HippieLee

I sometimes do cutting and sewing with just a laptop board on my lap. Not whole sides, of course, but I can get a lot of stuff done in my recliner while watching TV. And I have a big brown stain on the carpet in front of my recliner to prove it. :-)

I'm intrigued by the bag full of shot. My biggest problem is holding the piece steady and preventing it from sliding all over the table while I tool. I love the idea of shelf paper for big pieces but I have been using the cardboard thing with contact cement for smaller items - the idea being that the cardboard is much bigger than the piece so if the piece is stuck to it I can hold down the cardboard with my forearm to keep it steady, I can concentrate on just tooling rather than tooling AND keeping my hand on the piece to keep it from moving. But if I can get away from glue altogether that would be better I think.

1. Always test on scrap before putting to work piece. Especially with a new dye. 2. I rather enjoy the process - I love watching a bland, pale piece of leather turn into rich, smooth dyed piece and then adding highlights or lowlights (depending on carving and tooling and all sorts of things) and glossing it and buffing it up until what was once just a chunk of cowhide becomes a burnished glowing work of art. Well, work of art is what I strive for but until I get more experience I imagine I'll settle for "didn't screw it up too badly". 3. I have only ever used Tandy's professional water stains and gel antique and so I have NO idea if solvent dyes need much different so since you specifically said solvent dye I'll give you Ian Atkinson who often uses Fiebings: Leodis Leather He has a lot of informative vids and I believe a few were specifically about dying. 4. I almost always apply my dye with a damp high density sponge and rub in circular motion covering as much as I can as evenly as possible and often go back and hit spots I think are too thin. Then let dry and apply more where needed. Then a lot of buffing with soft cotton cloth (lots of old t-shirts are cut up and pressed into service. My wife is mad I don;t cut up the ugly concert shirts instead of the plain white ones. She crazy.) You can probably go back and do more on yours to make it less blotchy but I doubt anything can be done about it being too dark. Did you use it straight or thin it? One of my teachers at the Tandy store uses Fiebings and I am sure I remember hearing him say he cuts his USMC black by at least 50% (with some type of alcohol they sell there for that) but hopefully an experienced user here will add to or correct that. Don't know if he does the same for browns. 5. No idea about the sticky - after it's sealed and finished maybe it goes away? I've never had sticky.

Hey Canada gave me Rush and Gorguts - even if you're not from Texas you're OK by me! Welcome to the forum~

Welcome from a Floridian who grew up in Dallas. (Born in Tallahassee, grew up in Dallas and have been back in Florida for 30+ years). I love Florida but I still consider Duncanville "home". I am still very new to leather working too but it gets more fun the more I learn and you've found a fantastic place to learn here at LWN.

I'd be proud to carry that around - I think you did a great job. I'll be studying it for ideas when I make mine. Thanks for sharing!

how thin do sheets of neoprene come? I bet that would stick without marking...

Probably both - yeah they are pretty cool - I love seeing them as tattoos too.

Sorry - I have no idea what it;s called - but I like it so I hope you find an answer. WOuld love to see more. It reminds me of the decorations on Day of the Dead/Sugar Skulls a little bit...

I'll take a look at my settings - i get the notifications and I haven't done anything involving money Yep click the drop down on your username up at the top right click on "my settings" on left side go down to Notification Options and manage all that from there. I have auto-subscribe checked. I don;t remember specifically picking that when I signed up so it might be the default. You might want to make sure your email program isn;t sending the auto notifications emails to your spam folder. Add this site to safe senders list.

Welcome Allan!

Welcome from Florida - though I grew up in Texas and have visited Canada. And yes, good lighting helps tremendously!

I like black and tan together but all black is also on my "meh" list. Although I know I should have a black belt just for occasions I need to be dressier than brown - does it matter any more? At any rate, I don;t have any black shoes so a black belt wouldn't help me much. But if I had to have a black belt, that one you made up there is pretty darned nice! And if that's what the customer wanted I;d say you nailed it.

Any chance we could get a price range on the BearMan mauls? I mean, I know I can't buy one today but I'd like to know what I should aim for...I especially love the Mesquite burls - I grew up in Texas and the smell of mesquite smoking a brisket holds a special place in my heart.

I clearly need to try more weights :-) (Widget, I highly recommend you listen the experienced users more than me. I've said it on LWN before but I should have been more clear in this thread that I'm still very new and can really only relate my limited experience - and that's the yellow Tandy hammer and a couple of my instructor's BKs - which were much more fun to tool with than the yellow hammer. I look forward to trying out many more weights - I thought the 14oz the teacher had was plenty heavy but if these guys are swinging a pound and more on a regular basis I have to seriously look at those weights too) Those are beautiful mauls, BearMan!

Spectacular! A briefcase/laptop bag is very high on my list of things I want to make so I'm grateful to get to see your artistry.

I'm just waiting until I can get a 14 oz round Barry King maul. You can always hit harder if you need but if you're doing a lot of tooling/tapping/stamping you don't want to be holding up a pound and a half all day. Of course, I hope to one day have both. All I have now is the goofy little yellow thing from Tandy but I've used a couple of my instructor's BKs and I can easily see and feel the difference. As I get more experienced I may very well find I want others too but that'll do for now.

Beautiful work Tatyana - Please keep posting them - I gotta make a purse for my wife and need to steal, errr, I mean be inspired by, all the designs I can.

I got lucky - The executive boardroom at my company had a granite conference table and one day the CFO leaned on it and the end came crashing down (about a 3x5 foot solid chunk). Just snapped off right where the legs came up. He was lucky too as it just missed all his feet and toes. But when I saw he still had some of the pieces I asked if I could have a chunk and he said yes. So I got a pretty nice (but weirdly irregularly shaped) slab of free granite. Overall a good foot and a half by 2 feet or so. Since I got an end piece it has a nice smooth bullnose along one edge. I love it just because it's not square. And it was free. I probably ought to make him something.

I've been looking for one of those! My instructor loves them for long straight parts that need it - he told me to get it from Springfield but when I looked I couldn't find anything on their site that looked like what he has. Glad to know they are just out and I'm not really incompetent at searching a site lol. Also glad to know they'll get some more in maybe... Brilliant! I like the looks of that...

Man it's rough being in a no-hammer zone - I'd want to background all the in-betweens but I'm not sure how you would do it without a hammer - maybe get it a little wetter than usual and press hard? That's probably terrible advice. Take it to a public park with a concrete picnic table and background it. It's also hard to tell from just one pic but I can hear my Tandy leather instructor hollering in my head to cut deeper - maybe you did but it just doesn't show as much since you can't pound the beveler in. If it was my piece I'd use a small pattern backgrounder and either resist the top part and antique it or just dye it as-is. You can see the same knot on my sporran in my avatar - my gallery has a bigger picture so you can see all the ways I screwed mine up lol. Next time I'll try to be more consistent in my tooling and my dying. Using a fine paint brush is time-consuming difficult but it's something I need to practice. Wait around for the regulars to show up - they can do this stuff beautifully in their sleep and will know exactly what to do. Looks like a pretty good start to me though - especially given the limitations of your environment. Even if all you do is dye it and buff it up real nice it will look better afterwards.

I don't expect you to use this but I want to take a stab at it to see if I'm thinking right. (lol, I mean, I'd like to test my idea and see what the experts think afterwards - as I know I am not anywhere near an expert). I would cut out the top piece and wet mold it over cord or rope or some long round thing that fits the size of the raised part I want and let it dry completely. Then I'd glue the strips of cord into the trenches and squash them down as much as possible so that they are as flat as can be. After that's dried I;d continue with gluing and sewing it to the inside piece. And if that is actually a good idea I can think of many ways to use it - not just for straight lines - make patterns out of the cord - maybe letters even. I figure I'd have cord on hand but another way would be to make a clay mold and let it dry and wet form the leather over that. Still might need to fill the raised spots with something though.... So feel free to be brutally honest with this idea and please tell me what would work better... :-) (lol, there's probably a long-known easy way to do it already. That's what I'm here to learn) edit to add: there were no responses when I started so I see there's already much better ideas now.

I'd get a good maul (I don't have one yet - just the basic cheap one from Tandy but I got my eyes on Barry King) and a good swivel knife and make sure you know how to keep the blade sharp. My beginner Tandy kit did come with the jeweller's rouge for the knife blade but like these other guys have said, the kit's have more useless stuff than the useful stuff - UNLESS you get it on sale I would just make a list of the basic tools you need and try to get good ones. I take classes at my local Tandy but if you don't have one near you the people here and guys on youtube like Ian Atkinson and Nigel Armitage are great at showing how things get done. The kits usually come with a lot of stuff but they are generally the cheapest version available for each item. Yeah you can get stuff done (I made the sporran in my avatar with that stuff) but as you get better you'll ache for better tools. If you have the money to spend you might as well get the good stuff right up front. IF it turns out you absolutely hate doing leatherwork, your good tools will be easy to sell. The good thing about the Tandy kits is they come with easy to follow instructions and projects to get your feet wet and include everything you need usually... (I have no experience with the Springfield kits). Good luck, have fun and welcome to the forum!

Those are great! You should call up Bonefish Grill and sell them some custom fish fossils for their restaurants. lol, don'tcha just loves strangers telling you what you should do? You should do whatever you want to do - I'm just saying there's a restaurant chain here that could really use your awesome talent. :-) (Bonefish Grill: there's 4 of them in Texas)

Funny you should mention that as I'm right in the middle of a House Stark guitar strap. Just started carving yesterday but I'm going out of town for work for the next week so I probably won;t get to finish until next weekend. I hope your belt goes well - I agree it's a great idea! I googled "House Stark Line Art" for the wolf head logo but I drew the wierwood tree myself. I hope my bevelling will cover up my lousy carving lol. It's all learning though!