TomSwede

Yeah I like it! Brave touch with the colours. I picture this in my mind and think it won't work but seeing it I just love it. Brain is a tricky thing. I also wanna add a pointer about edges and that is to don't go to near them with the carving. It can produce a bulge on the edge and also it looks better with some space to the edge, the carving pops out a bit more I think. Keep it up and keep 'em coming! Tom

Those look great! Love the braiding on the bottom, very nice. He will look very with his drinks from now on. Tom

That is awesome! Cant wait to see it finished! Tom

Nice one brudda! That leather on the side looks so soft and nice. Really short of imagination right now but think I can see a happy figure on the top design or perhaps you just spelled dye wrong? I second Larry, wait with the revealing. I'll go and sleep a bit between. Tom

Nice job! I say like the character from a Swedish childrens book, -There are no junk, just old stuff to be used in new ways! I've done the same thing with a bag once but no new parts and assembly, just some tooling. Maybe I'll post some day, just to darn lazy I am. Hope others will follow, it would be fun with a show off thread where people could show their recycled stuff. Tom

Stitching aswell! Man, you sure are on a roll. Took me years to even think about stitchin,lol. You've have some really valuable experience with those two bags. Tom

That looks good! Your idea to go with black lace and details? It sure pays off! Have no own experience in florals but I think it's safe to say say it came out good and by judging from those pics I think you got the symmetry bit down quite well. Don't think I would have accomplished this nice with my first carvings. Go at, I look forward to see more from you. Tom

Beautiful stuff! Tom

Nice work Alex! Love the neat little stuff you worked out on the corners. No carving and some cunning stamping makes such a clean and nice elegance. The button and string looks very nice also. The stitching stands out alot too, very clean and nice straight lines. You really enjoyed yourself over this one, it shows! Tom

Sure looks like you love your wife man, impressive piece with beautiful details in tooling pattern aswell as the overall design. Tom

BLACK FLAG i!i! Drinkin' black coffee, drinkin black coffee! Maybe not so many old punks here but that song just echoes around in my head now. Living in a town that is well known in Sweden for it's coffee a do drink lot's of coffee and allways black but sometimes with a hint of scotch whisky in it, yum. Gevalia is the brand we have here and that's what I drink. Percolator is my favourite machine since I think it holds the taste better over a period. Umm, free coffee at work keeps my addiction high. Tom

It looks too darn good to have at work unless the boss is paying up for it;-) Tom

And scavenge the threads here I should add. Not all biker related stuff is in the biker forum part. Lots of nice seats are in the show off forum and for example Beezas seats can be found there and then persons like me ask for explanations of the making and photos showing how it's done get's posted in there aswell. That's how kind and helpful people are around here. Tom

Oh man, that sweet little raccoon got stuck in your scrapbin. You're just a great guy to help him out. BTW, didn't know raccoons were common in NY Well, he sure is i lively lookin little guy, you did great. Always a pleasure, Scouter! Tom (no raccoons here but last winter the fire dpt hade to pull a deer out the river that runs through the city. It was on the road and a car beeped and panic jump in the water, oh and we've had Lynxes passing through city aswell)

Hi Luis! I think it would be a great idea for you to show some pictures of what you have done so everyone can see at what level your skill are. Not knowing this it's is hard to pass on advice for something as complex as bikeseats. I've done some stuff in leather and tooling is probably what I'm best and I wan't try a bikeseat but since I keep getting other assignments all the time I just push the seatmaking aside being as complex as it is and I get my bread n milk money elsewhere at the moment. To try with a general advice for you I's say yuo start with getting a seatpan and try to get the feel for how it will be done or a whole seat to rip apart and make templates from the pieces, make the seat as it is but maybe with tooling if you do tooling. Best wishes from cold Sweden Tom

Yeah man! That's it! Some stuff really do look good in all black. Check out the new guy, Ians spiderwebs. I kinda' promised him that you'll be stopping by after finishing hanging around here in another thread;-) Those are black as they should be. That spiffy, clever backgrounding I think is the key to your success. The tooling pops just nice without any colours added and like TCleather says, black is nice! So now you have somewell earned money down your pocket and saved time with colouring. Businesstricks is a good thing to know. Happy for ya! Tom, now heading off to see if you got stuck in that spiderweb yet.

Thank you Tracy, that's about my customer attitude when he ordered it. David, right on target with your comment. I'd been longing to work with design for sometime and that ,for me, is playing with lines and curbs and make an eyepleasing layout with simplest means possible and this was my chance. The ruby was added as that small little extra thing that can make just that comment you made. One goal in this leatherbussines for me is to be able to make stuff suiting to anyones request. Wether it'd be a deathmetal guy, bikerguy aswell as some director that has all he ever need, going out on that golfcourse showing off his new expensive handmade elegant leatherbelt to his partners. This was a great opportunity to practice the executive style. Thanks alot, I really appreciate it! Tom

Hey Roo, that's one lizzardy looking mask. Stunningly cool! I'm with Drac on the name. Black lagoon creature popped right in my head when I saw this one. Black lagoon is a great name. The eyes are nice with that outward shape. A pair of protruding globeeyes there and it'd sacre anyone of. wonderful and sharp material as usual. Tom

To me it looks like it's finished! Very beautiful dragon it is. Have to say I really envy you guys that can sit down and just tool your art down on a piece of leather that is not destined to be anything other than beautiful art. I can't do it, gotta have a goal or apurpose to get my juices going and a closing in deadline is when I work best even if it feels a bit discomforting. Love to more of this stuff, excellent! Tom

This can be a problem when making bracers. I use varoius tricks to avoid the situation but I think most of them is based on trying to create an illusion for the eye. Like you I do use alot of heavy backrounding to make certain objects appear to stand out more. I did some embossing on the nose of that Motörhead bracer in show off forum to draw the focus more to the middle of the object 'cuz i didn't like those mouth thingies got drawn backwards around the arm. When designing myself I try to adapt to the desired shape. The Ozzy bracer, also in show off, had one original layout from customer on paper. I redraw changing some stuff of tha bats lines and addea some red tribals aswell and also worked with red contours to make some lines pop out more. That one was an orgy in hours but man it's pleasing to be fully satisfied with your work. The real problem I think is that when you bend to much, the material on the inside has nowhere to go so when it gets squeezed it want to take the logical way out wich is up through our precious tooling surface, just like when squeezing a banana. On the inside there's a lot of pressure on the mass of the leather and on the outside there is tension and the mass is stretched apart allowing room for the pressurized mass to escape. I think! I skipped alot of classes at school including this kind of boring ****;-) I'm not saying I'm any good with this but I think about it and hope theres some pointers in what i write here. I don't think there is a general solution to the prob and that various tricks have to be played. Tom

Hello Ian and welcome to leatherworker! Nice introduction, I know one particular member that will like those webs. I'm sure he "hangs in a thread" somewhere and will soon pop in here! I love stuff with lot's of backgrounding and been thinking of doing something with webs incorporated. Backgrounding like that sure takes it's man and reading that you have yet to learn secrets of casing I was wondering about the degree of wetness in the leather when you stamped those backgrounds. I have my leather almost dried out with just the magic "cool touch" to it to be able to control where the mass of the leather is going to move. To wet and it seem to escape to the sides of my tool and just float around like that until leather has gone very dry, then it wanna set downwards like I want it too. Look forward to seem more from you! Tom

Glad I could be at help and good point there with west nile virus, that was clever! Good luck with that hat, I'm sure you'll get it allright! Tom

Is it small cracks in the finish only or really cracks in the leather?? I had some small problem with cracks in finish today. Tom

Thanks for pointing that out, I have a wooden colouring board and touching it with brushes is a regular thing for me so forgot bout it. Tom

I think lacing would be good 'cuz the edging would become less important but once I get a grip on edging I might prefer without. The edging is a bit compromised on this one. Delivered today and he was all satisfied with and love the "ruby" twintip treatie I put in. He was like -Hey, this would have been really nice all the way around, duh, guess why I put it there. He mentioned he had some more beltclosingthingies (ah that word is still gone for me) and broken belts and sons that might show interest. So hopefullt there'll be more orders. One thing, I tried Fiebings leather sheene on this one and it seemed to wrinkle up a bit when the belt tip is bent and pushed into the holder so I have to follow that up. If necessary I'll try to fix it and worse case scenario, make new belt. Thanks for approval, it was fun doing something where you have to hold back a bit on the tooling goodies. Design just gets harder the more simpler you do it I think. Not so much for belts, there are so many to draw inspiration from but good practice. Tom