TomSwede

Good job with these tests Myriam and Kate and thanks for sharing your findings. I always find this kind of stuff very interesting to read about. Tom

This project is superexciting Johan and I 'll sure look into your posts but I leave for Scotland on Friday and off for a week. Hope I don't miss anything new on this. Supercool stuff! Tom

Oh man, DANG THAT IS ONE COOL CLOCKto be The western cemetary floral on this one is the best up to date, I think. Just gotta love it. Nice touch with the crossbones on top of the frame. Now you made me really feel like getting into a bit of floral practice. Tom

Very nice and sweet job! The fade looks alot richer now, I think. Just love those scrolls, good job with carving. Doesn't take much to ruin those fine lines. Tom

Cool belt brudda! You get the planks down really well and nice idea with the bullet holes, it's all in the details. Congrats to the sell! Tom

Looking very good and it's a very fun and creative idea! I'd like one for my knife now. Tom

Thank you Myriam, that's a very nice thing to hear, ya' know! I just love to work with leather so I will definetly keep doing it. Thank you MJ! The mainseam is quite a job, labourwise and a mexican basketweave/roundbraid is always nice but takes some time. 7-8 hours roughly, could be a bit more, just depends on how good a movie I'm watching while braiding. The orange braid is the same but laid out flat and I skipped the crossing under when the lace comes around it's second pass thus creating this fishbone effect (with a little help from antiquing after colouring). http://www.btinternet.com/~kingsmerecrafts/page100.html is where I learned the mexican BW, study this and practice and then go back to read about the orange braid and you'll get the idea. The start is tricky with braids but double loop, triple loop and this one is really easy to perform once the start is done, cornering is also hard and I've been ducking for that, gotta practice more with it when the time comes. You'll find the other types I mentioned on kingsmere site aswell. Good luck! Tom

Yeah skulls does it for me aswell if I have to pick a favourite motif. Really like this tribal skull, got me thinking of Kerry King alltough I think his tribals is not exactly the same. Nice job and keep 'em coming, we're a bunch here that just can't get enough of skulls...THE SKULLCREW, lol Just realized we're in need of animated skull emoticons. Tom

Just plain awesome and beautiful! Love the lining as usual and that sewing is amazing and once again I just admire the way you turn the edges so nicely. Tom

All nice comments I've been given I feel obliged to you guys! Tom, perhaps you get some nice ideas with this and that airbrush you have, I don't even know if antiques can be shot with one. Gotta get me a gun but oh I don't have the money for it right now. Tom

Thank you again Hedge! Maybe my photographic experience helps me when figuring out designs. I think pretty much the same way as I'm tought in photo. Lines leading to this or that or stuff pointing in the right directions to guide the eye That handle gotta be a LW design since I think witout LW it would not have come out with this nice daesign and braiding. Thank you Craftsman! It'll be totally awsome to see another ones tube so please do it. I'v been asked to do tutorial but don't know if I'll have the time. I'll try but next one is at least a couple of weeks before I start making it. Week after next week I'm in Scotland drinking whisky. If you can find a tube with 75mm in diameter PM me and I'llssend you the measures if you want to tie it up in the back like I've done. Tom

Me too, I like to shoot my clean armpits... Butt not in macro since I use extension tubes for my 100-400mm lens. Nature and wildlife is my favourite, strolling in the woods is just so darn nice, could be a hobby of it's own really. I love fishing too. Pike, trout and eels mostly, eels would be best if they were'nt so hard to find. Love my heavy metal music and wish I had more money to collect albums and rare stuff. I got so many interests I gotta stop here. Tom Edit: wow, Dagr! Those dragons are really nice, what a talent!

Thanks Anne! I have a very serious academic attitude bout theese things! Tom

Thank you Tina! Improving is important and I really like the friction lock. I have this plan with gradually increase the amount of carving and tooling that goes into the design to keep track of how the leather behaves. I don't use excess leather and then trim to the right size after tooling so it's critical to keep track of movement when it dries and learn how to avoid disasters. Thanks John! Ahh that's some sweet stuff to hear! Really anxious to get my hands on that stamp. It'll make a far more professional look. I carved my name too with that mariners star and there's a reason I don't show this on that pic ,lol, but equally important that I show my name with the star for future association. The tube was picked up allready so my photosession in the sun went away but I can do it later with the guys. They will celebrate Harry tomorrow with a fishingparty in the baltic sea where he get's his tube and May 29 they will be going to an exclusive fishingcamp in Norway (Orkla) where they will show off their tubes and try to stir up some interrest for them. Cheers mate!! (I'm a beer addict, dark stuff like guinness but one of my favourites is a golden pale ale and made in US by breweri Sierra Nevada) Tom

Holy horses! That is some quite amazing stuff you make! The saddle seem to be absolutely top notch. Sure hope we see more stuff from you! Tom

Thanks Crystal! Glad you liked the handle, I think it's the most decorative part on this one. Yuo have sharp eyes and your right about the turned lining. It should not have been stitched but rather mede from one part that is just a tad wider to allow turning without to much probs fitting in down over the tube. I do lot's of thinking ahead and that's one major time thief and I did think about this aswell but I just got it wrong and thought that the outer liner would have to be sewn on flipside. This was not the case I notice when starting with the physical construction but I continued with this solution just to see the result. Owner is 15 mins to walk from here so I can easily redo it later. It was good practice though and I'd say I need more practice with this especially if I'm gonna do it with leather. Thanks Bob! Hope your keyboard survived *handing you a towel and some polish* Edit: Just saw the the underline you have about having time, now I have some second thoughts bout the liner issue we talked about above. I really don't mind that seem it's just that it came a bit to close to the edge. Lesson here, always keep some extra material and cut off excess when you do the final fittings. Got it down in my notebook now...again. Tom

Thank You Dagr and Spider! Nice that you like the construction, this one can take some serious beating and still hold together. Previous tube has that button and the cord that may need replacing after heavy use also that cap is just attached to one side but it'll sit quite firm once I get that vinyl liner on. Tom

Oh, here are the requested belts. really nice, the Harley quinn will be excellent with the mask but I gotta tell you, I love that Joker design. Skip the Batman mask and go for the Joker....It'll be so slick! Tom

Good lookin mask and end excellent choice of colours. Lucky girl to have realtions producing such nice results. Is the belt coming up too? ..and the batman mask... Tom

That's some good looking scales! Thanks for your effort and sharing. This might come in handy sometime. Tom

Nice belt, I like that buckle! Welcome to LW! I feel the same as you with pricing, always to low but selling most stuff to people I know and at the moment all I do is for my portfolio and to develop new products and picking up more skill and those products therefore are sold with an discount. The receivers of my stuff right now are not allowed to tell what they relly payed me only what I would charge as full price and that full price is just what I demand to sit down and sacrifice time that I could use for more recreational activitys. Not saying this is not recreational but doing to much stuff for unknown people that do not realize the amount of time abour that goes into this, well i'd rather go fishin once in a while and skip such a customer and maybe make something nice for myself aswell. One good thing with this is that I do get paid for development and demo stuff. Sorry I can't really help you on the issue but at least some reasoning thought on things. Tom

last four steps.

I got some attention and requests for the dyed effect on my first flyrod tube: Eureka. This is how I did it: 1)All you need. 2)dauber on some red, streaking is a good thing. I use a red that is a bit thinned down here but Eureka was straight out of the can. 3)Here I use some acrylic sealer in an attempt to make some highlighted red fields aswell. 4)Goo some Tandy's mahogany antique on, lots of it. 5)Let it dry, try to get rid of some goo from the sealed parts. 6)Take of the rest with a damp cloth, have a source of water handy to wash out you cloth in between turns. Let the water penetrate the dried up black oil, goo it around, rub it in. One's gotta develop a feel for this I think. 7)Need more black so another round is up with antiquing. 8)That is just a pic of a fat layer of antiquing. 9)And here we see my watersource. 10) The candy is eaten..oh well I've taken off the antique once again and have a result that I settle with. Hope this is understandable, otherwise just pop me any question. One small note to this one, I'm gonna go with some gold detail on this one and funny thing is that when sealing (leathersheen) it will draw the underlaying antique's colour right through the golden dye and leave it with a slightly red tone on the gold. Tom

Those are so neat! Second one made me laugh but I'm a bit drunk from the beer Freak got me, lol. I also wanna know what finis you used, it looks really smooth. Tom

Thank you guys! One of the reasons behind the friction lock is those lines and of course try and make the tube look like a whole clean piece. We want surface to tool on, oh, don't we! Tom