Harry Marinakis

Woah! How did you do that?

Very attractive piece of work you've done there. I'm jealous of your lacing.

leathertoolz does really great reviews Thank you

Burnish the leather to a shiny surface before the leather dries. When fully dry, finish with Resolene, and then buff with a paper towel

The strongest knot for joining two ends is the sheet bend, but the fisherman's knot is attractive

I got the knife really sharp on some oil stones

No disrespect to law enforcement and EMS, but.... Police and EMS go home to their family every night, and can quit their job at any time. Comparing law enforcement or EMS to military service shows a significant lack of knowledge and appreciation for what it is like to service at the pointy end of the spear.

Great, now I don't have to pay for the Elite membership anymore

Gorgeous piece I'd be afraid of wearing it to work.

I made this knife primarily for cutting long straight lines, and it does that well. I've gotta get it sharper at the point in order to cut tight curves.

I don't like the standard round knife shape, so I made my own custom design. I experimented with several shapes and sizes, and made a few mock-ups, before settling on this design. Then I made this knife out of a saw blade. I didn't see a need for a second point on top, so I rounded it off. I worked the metal very slowly and cooled it often to avoid altering the hardness & temper of the original steel. Overall length is almost 6 inches. Blade is 3-3/4 inches top to bottom. Satin finish. My hand-sharpening skills leave a lot of be desired, so I've gotta work on it some more, but I did bleed a few times. - Circular ripsaw blade 0.07 inches thick - Cocobolo wood - Brass rod 3/16" - Epoxy - Tung Oil - Blood

I tried to make a round knife from a circular saw blade, but I was going to re-harden and temper my blade. I discovered that with a blade 0.07 inches thick, it really difficult to keep the blade from warping during the hardening quench. While there are some advanced tricks to successfully quenching thin steel without warping, my advice is to stick with stock removal. Cut and grind very slowly, and cool often, so that you preserve the original hardness/temper of the saw blade. Eventually I successfully made a round knife by stock removal, and it's perfect. Because the metal is so thin, grinding slowly doesn't take that much longer than it did with my first attempt, and I saved myself all of the hassle of firing up the forge, filling the quenching tank, and trying to straighten a warped knife blade.

I use a belt sander as my skiver It's perfect

Strange.... Fiebing's black dye is my favorite black dye because it's reliably black on the first application. I've been using it for years.

MadMax22 Just received my Leather Wrangler swivel knife. Night and day compared to my Tandy swivel knife. Thank you for the good advice.

Personal preference, but there's nothing wrong with metal on metal. You might get some mushrooming on the hammered end of a tool, but - so what? IMHO complaining about mushrooming is like complaining that your knives get dull when you use them to cut leather. I think the concern is either tool longevity or ruining the hardness/temper of the tool if you try to grind it, neither of which is really a problem.I've been hammering away for years on cheap rivet setter from Tandy - the top is mushrooming, but that has not affected its function or my ability to work with it. And it's cheap enough that in 20 years when it's really bad then I'll splurge $10 to buy a new one. As far as the hardness & temper is concerned - we are stamping cased leather, not steel, so it really doesn't matter. You can make a stamp from mild steel (which can't be hardened to any significant degree) and it ill work fine for decades. If you are that concerned about ruing the hardness & temper by grinding off the mushroom, then suspend the tool in cold water, grind slowly so that it doesn't get hot, and frequently dip the entire tool in the cold water to cool it off. But I've never done any grinding on mushrooms because it makes no difference in function. IMHO using a heavy 8 oz to 24 oz steel hammer to get one-hit results is worth it. Tooling is another matter, I like to use a lightweight poly hammer because I'm working gently and it's not as tiring. Below: Forging a leather stamp from mild steel

Cheap tools: use, abuse, toss, replace So what if it mushrooms a bit? Grind down the mushroom if it bothers you. The poly/rawhide mallet is so wimpy that it's use is very limited

1. I made a heavy laminated oak workbench that I cover with carpeting tiles. 2. I do leather, wood and metal work on my workbench, but I vacuum often and change the tiles as needed ($2 each a the local discount store). My workshop stays clean, and I thoroughly clean up in-between jobs. 3. For leather punching I use a ball-peen hammer and a pine board backing. Rubber mats aren't strong enough to stand up to abuse, and the bounce means I have to hit the punch multiple times. A soft pine board backing means One Hit = One Clean Hole. I have a large set of cheap punches all the way up to 1 inch. When they get dull I sharpen them, or toss them if they're too small to sharpen. I do have several really nice punches, because there are some jobs that can't be done well with cheap tools, but that's not often the case. 4. For leather cutting, I use an X-Acto knife for precise cuts and large metal shears for all other cuts. For very small jobs I use a cutting board, although the cutting board is now shredded and I'm going back to cutting on soft pine boards. For large jobs I cut on the carpet tiles on my workbench. I go through X-Acto blades like crazy, and I don't care. They had better be dangerously sharp or I toss them and install a new blade. I buy X-Acto blades by the hundreds ($12 for 100 blades). 5. For leather tooling I use the backside of an 18" x 24" granite tombstone that is 4 inches thick. I have dozens of hammers including a poly mallet. I only use the poly mallet for tooling, haven't found much use for it otherwise. The granite is not used for anything else but tooling. 6. I do a lot of riveting, etc., on a 70-pound anvil that sits on my workbench. 7. Mallets versus hammers? Using a poly or rawhide mallet is pointless except when you're tooling. 8. Here is my workbench & shop, and a recent project (sword scabbard)

Ah-ha! Thank you Mad Max. Then I think it would very worthwhile to get a good swivel knife.

I found that hardening leather makes it almost impossible to dye, even when using black dye. Boiling your leather is going to harden the leather, not soften it. Back in the medieval period, leather was boiled to make it rigid for leather armor. Look up cuir bouilli. So are you trying to boil your leather or soften your leather?

Thanks If that's all it is then think I'll just keep my oil stones on my work bench, and keep my $30 Craftool. Sharpening my tools brings me pleasure anyway.

If you keep the blade sharp, what's the difference between a $30 Craftool and a $150 Wrangler?

Good luck!

Dunno why they carried it in front, that's just what they did. I assume it's something to do with the male anatomy.

Yes, that is the traditional method of carry - horizontal, in front, edge up, handle on the dominant side