TomSwede

Cool wallet, skulls are sweet and I love that liner. Snakeskin, oh that is so nice. Tom

I used both theese for making a 4-strand cord with kangaroolace 2,5mm and the handle on my whiskyflask (if you've seen it). That lace was from a thin veg tan piece that i cut 4-strands from the handle to braid together. If the rope is to be longer than the hair itself I think you're gonna have the pleasures of splicing it. I'd say braiding those chords was a handful and splicing I imagine to be horrible but who knows it might be easy if the ends are tied togehter first and you get enough space to pull the ropes into on another and that way get a selftightening splice. Wish I could help you more but I know there are some good forces in those questions here. Meanwhile you can study those links. Oh, the kango chord I made is the one on top of the tube. Tom

Love those trolls or what they are. Wonder why I never laced a bracer?? Roundlacings seems to work well but I wonder if they will dig into ones arms if the bracer is to snug a fit? Tom

Nice work!! I like the woodface best too, you're getting the wood touch down nicely. Keep doing it. Tom

Sooo cool! Just love that fleur de lis and the lining fits very well. You say your neck suffers from lacing so I wonder if you lace over your working table? I try to lace late at night when my family has gone to sleep so I can sit in the couch and lace. This allows me to drop down the shoulders a bit and also I have one eye to the telly so that I don't constantly hang my neck down. I do lot's of things to avoid get stuck in same position for long periods resulting in a sore neck, seems to help. oh and lots os smoking coffee!! Tom

Those are so cool! Hope your finger is allright! Tom

Looking good Timberwolf! Nice to se this stuff in use as should be. Gives so much more when it's stuff your not very familiar with. Tom

Yeah, know what you mean with them screws. Just got purselocks to use for ladys purse and they also have that problem with prong holes and as a lock for a purse I think it really sucks. Tom

Very nice covers and they sure suit someone who likes paddling. Tom

Wow what a cool wallet, sleek and elegant design and I love black and reds. Shape of the front flap adds alot of cool to it aswell as the frog skin. Gotta practice more doubleloop 'cuz all you guys makes it looks nice, mine look crap, lol. Now I can't wait to see the other 24 to get some good inspiration for my first try. Sorry to hear about your foot! Tom

Ok, that's it my good man. Time to change that name or I'll sign Kens petition! Beautiful stuff, really amazing to think of as your first work. Seems like you got leatherwork and tooling in your blood. Keep it up! Tom

Hey Jordan, sorry to hear about the situation you're in. I shall not complain anymore about them airbrushes being to expensiv for me, I have only myself to blame about coming up short in funds really. Those bracers looks really good, I especially like the braided one and that necklace with a guitarpick is really neat. Never saw that before and there should be alot of guitarist wanting something like that. Gotta make a few with scraps and try at work 'cuz I've been strutting my stuff there alot lately and nowadays people come to watch me unpack my bag when arriving, lol, seriously then, we've had a guitarboom at work lately, alot of people has been starting with so it could be popular. I think those tings should be easy to sell but I wish the best of luck anyway. Tom

Very nice looking belt and that's some fancy buckle you got there too. She'll look faboulus for a day then you have to make one in another colour;-) I haven't made my girlfriend a belt yet but the chastitybelt I made her looks just as good...phuahahaha Tom

Sweet and clean bags RDB! They look great in natural and I'm surprised how well the chrome rivets go with natural. Those type rivets (and many others too) seem to always end up on black items for some reason. The lady will be very pleased with you! Can we see the set together once finished please, it will be so good. Tom

Oh brother.... it is sooo darn cool this one. I JUST ENVY THAT ONE VERY MUCH!!! Tom

Lovely stuff Ken! You know I dig the colour of that brim! Your tutorials are very good and I think it's a real treat from you to show us all this stuff, tinfoil hats off for this one;-) To bad I will never wear a leather cap (I actually don't like caps at all) 'cuz my completely bald head (not shaved, really bald) has a funny effect with leather hats. They suck to my head like theres vaccuum and it looks darn funny I can tell you. I've seen leathercaps before and always felt like they were missing something, now I know. They had no good braids. It looks great and of course so does all skullstuff to me! Tom

Thanks Jim! No local history connections with that one either but some day, I'm sure it'll come! Your encouragement is good, I'm guy that need to get a kick in the butt to get going sometimes, lol. Keep on smilin! Tom

You could try to case a small bit of leather and test to see how that feels. I feel like I have better control with cased leather. Haven't done this very much so I really don't have more advice on this. Tom

I feel the same way about this and just haven't found a way to solve it, if there is any. To minimize the problem I try to produce as smooth and clean carving lines and cuts as possible, like when going around tiny minimal awkward corners (a lot of that with letters) or when you're carving into the center of a spiral, it is easy to get bad cuts (chewing the edges of the part to appear raised) . Holding the knife straight (no side tilting)is also important. You could always try with beveling without carving and see how this works for you, i've just never gotten around to it. Tom

Thank you very much Timothy! That's seems like a good description and perhaps that one can be done with 4 strands. I'll put the pdf in my e-mail and try a little bit at work tonite if the 'ol papermill is running hassle free. Tom

Yeah Myriam, I'm in the same position 'bout money. Payment for this one's allready spent on new leather aswell so I know how you feel. Thank you Colman! I like working leather to much for picking up on rod building and I don't flyfish myself actually so I would have to pick up on that aswell. But it is off couse a nice thought, leatherworker and rodbuilder. Tom

Ok Rookie, if next piece comes out this good you just gotta change that name, lol. So what I thought of concerns backgrounding only. I hope I'll be able to get my message through, can be a bit awkward when a Swede try's to explain things I think. To make your work stand out even you can use a checkered edge beveler around main contours that will border against your tooled down background BEFORE working with the smaller pear backgrounder because it looks to me like when you have gone over with the backgrounder you got some of the leather mass underneath the graintop worked up against the design that you wish to make stand out. By edge beveling before, you'll get a harder mass bordering to the design wich helps keeping things in place when backgrounding, I typically also tilt the small pear backgrounder to push mass away from design when getting about one tool width from design thus creating a little a small trail from the tool around the design and this also make the impression a little deeper around the design. I think this makes the design pop out alot more and it sure is timeconsuming. Best wishes! Tom

Thank you David! I've dreamt of this moment a long time so I'm really glad just to be able to do one and sure hopes this leads to future work. Time to sport a website maybe?? In Sweden it's hard to niche in just one thing so pool/billiard and golfing is stuff I think about aswell as bikeseats, i just love bikeseats for the wonderful canvas to tool on they are, gotta do it. We're only about 8-9 million people here but I think the market for exclusive high end gear is growing. Just gotta make sure to continue to up my skills, lot's to learn. Hedge, yup the cap if done again will have another solution for the cord, like we've talked about earlier or so. No Grant's encyclopedia here but I'll try to dig my head into something and I'll make sure he keeps the cord that way for redoing later, for now I'm stacked with stuff to do so I will research on knots someday later. Next case also have a simple solution and I'll think it'll turn out neat, no clumpsy big bucklers, no no. Wise or not Hedge, I'm glad you tread my path and hope I'll keep seeing your back, one day maybe I'll catch up so we can sit aside and chat about wells and trivial matters, lol. Thank you Anne and Johann, glad you liked my stuff!! I hope to have one myself someday but I have this one and two more to build for others so we'll see in the future. I showed it off at work today to get a non leather worker perspective aswell. I had big eyes all the way in (lot's of fishermen and women there) and a small crowd wowing me for a while. Then I had to do my job, bummer!! It was great fun! Tom

I think I wanna applause you for just plain bravery with this portraits, man that looks so hard and I'm just glad I can sit back at this wonderful place and view this stuff instead of having a slacker moment in the 'ol worn out tv couch seing some dullwitted no brainer tv show. Thank you guys! Tom

Insane!!! New to leather, wow! You sure got some talent and I think you been at least reading up on subject before tooling, right?? Your bag look really , really great and I can't imagine what stuff you could come up with. Oh since your new to leather I'm guessing your new here so welcome to the forum! I could give you a few pointers on background if you're interested but posting such nice work for the first time I didn't want to offend you with that just now. I'm thinking you must be really proud of that piece and that is very justified. Your floral looks good to me but I never ever been even near that so I think if I tried it would not look that good. Tom