bdetteg

Stamps have been sold. Thanks!

I recently purchased a 384-piece leather stamp collection from an estate, but I am finding that they are not going to suit my needs. Frankly, I want to purchase some better quality stamps, but this is such a cool collection, I thought I would post it here to see if there is any interest. I can always portion the tools down to batches and sell them on Ebay, but I'd rather keep them in one collection if possible. The stamps came in a wooden case, with drilled holes and labels and a stamped impression for each tool. There are a couple of empty slots, but there are also a few tools which haven't been labeled. Included are 12 swivel knife blades, one of which is a hair blade. I have performed no cleanup of the tools; there are a few rusty handles and some dust or oxidation on the tool faces. I have no reason to believe they would not all clean up well. In addition to the tools, there is a ten-binder collection of The Leather Craftsman/The Craftsman/Make It With Leather magazines dating from 1957-1982. Four magazines are missing--Volume VIII #1, Volume IX #6, and Volume XI #2 and #3. None of the pull-outs are still in place, and a couple of the magazines have fused the front or back covers to the binders. As is normal with magazines of this age, some of them have condition issues. Each binder has been tooled, so it's actually a neat collection. I've uploaded larger images than are permitted here to a publicly accessible share https://plus.google.com/photos/105111956290374641336/albums/5992158349871818209. I'd like to get $800 for the stamp collection, and $500 for the magazine collection, not including shipping. If you are in southern California, we can come up with delivery plan, particularly if you want the wooden storage box the stamps came in (it's about 4 ft wide by 2.5 feet deep and about a foot tall). If you are not in southern California, I'll need to investigate shipping costs; shipping the stamps/box or the magazines to the East Coast will likely be fairly expensive. We can discuss that more if you decide you would like the stamps but not the box. You can respond by email or text me at nine oh nine, 213 oh six oh nine.

Thanks to both of you on the replies.

good thought; I'll give that a shot, thanks! --Bernadette

I've recently come into a collection of about 200 older crafttool stamps, looks like most of them are 50s-era, based on the crips lines of the stamping surfaces. Several of them have some corrosion/rust and all of them are just plain dusty. I'd like to clean them up but I don't want to wreck them. What's the best way to remove corrosion without removing too much good material? Should I wax them after cleaning? What's the best way to keep the corrosion in check? Pardon the rookie question, but I think they'll make great tools after they're cleaned up. --Bernadette

ClayB-- I know this is a really old topic, but thanks for the history lesson on The Leather Crafters and Saddlers Journal. I just purchased 'the estate' of an old leatherworker, which included 8 or 9 carved leather magazine binders with a bunch of older 'Make it With Leather' magazines. I haven't had a chance to go through them yet, but this topic let me know that they could have some pretty interesting stuff in them. --Bernadette

makkoshark-- Get yourself a copy of Bruce Grant's "Encyclopedia of Rawhide and Leather Braiding". While he doesn't specifically illustrate braiding over a motorcycle lever, I'm thinking that this is basically an extended version of a gaucho knot. Practice simpler knots over a dowel core, and you should be able to work up to this fairly quickly.

It's tall enough for an antenna, at least for most phones.

I'm posting a couple of pics of a cell phone case. It was a good learning experience and I'll do a little better at laying out the flap without getting tools marks all over the place next time. Open to other suggestions, however. --Bernadette

All of you are fabulous. I'm going to hunt up Ron Smith's and Gyorgy Doczi's books, it sounds as if these will be good foundations. I think I'll invest in the Chan Geer video as well, that sounds like a good tool for a newcomer to use to get started on design work. Joanna, you're the best, thanks for the link; it was a different thread than the one I was originally read, but I really enjoyed Dave Genadek talking about following God's lead in designing things, and staying true to your intent. I've experienced the magic that can happen when you visualize a piece of art, work though the technical challenges in reaching the intended design (along with the sometimes serendipitous changes required) to arrive at a finished product. Not everything I do works out well, but I strive to make it so. Thanks again to you all. --Bdette

I've been a lurker here for a few weeks, finally joined the board. I attended Tandy classes because I had a crave for some really nice chinks and figured I could produce them for considerably less than what I've seen available for sale. Not to disrespect very talented leatherworkers out there, but I do a lot of silverwork and bring that level of discpline and detail-orientation to my leatherwork, and I liked the idea of making my own stuff. Now, of course, I'm hooked on leatherworking, especially tooling and stamping. I saw a post here somewhere by Dave Genedek talking about developing your own patterns. No one in the topic was interested in pursuing that line, but I sure am. While I admire the western floral carving I've seen, I'd like to develop my own style and not just copy commercially available pattern sheets. Dave mentioned a couple of reference works, but I haven't been able to locate his post again, but I'm also interested in what the rest of you have to say. What sources do you recommend to help educate a new person in original pattern design for leather carving? --Bdette