Stewartjlh

At a popular Anaheim/Orlando theme park they sell custom engraved leather bracelets - and for an additional price you can have a pewter decorative character rivet added. They also sell the rivets separately and I grabbed a few to add to personalized gifts for my nieces. But I'm stuck on how to set them. They are solid posts like a copper rivet, but instead of the washer/burr they have this little eyelet. Anybody out there run into these before and can help? Is there a special tool for flattening - it is on the inside of a bracelet, so anything sticking out would be uncomfortabel? My suspicion is that it sets like a copper rivet, but I'd like to make sure before I go out to Tandy and buy the copper rivet setting tool. I'm also wondering if the standard cap rivet setter might work? Thanks ~ Stewart ps - the photo, from L to R, is the eyelet front/back, a decorative rivet, and a decorative rivet with an eyelet placed how I suspect it should go. On the bottom is a 5/16" brass tubular rivet and a line 20 snap post just as a size comparison.

Fantastic work. I would also be interested in learning more about your process - I am in awe of your distressing abilities. I was doing some general web surfing on leather masks recently and had come across the rawhide instructable below. It's nowhere near as realistic as what you've created, but my inner cheapskate liked the idea of using dogbone rawhide from a pet store. I agree with the previous post that seeing this work is refreshing. It shows us where some of the outer edges of the craft lay. Keep up the great work! ~ Cheers, Stewart http://www.instructables.com/id/Skin-Mask/

One of my dirty little secrets is that I'm a Morris Dancer. Don't worry if you've never heard of it. [but if you're in a major city in the US or UK on May 1, you might keep a look out for groups of people colorfully dressed, dancing while waving handkerchiefs or clashing sticks - or you could just YouTube it.] I've recently begun dancing with a new group, in Portland, which means a whole new outfit. A new set of bell pads (about 20 -11/4" bells sewn to a pad of leather that's wrapped around the knees), and this time I decided to make a bag to wear on my belt. I think I probably should have made the front flap longer so that it attached more towards the bottom of the bag, but my original idea was to do a button and loop attachment and my pattern was drawn with that in mind. I found the bag clasp after I'd finished my tooling and decided to use it - not realizing how much of a difference it was going to make. Any thoughts on making the bag look more finished would be appreciated. Thanks! Apologies for the poorly placed photos - not to mention the poor quality of the photos.

Thank you, thank you, thank you! I've been wanting something better to carry around my new Nikon - the camera bag it came with is bulky, heavy, and just a pain in the rear. This gives me a great place to start, and my mind is already tossing around little changes I'd make. Thanks again!

This looks great - can'take wait to try! Thanks for putting the energy into making and sharing. You've earned some major karma points. Lol.

Wish I had a woodworking friend! Very nice!

I am also interested if it is shared. Thanx!

I ran into this case in a little museum in Vienna. Can someone enlighten me as to what decorative technique(s) were used on this case? Is it braiding, weaving, embroidery? If such terms can be applied to leather. How is it done? Some of it looks like stair step applique that is described in Bruce Grant's book, but other parts look different enough to be something else. Sorry for the terrible photo, I was trying to get a good close-up through the glass display case. Somehow I completely failed to get a picture of the whole piece, which is completely covered in this decorative work. [sigh] I have a vague recollection (it was almost 10 years ago) that this case was meant to hold an equally decorative drum, and was of Spanish origin given as a gift to someone in Austria sometime in the 1800's. I believe it was in the Volkskunde Museum or Museum of Folk Art. Thanks for any info or insights. And apologies if this is the wrong part of the forum for this post. I'm new here. :-) Cheers, Stewart

Great job. And such a wonderful gift. Cheers.

Beautiful! And the collar is very nice too. <sorry, just a moment of canine envy> Sadly, I'm in an area that is very limited on what exotic leathers are available. But that snake is very striking at a distance. Cheers.

This is a great job all around, and beautiful to boot. I know I'm coming late to this thread, but I have a couple of suggestions for the future. First is sewing down the strap attachments as well as riveting for both top and bottom. This will help reduce the stress and increase the life of your case. Also, assembling the top of the strap to come from the top of the attachment (instead of the bottom) might improve comfort on the shoulder. Again, great work. Cheers!