billybopp

Looking good! That latex stuff does work great, but it feels soooooo damned weird when you peel it off. It's like peeling skin after a sunburn. (I've seen your skin tone and you're living in the Mediterranean - I know you know what I mean!) -Bill

I've bought some very nice buckles and hardware from buckleguy - Nice buckles and other hardware in lots of colors and finishes. Weaver Leather Supply has some great looking buckles etc - they carry the really nice fancy lookin' Jeremiah Watt hardware line. And of course, as DJole suggested, Ohio Travel Bag. -Bill

Sweet! It looks great. It's not every day that you get to see a replica of a piece that's over 1000 years old - and not everybody that gets to make one! -Bill

That looks really awesome! Well done, and again thank you for posting progress pics along the way! It's really fascinating to watch these things come together. -Bill

Looks pretty darn good, Chief! That's a great looking knife too. I only see three things I'd suggest doing differently - and bear in mind these are just my own opinions so take with a grain of salt. 1. The stitching looks good, but does not exactly follow the outline of the sheath. You could probably still trim off a small bit of leather from the edge to match the stitch line and it'll look good. 2. The parallel lines in the figure at the right of the sheath aren't quite parallel. It ain't easy, to get them exactly right and is something that I had trouble with too. There is a simple solution ... A beader blade for your swivel knife. It has two cutting edges a set distance apart. I think I got mine from eBay, but Barry King sells them in varying widths. If you aren't really going for parallel, you can exaggerate the curves a bit more to make it look more intentional. All that said, it still doesn't look bad! 3. There are a few stray tool marks where the tool went onto the smooth leather. That's still possibly fixable by rubbing those areas with a modelling spoon. Nevertheless, really good work! -Bill

You are likely to find a surface plate in any metal machine shop, or places that supply machine tools. They are pretty much always a hefty chunk of granite that is perfectly flat, and used to gauge anything that must be absolutely flat across a distance. They come in different grades referring to the degree of flatness. For our purposes lesser grades would be fine. In machine shops where high precision is required, they are occasionally lapped and re-calibrated as in this youtube video. They can be expensive (better grades more-so), but have the advantages of being heavy granite and more or less readily available. -Bill

I wonder if anybody has ever tried SPF100 on leather? -Bill

I also have two smartcards, use a big fold and keep one card on one side with the other on the other side. -Bill

Painters tape on the back side works. -Bill

@immiketoo ... There are 12 steps to help you with this situation ... Do you believe in a higher power? I have about 7 or 8 swivel knives. Two are Tandy pro and they're fairly good. The others were mostly acquired as parts of collections - mostly the regular run of the mill knives. Those, I keep less used specialty blades in - such as hair blades. Very handy to have them ready to go and not have to switch blades around. Seriously tho, nice collection. I'm curious about the one at bottom center that looks like a tree branch? -Bill

For something as small as these shield tabs, you probably could adapt an arbor press to do the job, but it probably wouldn't readily go larger. It'd take some metalworking skill, (yours or somebody elses ) tho to make a flat plate for the bottom of the ram and a flat plate for the base with cutting board material over it. - Bill

This relatively straightforward. Once you've got the grooves that demarcate the lighter colored lines, you use a relatively good quality smallish artist brush that is lightly loaded with dye and paint the border areas. If there is too much dye on the brush it can bleed through the leather to areas where you do not want it. There's a recent video by Serge Volken that covers background dying and brushes - what you're looking to do is similar. Al Stohlman suggests loading your brush and then dying a bit away from the border to use up some of the dye and then going for the edges after some dye is depleted. -Bill

Check out Wickett & Craig. They may have what you're looking for. -Bill

Welcome aboard from West Philly. Fine looking work there.I -Bill

I glued little chunks of leather in the news of mine, but like your idea better! Very cool. -Bill

Keep in mind that when burnishing, it's a matter of the speed of the burnisher against the edge of the leather. So, the faster the motor the smaller diameter the burnisher should be. That's why you see burnishers for use with a Dremel that are around 1/2" in diameter - Dremels low end speed is about 5000 RPM. Slower speeds can let you get away with a larger diameter burnishing wheel. - Bill

There are a number of ways to approach shields like this. The English point part is the hardest and most visible, with the rest, where the strap loops around the ring is a little easier and not so visible so you can get away with a little less accuracy there. In the first three methods, you'll start with a strap that's as wide as the widest part of the shield. If you're just doing a few, a cutting entirely with a knife by hand is the way to go - it does take practice, but that's what scrap is for isn't it? LWN member @gmace99 has a video that shows how to make an English point using a knife using just a knife with no template. A template such as the one that Tandy sells might be helpful at minimal cost, but will still probably require some practice. A moderate number of them would probably justify an English point punch of the right size, but that involves more expense if you don't already have the right size. There are a few challenges with these too, but still easier than the above methods. There are a couple of tricks to make aligning the punch easier. If you put a square across the belt and along the edge, you can put both ends of the punch against the square. You then can just eyeball its position left/right and not worry about it being at the wrong angle. If you're handy with wood or plastic, you can make a jig to ensure it's both square and centered to the strap. If you have a fat wallet and/or need enough of these to justify the expense ( $100.00s ), you can have a hammer die made or you can get a clicker press and clicker die. For the part of the tab that goes through the ring, it's mostly just a straight cut. You can just make the transition from shield to tab a square cut and it will work fine, but if you really want the rounded transition you can hand cut with a hobby knife and practice. You can also make a punch from a piece of pipe and cut an end to ninety degrees and then sharpen the remaining part to cut a smooth inside curve every time! Hope that helps - Bill

Welcome to the addiction.

Agreed with all of the above. NFO has a slight aroma which isn't unpleasant and doesn't last. You can still dye after using it and if the NFO is applied evenly and lightly it can even help even out dye. Apply it lightly and leave several hours if not a day or so for it to fully soak in and even out. You can always add more, while getting extra out is nearly impossible. - Bill

Wonder what kind of name marketers would come up with for something like this? "Buscadaro Baby Bouncer"? "Tiny Tykes Handy Holster"? Makes you go HMMMMmmmm

There are a number of civil war era patterns on this site: Google "civil war site:leatherworker.net" or "Cavalry site:leatherworker.net" to find some of them. You'll find kepis, cap boxes and holsters for sure. some time ago, somebody posted a huge cache of leather patterns. I downloaded them at the time but since had a HDD crash - and unable to find that thread again can't find them ... but they're here somewhere! I think the patterns had come from an archived book on another site. Good luck! Bill

Nice looking sheaths. I know they are going to LOVE them! For some reason, saddle tan is a bitch color. When it works right, tho, it is one of my favorites. Ya done good. - Bill

You are correct. Lately, folks have been referring to pricking irons as French or European style to help differentiate from pricking/stitching chisels that punch all the way through. It's been quite confusing for a lot of folks, particularly newbies. Maybe that terminology will help? - Bill

Makes sense, really. A combination of marketing and, dare I say it "fashion". If you look at other machinery and equipment from the era such as WWII radio equipment, much of it had a similar finish. I suspect you'd find that right about the time this finish came to an end, around 1953 according to what Constabulary posted, you'll find that the silver and hammer finish machines started to come about -- with sewing machines and other equipment. - Bill

When you're saddle stitching and looking for that zig-zag look, there is an interplay of leather thickness, hole size and thread thickness. In a nutshell, the thread has to have enough room to cross past itself in the hole, and that's harder with thinner leather. If you're not getting what you expect, try thinner thread so that it has more room to cross. - Bill