gearsmithy

I'm still getting the hang of hand sewing. I used a hand-fabricated high-density polyethyene shell on this, which added a whole nother dimension to construction. I made this 3 times trying to get the dye right, eventually I invented a new resist that allows me to do dye jobs like this quickly. All feedback welcome.

You can find this stuff everywhere online. I think there's different "grades" of it. I'm no expert in this area but I think Kate's stuff is probably better for leather working because the stuff I had is really smelly and discolors the leather slightly.

Yes you can, the latex doesn't affect the dye at all.

Here's an example of a the piece I did using the latex. Total dye time: approximately 30 minutes.

You're right, there's tons of them on ebay lol My brain isn't functioning today

Anyone know where I can get my hands on some copper buckles? I'm looking for a couple of small (1") center-bar style buckles, they'd look really good on this piece I'm working on.

The key is to get your jugular. I can never get a whole piece dyed with pin pricks Seriously though, Blood is a biological material and I'd imagine that it could go rancid after a while. Might be an interesting experiment though.

HAHA, yeah it's fantastic stuff. Maybe the stuff I have is different, I'll see if I can dig up a camera and post some pics.

Sure, you can get them from all over. I find that Small Parts (http://www.smallparts.com/products/descriptions/283.cfm) makes them in perfect sizes for me. You can get bigger sheets from larger distributers too.

So I found an awesome new resist in the most unlikely of places. Liquid latex from your local adult...store. I started doing a combination of black dye and natural leather coloring for my motorcycle accessories. I wanted to keep my tooling natural but provide a black dyed background. The problem was brush flicks and careless hand placement would leave unsightly smudges and polka dots. Another member suggested using rubber cement, which does also work but it's difficult to remove from intricate tooling with an eraser. The liquid latex brushes right on and peels right off, no problem! The only downside is that the latex is suspended in ammonia, which discolors the natural leather and gives it a nice "aged" look (which I like). Necessity is the mother of invention.

High density polyethyline sheets, about 1/8" thinck are perfect for this.

Thanks Mike, the rubber cement trick works like a charm. The only problem is it gunks up my brushes. Do you know the proper solvent for rubber cement? I tried denatured alcohol but it doesn't really work that well.

So I just made a very expensive mistake. I've got an intricate carving that is natural color but the background is dyed black. I like the super-high contrast look it gives, but I keep smudging my work! Despite the pot of coffee coursing through my viens, I was able to keep my brush on point, but forgot about my the heel of my hand and ended up swiping black dye all over the nicely-tooled foreground. I was thinking that it would be a lot easier to "paint" the foreground with a relief of some sort but I'm strictly an oil dye person, and I don't know of any relief that could stop oil-based dyes. Some sort of blocker would be perfect because it would make quick work of dying the background and keep my hands and eyes in tact. I had the idea of using wax or liquid latex to paint the foreground but I wanted to see if anyone else has a homemade remedy. Thoughts?

I think it looks pretty cool, but I too am concerned about the thread chaffing off. I've used edge to edge joints like this before, but only with lace. I think it makes for an overall cleaner looking joint. You might want to consider burnishing the edges before you sew, or if you want to get really fancy, use a mitered joint to make an even cleaner look.

crappiest piece of leather? I think it looks great, the imperfections give it soo much character.

Okay folks, I got the plastic sheets in various sizes the other day. In my opinion, the 1/16" high density sheet makes the best support structure. It's stiff enough to provide great structural integrity, flexible enough to be formed into a toolroll/saddlebag/etc, and thin enough to be sandwitched between a top layer and liner. The 1/16" low density sheets make great "permanant" templates, since it's flexible enough to be cut with an exacto knife and can be sanded smooth. It's also durable enough to "pound" in the pattern into your hide (no more tracing!). I've found that the thinner sheets (.03" +) make great "mockup" leather standins for coming up with new patterns and the thicker sheets (.125) are great cutting surfaces. And the best part is...they're dirt cheap (about $1-2 per sheet, depending on thickness).

You mean something like this? So how do you keep the plug from coming out? contact cement against a liner? Sorry for all the questions, never done an inlay before

So you're saying do something like this.

So you actually cut the shape of the inlay out of the top surface piece and back it up with a liner? I was wondering if you could just undercut bevel the shape out of the top surface piece, matt down the background and use contact cement to hold the inlay in place? I'm thinking it might give a cleaner inlay. I've never done an inlay before so this is all new to me.

Anyone have a best practice approach to doing stingray inlays? I've got a few ideas but they're all untested. Any help would be greatly appreciated.

I found an online supplier that sells sheets of high and low density polyethylene. A small gauge polyethylene sheet (1/16th of an inch or less) sandwitched between surface and lining should help to maintain rigidity and prevent the toolbag from warping (particularly if the rider stores a lot of heavy tools in their bag. I'm going to try out some different thicknesses and report back. BTW steveb, your toolbags look classy and bulletproof! I'm going to start using higher oz leather on mine.

That's what I was thinking, any idea on where I can get some sheet of it? I've been all over town looking for it and I almost considered priming some sheet metal but I figured that would be too malleable and could warp over time.

Thanks for the input! I was thinking about putting a piece of flexible plastic between the liner and shell but I couldn't find any material that I liked. Any ideas on the paneling?

Thanks folks! Not sure, I think it's an old FLH. The strap is adjustable so it will fit pretty much anywhere.

That color is amazing! Was the gold cova color?