billybopp

Personally ... I like this style in fox. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YNHXFviVb8I

It might be helpful to find some pics of what you want to achieve and post them on here. It would be much easier to help you then. Bill

OOHHHH.... Do the Rush 2112 cover!!

I love the mask. That's awesome! But white leather dye totally sucks ... Worse than useless. That is the path to heartbreak and pain. I have tried a few types and found nothing but disappointment. If you need white, go with white acrylic paint. Bill

Clean and organized? A clean and organized workshop? A sure sign of a sick mind if you ask me. Bill

I do get spell check in LW.Net ( as a matter of fact, it does not like LW.Net ). Fortunately, I will not be typing anything about underwater inspections, and am therefor unlikely to offend anybody here. Bill.

Spell checkers can certainly have problems of their own. Many years ago, I was consulting with a civil engineering firm, and heard this story from some of their people. They were preparing a bid for some work on a large bridge, and turned the typing of the formal proposal over to a temp secretary. The last thing that she did was to run a spell check before sending the proposal out. Well, that nearly resulted in a sexual harassment suit by the government agency taking those proposals. It seems that the spell checker felt that "Underwater Inspection" should really be "Underwear Inspection", and changed every single instance. Yup. Spell checkers are interesting. Bill

Maybe blue leather ... From Babe, the blue ox.

Welcome aboard sbpark. All good advice above, but don't forget that there are other tools that you'll need as well, many of which you may already have around the house. I'll second barry king tools. They are good and will last a lifetime. You'll need a surface to tool on. A big slab of granite or marble works great, and can often be found cheap if not free from the scrap pile of a local countertop place. I found mine on a trash pile at a house that was being renovated, and covered the bottom with a big piece of felt so that it won't scratch my table. You'll need hole punches for strap ends and belt buckles if you are using them. You'll need a cutting board or poundo board for punching holes, etc. You'll need a knife, long straight edge and probably cutting surface for cutting leather. A utility knife with the best blades you can find works well and isn't expensive. The same goes for an x-acto knife. I use a 4ft aluminum straight edge with a cork backing to help guide my cuts. The cork backing helps prevent the straight edge from sliding around. I also use a huge self-healing cutting mat that's really nice. You'll want honing and sharpening supplies for your cutting tools to keep them in good shape. Even the nice sharp disposable blades can be improved with a little honing and stropping. A square of some sort can be very helpful in laying out designs and cuts. You'll need edger/bevelers, and burnishing tools and supplies. Check out this post for a great tutorial on finishing edges http://leatherworker.net/forum/index.php?showtopic=18101 You'll need dyes, thinners, antique dyes, and finishes along with their respective supplies such as daubers, rags and brushes, and disposable gloves. A good place to start with guitar straps is with a pre-made template. They are a great help and confidence builder. Some good ones can be found at http://www.blackriverlaser.com/ There are a lot of other items that can be helpful that you can often find lying around the house, such as bottle and jar lids for helping make rounded cuts. Bottles and jars are good to have around for thinned dyes, etc too. Here are a few pictures of straps that I've made using a blackriverlaser template. Hope that helps! Bill

One thing to bear in mind in the Chevy vs. Ford debate is the companies' differing philosophies regarding upgrades and "improvements". I don't know if they still work this way, but traditionally Ford would launch a new design or re-design with new body style, and most of the drive-train new, and then incrementally make small design changes and improvements as necessary. So, if you happen to bought one of those in the first year or two were likely to have any and all kinds of problems. After that, they were pretty stable and good. GM, on the other hand would launch body, engine, transmission and other components individually every couple of years, so you could end up with a vehicle with engine troubles, or transmission troubles, but everything else good. Bill

I have a variety of knives for different situations. My go to knife for cutting larger pieces of veg-tan is a nice heavy utility knife with high quality blades, which I strop to improve the edge even further than out of the box. For finer detail cuts, I use an x-acto knife with either the z-line blades #11, or if the leather is a little thicker a curved scalpel type blade #10. The scalpel blades are less susceptible to bending and give a more perpendicular cut in thicker material. For thinner and strechy leather, I use a Olfa large rotary cutter. ( I have both 45mm and 60mm rotary cutters, but mostly prefer the 60mm). If I need a circle, I use an Olfa circle cutter. For skiving belts and straps that are not too wide, I use a vintage Wilkro razor blade plane that I picked up on fleabay. For skiving larger items, I use a tandy splitter or a safety skiver. I also have a head knife, that I occasionally use for cutting and skiving, but it does not see a lot of use. If I need a smaller piece of leather cut totally square, I use a rotary paper cutter such as this http://www.amazon.com/Fiskars-Classic-Rotary-Paper-Trimmer/dp/B000YAJHVE/ Heavy leather shears are often useful as well. The shears, head knife and wilkro are the only ones that I actually bought specifically for leather work. I already had the others around the house for other various uses and projects. Bill

Thanks for posting that story! Awesome. I found this newspaper article to go along with your story. http://www.rarenewspapers.com/view/581943 Bill

Just a thought ... But I wouldn't plug that in right next to that gasoline can! It could really light up your life.

Hmmm. I'm thinkin' there just might be a market for Macho Daddy Diaper Bags©.

I don't know if the size is the same, but use something like this: http://www.tandyleather.com/en-usd/search/searchresults/8112-00.aspx Bill

I bought some cloth athletic tape to wrap around my fingers so that they do not get cut. Bill

Best patterns anywhere ( other than the ones shared on here ) is found at the local Goodwill store or other thrift shop. Find a kit like you want, pay $2 or $3 for it, take it apart seam by seam and use it as your pattern!! Bill

That really looks awesome, Chriscraft! Thanks for the demo. You've really come across a good idea. I don't think using tools as these is cheating at all. There is some evidence that Vermeer, and other renaissance artists used camera obscura to draft their works before painting. I say, good enough for the old masters, good enough for us too! Bill

It's usually the simplest ideas that make the coolest things! Thanks for the pattern, Tom! Bill

Chriscraft .. You realize, of course, that this now means that you will need to post a series of pictures of the entire process from initial artwork through projection and transfer to completed item. Right? Bill

I haven't used one in ages, but with the correct lenses and setup, there's no reason why it would not work. For that matter, a computer video projector would do much the same thing using computer images .. again, given the right lenses and setup! Great idea. Bill

Very nice work Kymberly. You'll find that dying leather is much like painting with watercolor, with two major differences: You don't have a pure white base to work from, so you have to adjust for that a little, and dye tends to spread somewhat more on leather than do watercolors on proper watercolor paper. Neither difference is difficult, but you have to adjust a little. As for dyes, I use a mix of fiebings pro, fiebings regular, and eco-flo pro for different colors and effects. I tried the regular eco-flo dyes, and they are not worth messing with IMHO. The Al Stohlman books on color leather dying are pretty good resources, even if they are dated. Many of the dyes used in them have been replaced with "newer models", but the techniques are still as sound as ever. If you can't find hard copies, they are available online for download Tandy's leathercraftlibrary.com, Coloring Leather and How to Color Leather are both good with a little overlapping info, but enough different to make them both worth a look. I was not so impressed by the Eco Flo book, particularly for the price. Here are a few examples of the color work that I sometimes do: Keep up the good work! Bill

Samar. You need to stop leatherworking. You are making the rest of us look bad. Seriously, once again beautiful work! Bill

I'm pretty sure that DavidL is preparing for the soon to come worldwide zombie apocalypse. He is set to be the world's sole remaining leather craftsman when that happens with control over the entire market and the entire supply chain from beef/hide on the hoof to the high end bag market. He will be supplanting Hermes, Gucci, Louis Vuitton, and all of the other high end bag manufacturers at one go when all of their workers become zombified. When the money from high end bags is flowing in, he will then re-invest in more facilities and maybe even branch out into leather clothing to protect from zombie bites, and other practical items such as horse tack as the world devolved into a 19th century lifestyle. Yup. It'll be one heck of a business model! Bill

I use one of these for big holes in leather, or big round pieces for that matter. http://www.amazon.com/9911-CMP-1-Compass-Circle-Cutter/dp/B000BK7NWC/ref=sr_1_1?s=arts-crafts&ie=UTF8&qid=1423595151&sr=1-1&keywords=olfa+compass+circle+cutter Bill