billybopp

My Minnetonkas are very soft elk with a synthetic lining.

Some good advice there from Boriqua! I've attached a picture of some different awls that I have, including the three sizes of Seiwa straight sided awls mentioned above pictured on a pretty thick piece of leather to illustrate how awl taper can give you different holes front and back on your leather. The leftmost awl is the Tandy 4-in-1, and it's pretty much useless - Soft metal that dulls quickly, and I don't like the shape, although it is close in shape to one that saddlers traditionally use. I find it hard to use, even when sharp, and it took a bit of work to get it sharp initially - it came dull as a butterknife. You have to really control the depth with these blades. I call these spear point awls. The next three are the Seiwa awls from goodsjapan, and the ones that I use most of the time - I generally use the #1 with .6mm or .8mm thread, and #2 with .8mm or 1.0mm. (Yeah.. There's a little crossover there depending on the thickness of leather and the look for a particular project). The #3 is rarely used, but would be most suitable for 1.0mm or bigger. Kyoshin-Elle makes a very similar set of three, but I have not tried them. goodsjapan carries them as well. These came sharp enough to be usable, but a little work made them better. The only problem I've had with these is that the blade eventually startsto sink into the handle - A little epoxy will take care of that problem. You can also find a similar set of awls from leathercrafttools.com for $20 for all three, but I have not tried them. I call these broadsword awls. The last one is an Osborne, and probably looks like what you have. It came almost usably sharp, but some work made it usable. As you can see, the taper isn't as drastic as the first awl, but it's still a factor and takes some depth control. I use it on occasion for really thick leather - as you can see, the blade is longer. Some have suggested snipping off the tip of these awls to give a broader tip, but that requires a lot of sharpening and re-profiling. I call these rapier awls (Like the weapons analogy?). The big advantage of a broad tip is when you are using a pricking iron the tip lays in the slit and helps guide you to the proper angle. Not so much with the rapier point. The straight sided awls give you the same size hole front and back, which I like. Notice that the Japanese awls have a flat sides on the handle? That does a couple of things for you. It keeps them from randomly rolling away when you set them down, but more importantly it allows you to feel the position in your hand without looking at the blade! I have since flattened the sides of the Osborne handle for that reason. Don't hesitate to modify tools to suite YOU! - That goes for handles, blade, and whatever else you want to change. Another little help for your awls is to cut a small piece of leather and punch through it with your awl. This will prevent the ferrule of the awl from marking your work if you slip and push it in too hard/deep. I took them off for the pictures to give a little clearer picture of the blades. Whatever awl you use, make sure it's really sharp and shiny to help penetrate the leather - and if not careful your finger. So, what's the cork about? That is a very useful multi-purpose tool, my friend. I have several - one for each awl - and use them to protect the awl from damage and keep them dry (they'll rust if wet) and safe from damaging the awl or myself, when they are not in use. They are also useful for thinner leathers when sewing. Use the cork for thinner leather to keep it from "flopping over" as you push the awl through the leather and into the cork - rather than your finger (blood is NOT a project enhancer)! They do sort of wear out after awhile and need replacement, making them most enjoyable tool in my entire kit since I get to drink a bottle of wine to get one. If you don't drink wine, ask friends that do to keep corks for you. As for stitching chisels, some old-timers and particularly saddlers do not like them for various reasons. I, and many others, find them very useful, however. You get perfect spacing and consistent holes with them. I also prefer the cheap Chinese chisels from ebay over some of the others. I have a set of Seiwa chisels that I find make a bigger hole than I want, while the Chinese chisels are more suitable for the thread that I use and as mentioned above they are much cheaper. They do all need a bit of sharpening and polishing when you get them, tho. As an added benefit they can be used much like a pricking iron to mark spacing and give you some angle guidance with an awl if you decide to use them that way and not punch deeply/through the leather. They are most useful for thinner leathers if going all the way through, since they have limited length on the prongs. Do be sure to get at least a six(or so) prong and a two prong in each size that you want and from the same maker to ensure the same prong size. Single prongs are mostly useless, and four only a bit more useful. Pricking irons are pretty useful, and reasonably cheap if you get the Chinese ones. Expensive ones are REALLY expensive! They are not meant to penetrate very deeply into the leather but more to make a shallow mark to guide your awl for spacing and angle, although a few do use them to go all the way through thin leathers. They do a better job helping you get your awl angle just right than other methods, but are not as versatile as chisels so it's a trade-off. Pricking irons from ebay sometimes look a bit crude, with machine marks along the prongs, but I don't see that as a problem as long as you're not penetrating the leather very deep. Just sharpen and polish the first 1/16" or so .. If even that. Whether stitching chisel or pricking iron, do be careful with these tools. If the metal is soft, they are easily knocked out of alignment if dropped - and you may or may not be able to get them back into alignment! If the metal is hard, prongs can break off. And lastly - +1 for Chinese thread! As Boriqua mentioned, what is sold as 1.0mm is more like 0.8mm, but still pretty nice stuff. I like that I can buy a good assortment of colors for the same price as a single spool of other threads and it works quite well. There are other, and better threads but at a great deal more $$. Sometimes that extra money is worthwhile, but mostly not.

One big advantage of a pricking iron over an overstitch wheel is that the pricking iron helps guide the angle of your awl so that you get a nearly perfect angled hole every time - especially if your awl has a broader tip rather than extremely pointy. (Think a broadsword tip as opposed to a rapier tip in sword terms). There is no guidance using an overstitch wheel, so your hand awl work has to be more precise and disciplined. A stitching chisel can come close to a pricking iron in that awl guidance, if you don't use it to punch all the way through.. And if you go all the way through with them, they work great as long as they don't make huge gaping holes as some do. Bill

Arbor presses are indeed handy, especially for 3D stamps and letters. There are a few modifications that you can make to them that are pretty helpful too ... First, take out the round plate and replace it with a thickish flat piece of steel to give you a good flat sturdy work surface. Second, build up a work table around the press that's at the same level as the plate so that you can lay your work out flat at least to both sides and keep them flat as you move your work around. Third, on your work table, you can add some slots for movable fences to keep things like belts straight as you move them through. You can even add markings on top of the fences to help keep spacing even. Fourth, you can add a strap and spring around the handle-shaft to raise the ram after every stroke which can make repeated patterns a little less work on your arm. I'd also consider, as mentioned above, drilling and tapping the ram to hold handled tools for things like border stamps, etc. I think you'll love using the press. It's a huge help for arthritic or otherwise hampered hands. Hope that helps! Bill

Very cool backpack!

I do not care for the regular eco flo dyes at all. But when I want more muted colors, Fiebings is usually the better choice and eco flo pro dyes are great for more vibrant colors. And yes, there is a learning curve for all of them.

I tried using art-store Liquitex acrylics on a project and found that even very thin, it did not adhere well to the leather, at least atop black dye. They did have some colors that I wanted to use, so my solution was to use cova color white as a base and then sprayed thinned Liquitex atop that. Also, you need to put a white base color beneath many colors to get really vibrant color. Bill

As leatherworkers, we're obsessive about sharp tools, and probably rightly so. It can make a huge difference. Like Bikermutt, I couldn't get it right for a long time and watched alot of videos and read a lot of instructions, finally learned some of the same lessons he did, and am finally getting reasonably good at it. Somebody on here posted a link to a video by Paul Sellers using sandpaper, as Art suggested and that's how I finally learned! Scary Sharp with Sandpaper ..for those interested. It has worked well for some time now, but I'm starting to look at other methods now that I'm more comfortable with sharpening. Like the OP, I'm trying to decide what to get and have pretty much decided that diamond "stones" are the way to go. They're expensive, but seem to have one big advantage: They're always flat. Stones, no matter how good or expensive, all seem to have the disadvantage that they will eventually wear a dip or concave into the surface and then have to be flattened somehow.

I use cheap, disposable solder flux brushes for most of my gluing. In addition, if the glue goes on a little lumpy, one of those "sample" credit cards that come with card offers in the mail make excellent disposable spreaders. Bill

see if you can get a small piece .. Maybe 1" or so ... Drop it in boiling water. If it curls up, it is most likely veg tanned. If not, then it's not!

I was thinking the same thing ... It would be fascinating to see one in action, moving slowly to see what's going on and also at full speed. There's so much exposed mechanism on this one to watch!

In a separate container, try adding a very small amount of black to the purple ... and incrementally add more black to get the fade you want - building up the color on the piece. If the purple is too intense, you can thin it to achieve lighter shades and highlights as well. Dying with color is a lot like painting with watercolor, if you're familiar with that.

I use flesh side out deer on the back of my guitar straps. It's really soft, gives a wonderful feel, and a some friction to keep the strap from sliding. It does have a few quirks, in that you have to be pretty careful to get it to glue smoothly .. every little lump and bump can show through. Its too soft to edge with even a sharp beveler, so I use a sharp hobby knife to bevel it. It burnishes .. Sort of .. using a burnishing cream by craft-sha. I use white deer skin, and it discolors very easily when burnishing, so make sure that your burnisher is very very clean, and be careful not to turn it around while using since it will pick up dye from the front side during use. Bill

So now I know where Tom Servo's career went after MST3000!

USMC black does indeed take a whole lot of buffing ... I found out the hard way, as the OP did, before I started coming here and reading about it. But it begs the question, why do they still sell the stuff? Does it have some use that I'm not aware of? Is there some use for it that justifies all that work?

Gotta ask .. Is the belt mechanism to help pull material through? Is it powered / synchronized with the feed? I've never seen one o' those before. Bill

Yup. Airbrushes are great. For the vast majority of what we use them for in leatherwork they are dead easy. They are also, like many other things, intimidating at first. Just like that big pencil you used in the first grade was. I bet it also took a lot longer to learn to use that big pencil than the airbrush did. Just get past the intimidation factor and you're on your way! Love the stand. It's much prettier than mine is. You may want to take a look at quick disconnects for your airbrushes. They're not pricey and make switching back and forth between airbrushes really easy and fast!

My guitar straps were all done with a single length of braided poly .. A couple with black Tiger thread, the others with Chinese poly. They were all darker colors, so color contamination was not a problem. Managing tangling does take a bit of care, and it will happen. You just have to be aware of it and keep an eye out for knots. If a knot appears, don't pull it through if you catch it, back out and untangle the knot. It's a little bit of a pain, but I've not had more than two or three in a project. You quickly learn how to manage your thread and not tangle it. Over that length, the needle end of the poly will begin to show some wear for a couple of inches, so add a little extra to allow for that. If I were doing a light color, or using linen or some other thread that's susceptible to wear I'd go for shorter lengths and splice. Also, as previously mentioned, some protection for your hands is in order .. Lightweight gloves would work, but I use athletic tape wrapped around the fingertips that grab needle and thread and around the "wear" places on my fingers that I pull to tighten with. Without these, in time you'll get callouses on those spots, but until then you can end up sore and maybe even a little bloody. Another big help is a couple of thin strips of wood to help support long runs in your stitching pony. About 1/4" X 1" x 12" on both sides of the strap held by the stitching pony. Some have made stitching clamps just for straps, but the wood strips work really well.

If you're only looking to make a belt or three, hand sewing is not a bad option. I have not sewn a belt myself, BUT I have done a few guitar straps which are similar. It's not something you'd want to do all the time, but when you hit your stride sewing something that size, it moves along nicely. Stopping every few inches to stretch my arthritic hands the straps still only take two or three hours. There is a certain zen-like quality to hand stitching for me, and there's a little extra bit of pride in the finished product it seems. So, no. It's not insane. Not something you'd want to do every day, but do-able! P.S. Be sure to have some proper music to work with, or if you can maintain concentration a movie or TV show. It helps.

LOL. Good point. There are other things as well. They all go hand in hand, tho. Leather is not much use unless you know what to do with it and have a few tools around to use too. Also worth mentioning are consumables such as glue, dye, finishes, needles, thread, and hardware such as belt buckles. Just about any of the above is worthy of their own subject (and frequently are on here)! Good leather vs. so so is a huge thing .. It's not the place to go for cheap. JLS doesn't do crappy leather, so that's a very generous offer!

You might want to check out this video by Ian Atkinson about starter leather tools on youtube. He also has a list of those tools with prices in UK pounds. It covers a pretty good selection of the basics. Everybody will have a slightly different list, but this is a good starting point. A couple of things I'd suggest, if you don't already have something serviceable are a folding utility knife, as the blade will have very little wobble compared to the retractable type. You may also find that a cork or rubber backed straight edge/ruler won't slide around so easily in use. Hobby knife sets are inexpensive, if you don't already have them. For my part, I find the standard hobby knife #11 blade a little flimsy for leather and prefer the beefier #22 blades. Many of the tools that you need initially you may already have, such as a cutting surface, utility knife, hobby knife, hammer, lighter and such. Now, note that the tools he lists are oriented toward assembling things made of leather. Decorating, or tooling, leather is a different subject .. BUT most things that are tooled also need to be assembled, so it's a good starting point. Another really great resource, is the Tandy leathercraft library. Amongst the first things I'd suggest on there are the leathercraft tools book, and the handsewing leather book. I have hard copies of both and still refer back to them often. Many others of the books are very useful as well .. the Stohlman books were written long ago, and many of the projects in them are now dated BUT the techniques they teach are still valid and timeless. Most projects involve at least some amount of sewing, and the Tandy book is a good start, but you may also want to check out Youtube videos by Nigel Armitage. Nigel has several saddle-stitch videos and a some project videos as well. UKSaddlery's videos are also well worth a look! (They are also members here, and occasionally kick in with answers to questions). The last thing I'd add is sharpening tools. Leather cutting tools must be sharp. VERY sharp. There are a lot of options here, and you may well have stones, a strop, etc. already. The leathercraft tools book above gives some good info on how to sharpen tools. There is a forum on here all about sharpening that's very useful. If you're on a budget, the Scary Sharp method works well, although I feel their suggestion to use "float glass" is overkill. I use my glass topped coffee table and it works well. There is also a youtube video by Paul Sellers showing the scary sharp method on wood chisels. It'll give you a good idea of how this works. I should add here, that even utility knife blades from the box, while sharp, often still have grinding marks on the cutting edge and can benefit from some stropping to make them really sing. Also worth noting, sharpening is a handy, life long skill that's terribly useful. My kitchen knives are now more useful than ever since I've learned to sharpen well! Hope that helps Bill

The isopropyl rubbing alcohol that you get from a drug store comes in two varieties. 70% and 90% concentration, with the balance being water. The price difference is small, so I usually stick with 90%. I don't know if it makes a difference, but for pennies why gamble.

Aside from the "darn that's so cool" quality of using old tools, they really are better IMHO. If I were starting over again, I'd skip the new tools and only buy old .. I've got some real crap new tools. As I mused in another thread, I think the old timers who used these tools day in and day out were willing to pay a premium price for tools that would (and often did) outlast them. They depended on these tools for their daily bread and butter. Even the best modern tools are comparatively cheaper to buy, but good quality can be had at the right price. Unfortunately, for now "The Boss" has forbidden any leather tool purchases. Just when I've seen a few that I'm lusting after too! LOL. A friend of mine is a laid off machinist, and I've given some thought to seeing if we can come up with some startup cash for tooling to make some true quality tools. I think you're right, there IS a market for them. Maybe we should make it happen! Bill

The sheaths were a fun project to design and make. They are the thickest things that I have sewn to date, which presented its own challenges. The beltloop, back, and strap are all one piece. I made a mistake on the Gomph sheath and have the strap coming off the same side that the knife slides out from and it gets in the way a bit ... better to have the strap on the sewn shut side! I may still cut the strap off and rivet a new one on going the other direction, but haven't decided yet. Another lesson learned from a straight knife sheath that I made previously was to put a thicker piece of leather between the back and welt to help offset the handle from the loop a bit.