, so you don´t have to prepare a thread everytime you need one. And there fore he just creates a knot at the center point, so he doesn´t have to look for that center while stitching. It´s just annoying if both ends of the thread are at a different length... So if you use it or not jus depends on what you are comfortable with, you don´t need to do it, but if it makes the progress of stitching easier for you, it might be helpfull. The backstitch Nigel does also isn´t done everytime. He mainly uses it at stress points like on the top of a phonecover, a briefcase or sth similar. If it is at a point where no such stress is intended (like adding an application) he doesn´t do that backstitch as it isn´t neccesary, just at the end of stitching to lock the thread.

Okay, than maybe we just collect a little more, and sum it up then a little later, before you got to update this one again and again

Haha, yeah I just like to get the best quality I can and therefore I try to "hunt down" good shops, offering what I need/want. Besides, if I travel around I always have a look whether a shop is nearby so I get an impression of their stuff and of the shopkeepers. And I think your list might be even longer than mine, just better compressed and organized. XD @Camerius: Oh yeah, just forgot that one I keep an eye on this one for some time right now, but never ordered there, too. So you got some (positive) experience with them? I am happy to hear that you like and "use" Flach, too. As said before, I just love him ^^. But just for the overview - maybe delete the quote? I think it takes a lot of space So one addition in Denmark: www.laederiet.dk/ - Also carry Blanchard and similar for a good price as I think.

@Camerius: Thanks, even if I know them already and ordered a lot of stuff there. Good shop. I´ll jus list my suppliers here, if this should be a UK-Thread, I´ll open up on seperately. So same for my list: use google to find them, maybe I´ll add some links later on. Leder Detmer in Hamburg Wholesaler. Mainly interesting for hide other than veg tanned. Got some tools (“Ivan”-brandt) and stuff like dyes and thread and just a lot of hardware like buckles and stuff. But as this is mostly zinc dyecasted, it´s not interesting for me at all. Got nearly nothin´ in brass or similar. Buying here means visiting the shop, as they deliver normally just to big customers Lederhaus in Duisburg - Nice for dyes and maybe some scrap leather stuff. The veg tan is the worst I got so far and they don´t really sell a lot of tools. But on dyes they are the cheapest I found over here so far (even cheaper than “PATIN-A” mentioned above, but not with such a big selection) Leder-Hobby in Berlin Nice shopkeeper, got nearly all the Tandy stuff plus Fiebings. No experience with hide from there. Leder Baumann in Munich Little shop, little selection of tools, dyes and hides. Might be interesting if you are in a hurry as they are no leatherworkers at all and they are really expensive! Bear Gallery near Munich One person shop, good quality on the hide, but they only got tooling veg. Tanned cowhides (I guess american ones) Tools are from Tandy, even though they switch to craftsjapan right now and got some of Douglas- and Beard- tools. Nice hardware, casted as solid brass, dyes and thread. No online shop, mail would be the way to go. Lederhandlung Klaus Flach in Kiel My favorite one. Best hides I ever had are from here. Has a lot of tools (mostly Tandy again), hardware (brass as casted) dyes, thread... all in all everything you need, even pig an steel bristles. Plus he has a lot of fancy stuff: Tanned frogs, toad, some types fish, ostrich(-feet), even cow stomach and testicles ^^. Also, “damaged” stuff for the special look with warble fly-damages and stuff for like half the price. No online shop, mail would be the way to go. Kappey.de As Flach is my favorite for leather, this one is the one for tools. It´s a professional saddlery-supplier and therefore got all the professional tools you won´t get in all that hobbyshops around. Quality: Mainly Blanchard, Dixon and Osborn, some “Mauthe” and smaller/german ones, too. No online shop, mail would be the way to go. If they don´t answer send a second one or call them. Nice, but busy people. Kuertengmbh.de read it in a post from another member here but didn´t order anything yet. Supplier for shoemakers, no experiences but nice looking assortement. So there are some more as "rickert-werkzeuge", "worring Leder" and so on. But either they are focused on medieval stuff (so, more on the low quality side of life) or are warehouses as well. But they all got in common: I didn´t order or buy leather from them, because I got my main supplier and I won´t expect them to beat the quality I get right now But they still might be worth to have a look at. They also got japanese tools (rickert i.e.) and other stuff. So for some special ones: Dye – PATIN-A: huge selection of Fiebings stuff to a very low price. Fast delivering, nice service. - http://www.lederfarbekaufen.de/angelus-lederfarbe.html: Just for the need of Angelus dyes and acrylics. Thread - www.croupon-lederhandel.de So called “Forellenfaden”, nice braided polythread from 0.8 to 1.4mm. 0.8 up to 1000m on a spool (for about 30,-) thicker ones up to 500m on a spool (for like 22,-) Brass rings and similar - www.toplicht.de/ made good experience with them. Solid stuff, polished and a little thicker than the stuff you usually get as it´s made for sailing. They also got some nice fasteners and carabiners. Polymauls – not ordered there as I´ll order some fancy stuff, but as a cheap alternative to the 100,- + mauls they might work quite good. Medieval stuff - http://lorifactor.com/katalog.html not settled in Germany, therefore longer time for delivery and higher price/order through the distance, but everything is solid stuff, brass, nice to work with! - www.fahrendehaendler.de also nice buckles and hardware, settled in Germany. The assorment is a little bit smaller than from Lorifactor. - http://www.reenactors-shop.de/index.php?cat=c232_Sonstiges-Guertelzubehoer.html Again a german supplier for buckles and fittings. - http://www.todsstuff.co.uk/todsfoundry/strapends.htm settled in the UK, never ordered there but the products look quite nice and solid though they are a little bit more on the pricey side of life. Contact cement - http://shop.langlauf-schuhbedarf.de/Klebstoffe:::21.html as you can get it here in 4kg-canisters... much (!) cheaper than buying thos little cnas one by one. It´s Kövulfix, which I prefer over stuff like Pattex at least because it´s transparent. In addition, I´d recommend to get on of those “Sparbehälter” mentioned on that side. Just a joy to work with. So that´s for now... more might follow if I find some interesting shops.

Haha, yeah I know about that... (sometimes sadly ^^)

You explained the rivets vs. stitching question already, so I´ll skip that Even if there are plastic covers, I think while cooking it might be more comfortable just to grab the right knife, instead of grabbing the (covered) blade, switch it to get the handle into your hand, get rid of the cover and than (!) use it. As for that I don´t know how far the covers go. If they cover the tip, too it seems okay for transporting the roll. But if not, I think the tip might cut through the leather by accident, depending on how sharp the blades are. In addition I would have taken the same or similar leather for the application and the handle. The leather you used is much stiffer so it kind of "stands up" if the roll is rolled up and don´t adopt the form of the roll. Plus the top surface is totally different (the roll itself is quite matte, but the applications are real shiny, much thicker and personally I think the colour doesn´t match that nice.This way they look a little bit out of the design. Sry if this contains some criticism as you didn´t post it in the critique-section, but I´d like to point that out. I don´t know if - and if yes, what - you figured out by yourself, but that are points where I see a potential fo improvement. It´s still a nice roll and you did a nice job on it So keep it up!

Thanks a lot Conrad. I´ll try it out as it sounds logical. I am just a little scared of tooling on the scabbard I think as I don´t have a nice flat surface... but I´ll give it a try. What about dyeing? as said before I got the feeling that I compress a lot of fibres during the process of molding which leads to an uneven colour.... any experience with that?

Thanks for the answer. Actually I know the video, but I don´t have an oven that´s big enough to put a sheath of 80+ cm in. Thought about that already, but I got some "limitations" on that point XD

Awesome idea. Actually that´s a topic I though about for a long time right now, even if I am more interested in the german alternatives. BUT as we are all in the european customs area, what about expanding this thread to get an even bigger overview? I mean, we got no such shipping costs we´d have for ordering from the USA and we got no VAT... normally the delivery is a little bit more expensive, but that shouldn´t be that much of a problem (Just mentioning... I could tell you a shop where you could buy that leg clam you´d like to have (not the fancy, gorgeous custom made ones, but simple ones from I think 40€ to higher Quality (blanchard and stuff) for about 120 €)) If you agree with the europe-idea I´d just start with a list for gemany as I know some shops here and there.... and maybe the "list" should be updated in the first post now and then for a better overview? Or even seperated posts for different stuff (countries, tools, hardware, [....]) Just as an idea.