Jeep1967

Thanks for the feedback and encouragement, Tara. I already started searching e-bay for "no letter" vintage craftool tools because I had heard from many sources that they are good quality and most are very reasonably priced. I added your etsy shop to my favorites a few months ago, before I knew you were a member here. I like the Celtic style of your work and some of your pieces have inspired me to draw my own Celtic carving patterns. They are currently works in progress along with some non-Celtic geometric patterns that I am drawing and would like to try carving. I am probably a little over-ambitious, because I would like to become proficient at many types and styles of leather carving and want to learn everything I can about all aspects of leatherworking. I am learning by reading, watching videos, and diving in and doing whatever I feel like trying. I learn a lot from doing and making mistakes, and the feedback from the helpful people on this site Thanks, again. Brad

Thanks, Bob. I'm not giving up. Just gonna wait til I can get a few more usable tools before I give it another try. I have learned a lot from doing these two practice carvings, and from the feedback given on here. Brad

Thanks, Tom. I had thought about using a backgrounder starting at the initial edge bevel and tapering it off towards the outer edges, but my background tool, like many of my tools, was cheap and wouldn't leave a decent impression, so I kind of skipped over that and forgot about doing anything with the background. I probably won't attempt any more carving until I can save up and get more tools that are better quality. Thanks, again, for the feedback. Brad

Thanks for the feedback, Thor. I had originally planned to use a smooth beveler, but after a few seconds, I realized that my smooth beveler is a piece of junk that is too rounded in all directions and made it impossible to tool with any precision or consistency. The checkered beveler was the only workable beveler that I had. My smooth pear shader was much too large, so I used the smaller, checkered pear shader. I didn't have any tool appropriate for doing the leaves, so I improvised with the knife cuts. Oh, and when I first started cutting with the swivel knife, I was using a new (smaller) blade that had not been polished enough and was dragging a lot. The dragging blade required much more variable force, which hindered my ability to make smooth cuts with consistent depth. About halfway though the cutting, I changed to the polished blade and it cut so much easier I have learned several things from this project and your feedback. 1. Think about, and make sure you have the tools you will need to complete a particular design. 2. Make sure your tools are in good working condition. Do some test cuts or impressions prior to starting your project. 3. I need to buy more, decent quality tools as my meager budget allows. 4. Too much checkering is not a good look. 5. A simple looking rose pattern is more complex than it appears. Thanks, Brad

Ok, second carving. I think I let it dry enough based on the tooling marks at the bottom of the first image. I started tooling the project after getting the darkest test stamps. Your feedback is appreciated, even if it is telling me I made the same mistakes.

Thanks for the tips. I may give it another try today using the plastic wrap and testing the leather to see when it is leaving darker impressions. I'll post the results here, if I do. And I won't dye it this time. Thanks, again. Brad

Thanks! I'll be sure to do that next time. Brad

Thanks for the feedback. I actually dyed it with saddle tan dye because I really wanted to see what it looked like when dyed. You can see the natural color on the right edge of the middle picture. I see what you mean about the burnishing effect. It is not as pronounced as it should be. I did a test after this piece where I cased a piece of leather and then stamped a few impressions every 15 minutes. It actually took about 5 hours of drying (well past lightening up to the original color) before I started seeing nice, dark burnishing effect. On my next try, I'll case a piece larger than my pattern and test stamp in the excess area to see when it is ready. I'd appreciate any other tips or suggestions on what and how I can do better.

This is my first attempt at carving. I didn't practice first, just dove in. The original pattern was a bit off because I was just tracing regular paper on cased leather and the paper tended to tear. I'll get some tracing film for future projects. By the end of this project I was beginning to get a feel for walking the tools. I only used a swivel knife, lined beveler, smooth pear shader, and a modeling spoon. I can still see some of my original cut lines and I'm not sure if I just cut too deeply or just didn't bevel deep enough. Your feedback is greatly appreciated.

I probably should have posted this in the "Critique my work" board. Since I am a newbie at this, I don't really have anything worthy of "showing off", yet. If a Moderator could move this for me, I would appreciate it.

This is my first project. It is a phone holster for a Samsung Galaxy Note 3 (pretty huge phone). I didn't have a pattern and just drew a template that I hoped would work. I know there are some issues with it. I trimmed the sides too close to my stitching and I need to work on making my stitches more neat and consistent. I had just finished burnishing the edges and they are still damp as well as the fold along the top and I have not conditioned or finished the leather yet. I am fairly happy with the results but know I need to improve and would appreciate any tips, critiques, or suggestions. Sorry some of the pics are wonky. I used a phone to take the pics instead of breaking out my digital SLR.

Hi all! First post for me. This has been something I have been very interested in. I took a few minutes and imported some tooling impressions into Inkscape, then used the "trace bitmap" function. The result is pretty rough, but definitely still useful for experimenting with tooling design. Here is a sample: Using "duplicate", "flip", and the "alignment" functions in Inkscape took me about 20 seconds to make the simple pattern above.