FISTfullaLEATHER

I agree with everyone else. Inspiring.

Very clean.

Oh! Yes. It's tooled into a piece of 8/9oz leather if I remember.

I'm thinking something for lightweight for now. I don't do many holsters or sheaths but I do quite a bit of wallets and check books and I want to get into garments and masks for cosplay. Thank you! It's a skull wearing a Native American headdress.

Hey everyone, it's been a long time since I posted anything, so I figured I'd do a quick update while the coffee is brewing. This is just something I wanted to do. I've been doing a lot of "production" type stuff and I needed to take a break and do something that would challenge my artistic side. I like it and I look forward to making more art pieces. This is a mouse pad I made for a Jewish friend. Happy Hanukkah! A fun journal cover I made. I've been watching a ton of Lord of the Rings and Game of Thrones lately. Does it show? Simple folding money clip/wallet. A nice dress belt. An ex-serviceman contacted me about making this wallet for him. I was really excited to do it, told him not to worry about a deposit, and got after it. I tried to ask him what he wanted in the banner and he never got back to me. After it was finished, he never got back to me. Still haven't heard from him. Valuable lesson learned. A Harley belt I did for a co-worker. The eagle was done with mostly a modeling tool. It was my first time using one and now I realize how indispensable they are. My pups Christmas gift. My brothers Christmas gift. The knife was something my late father gave him. Making this belt and sheath was really special for me. A couple more of the folding wallet money clips. These are also special to me. They are two of six items ordered from me to be carried in a local retail boutique. First time my stuff is being carried in a store. And now I'm in the market for a sewing machine. Business has really picked up and I'm struggling to keep up with orders and work a full time job. A sewing machine would really help me out and broaden my horizons a bit too. I'd love to start doing costumes and bags. Any suggestions? Any helpful hints on my work? Thanks for looking!!

That collar is great. Good job. Keep it up.

I think it's because it was inspired by items they saw while traveling. I'd have to agree, you don't see those type of bags much in usual parts of America. Very cool. I can't wait to see the new line. I'll be following you in anticipation. And thank you for the advice. I'd really like to do something small to fund a sewing machine and a few other tools. I've been approached quite a bit to make large quantities of items and I just can't do it and give myself and the buyer a fair price with the time it takes to hand sew.

Congrats on a successful kickstarter! How have things changed since? Any advice for someone who wants to start one? Any future kickstarters?

Here's a picture of my work area. It's in my semi-finished basement. In the far area is my dremel press and dying area underneath the desks are a wire rack with fan for drying. I just hung the cabinets last night. I was running out of space. My main working station is the big metal drafting desk and bottom left is my drawing desk with tracing light. Really just need a few more hand tools and a decent sewing machine and I'll be happy.

Let's be honest...you skinned these animals and then sewed their faces to this belt! But seriously, this is amazing. I hope with years of practice, I might be able to accomplish something of this quality.

Thanks! That's what I learned later. I went to tandy and bought the burnisher and after I bought it, the guy working told me the same thing. Well great to know after I bought it, haha. But it fits well in my cheap ryobi hand drill. Works well on curves and such. Doing it by hand results in a smoother finish on the long edges though.

Right on man! Looks good.

Hello! Tell us a little about yourself. Edit your profile a little bit. And post a picture of the belt when you are finished!

I'll have to look into the glass square. Thanks again. Yeah I see what you mean about the stitching. Totally makes sense. I didn't burnish the edges yet because I didn't have anything to do it with. I literally had the leather, a razor, some needles and thread. I molded it with an actual spoon haha. Thanks so much. I really appreciate it. Ah the belt. Well, it was a lot of different things and really just trying things out that I thought would work. I rolled it between my hands flesh side out to give it some wrinkles, folded it long ways to give it horizontal wrinkles, dyed it with fiebings oil pro light brown when it was drying so spots were more wet than others. After it dried just a little more I took some really fine grit sand paper and rubbed off just a little bit of the dye. If the sand paper has leather in it, I found that is too far. You really only want to sand off the powder that dye will leave. Then I took a wet sponge rubbed everything down to blend the colors and finally took a rolling pin to it to get the wrinkles out. Really just wanted to try new things that I never heard of because I want to make things people have never seen eventually. To me the dyeing and finishing is the most rewarding so that's usually where I try to push the limits. Don't know if it's right or wrong but it's me.

Thanks for the tip. I guess I haven't really put much thought into that flesh sides of my projects. I also read that gum trag works well.

So these are my first few projects. I have so much to learn but I'm pretty stoked on how my work is coming along. Thanks for looking. Any tips for me?

My name is Jay. I'm a 27 year old IT tech and systems administrator. I live with my girlfriend and my little dog. I enjoy home theaters, nerd stuff, video games, motorcycles, carpentry, and metalwork. Pretty much any kind of building with your hands, I'll enjoy it. I live with an emphasis on thendesireto never stop learning. I just started working with leather about 2 months ago. I wanted to make knives so that led me to want to make sheaths, so I got the stuff for it and the metal working has really taken a back seat since. So far I've spent entirely too much time and money on my new hobbie but I've also gained a tremendously rewarding skill that seems to be getting a lot of attention and I have already sold a few things and have a few orders for custom work. Hopefully I can use that money to pay for the tools and material I've already purchased and continue to purchase more! Thanks for the community as I've learned south and I'm sure will confine to learn. I'll be posting pictures in the show off section of what I've made so far.