TwinOaks

Excellent work! Please check your PMs, I have some added thoughts to share.

Another one that is pretty amazing.... Gerber foods (Gerber baby food) decided to help with a food shortage in India (this was around the '70s). So, delivered LOTS of babyfood. Absolutely none of it was used and the Indian relief agencies wouldn't distribute it. As it turns out, the good people at Gerber didn't do their homework. At that time, it was very common for the food containers used in India to have a picture of what type of food was in the jar. Gerber just sent over a large shipment of what is sold here.....little jars with the cute baby on the label The pretty much just dumped the rest of that shipment and sent another shipment that had pictures of carrots, taters, beans, etc., on the labels which were gratefully received.

There's also quite a bit of cultural idiosyncrasies coming into play. In the '70s Chevy introduced a car model that sold well here, but sold NONE in Mexico. It was called the "Nova".....but translated, that's Spanish for "Won't Go".

It's most likely a name that plays on the sound of "curación"......literally 'the healing' Curar is the verb that is to cure, heal, etc. And "they are" is 'son' .....and example: Son divertidos = are fun , with a translator...but 'SON, is the present tense of 'SER' - (to be) for they/them.....so while 'they' isn't indicated with a word, the verb tense of "son" means 'they are'. So, 'son divertidos' means "they are fun". I suspect it's a trade name given to a design much like Tucker Gun Leather called one of his holsters "The Answer". In this case, it's probably meant to say that all the problems of purse design have been fixed in that design.....and in this case (working from the quick lesson above) it sounds like Yoda is describing the purse......"Fixed, they are."............in a nut shell, the perfect purse. A proper translation would be "son curado"...but that just sounds pompous. Besides, I'm speculating, and using some WAY rusty skills....Heck, it could even be a Spanish colloquialism on a word from another language...like Portuguese. (don't bother, I checked) Or it's just a name chosen for the design.... If you think about it, there's not much sense that goes into marketing names. For example, some fool named a perfume "Chanel 5".....around my parts, that's just the CBS station. But come to think of it.....sometimes they stink, too, so maybe it is a valid name...

JJL has it. You'll need to cant the pistol to make the grip 'higher' and then form the holster to keep more of the slide in the leather. Also, relieve the area directly under the trigger guard so that it doesn't interfere with the grip.

I agree, it looks like vegtan. When it's soft like that, I consider it a good find.

Any of them 'could' be, it just depends on the hide, the way it was tanned, and the way it was split. The two sides of a piece of leather are typically called the grain side and the flesh side. The grain side is the 'outside' of the hide. It should be smooth. The flesh side can have multiple textures - If it's a lesser grade, it can be stringy. It can also be slightly rough because it's been pasted down (called plating), slicked at the tannery, or sueded. Sueding is a brushing of the flesh side that raises a very light nap....well, like you'd find on suede. Suede is typically made from 'splits', which are left over from splitting full thickness hides into lighter weights. One of the types of leather that is particularly soft is Deer Tanned leather. If you go by Hobby Lobby, that is what they sell in the leather dept. as 'garment' leather. Deer tanned leather is typically cow hide that's been tanned to give it properties similar to deer hide. It's not suitable for carving/tooling. Can you post a pic of it or tell us where it came from ? Wanna discuss it in Chat instead of here?

It does sound like you've got a little nerve reaction going on....but I don't know if it's damage or over stimulation. Start a little tooling on some scrap, and see if you're holding the tool hard enough to 'white knuckle' it. If so, there's your problem. I've experienced similar sensations, but not from tooling. I used a rattle can to paint some I-beams, and for a couple of hours afterward, I had a slightly 'hot' feeling in the tip of the finger that was holding down the button. Then again, depending on how fast you're tooling, you may have aggravated it the same way a vibrational tool does.

The short answer is Yes. Some tooling can be done while the leather is un-molded. However, if you're going to use the cuir boulli techniques, it could easily 'erase' the tooling. Re-wetting a tooled piece can cause the depth of the tooling to decrease as the leather fibers swell from water. Simple things like carving lines or curves could be done before molding, but intricate details risk being wiped out. If you have a piece that's going to be bent, then that will almost certainly distort the tooling. It's all going to depend on how detailed the tooling will be. My experience in this is based on molding holsters and sheaths, so it isn't quite the same, but the principles are pretty close.

I never could, but since the OP specifically mentioned the other two, I just stayed with them.

I don't have either so I'm commenting based on reports from others - Get all the machine you can. Both have similar sewing capabilities ( 3/4 to 7/8ths inch) and thread ranges. The primary physical difference is the amount of room under the arm. More is better. There's also the issue of customer service. I suggest reading some of the recent threads about Artisan support, and comparing them to reports of Toledo Ind. Sew.

Welcome to Leatherworker.net! For a first project, your angled basket weave looks just fine. What stands out the most to me is that even lacking a border, you did a VERY good job of not running the legs of the basket stamp into the 'blank' area surrounding the pattern. I see a few here and there, but overall, you've correctly stamped it to avoid the little leg marks. I believe you still have room, if you want to tool on that anymore, to run a camouflage tool around the BW. The camo tool is the one that has the lines spread out like spokes...but really bunched up. One of the things it's useful for is going around the outside edges of a stamping pattern and filling in/cleaning up those little stray marks. That gives a nice visual termination of the pattern. If I may suggest a few items for reading, I think it will better explain (and with pics) some of the things mentioned above: http://leatherworker.net/forum/index.php?showtopic=20177 it's not the same stamping that you did, but the photos show how the camo tool is used. http://leatherworker.net/forum/index.php?showtopic=18101 This is an excellent guide for edge work. http://leatherworker.net/forum/index.php?showtopic=12259 a written description of hand sewing There are, of course, more threads full of advice, opinions on what's best, etc. These are just some of the more useful ones to get you started. As Bill pointed out, what you used on your project was a lacing chisel. Recently we had a thread about stitching chisels, and despite my bias towards using an awl, the photos of the chisel's holes make me think that they do have a place in this craft - apparently, somebody snuck in a different tool design when we weren't looking! Here's the thread: http://leatherworker.net/forum/index.php?showtopic=43327&st=0 Either way, whether by awl or stitching chisel, the holes will have a diamond shape to them that will help lay the thread in a certain pattern. If you prefer the look of the straight line, that is 'okay' because it's YOUR project. There are few hard 'rules' on the way things are done with leather....but we will try to advise you of the methods that have worked best for us over the years.

Jeg kan ikke ha svarene, men jeg vet hvem du skal spørre!

And just to make sure it isn't overlooked...you are holding the top and bottom threads for the first couple of stitches, right?

So now that you're down the first big drop on the roller coaster, you're having a blast.....Great to hear!

Excellent execution of the design!

Thank you for taking the time and effort to look into the issues. I have just successfully browsed the site with the same laptop that was popping up warnings in FF and having search feature issues in the other browser....and I didn't clear the cache or anything else along those lines. Results: Load time was a little long, but that's probably on my end. Once the main page had loaded I was able to view the categories as they (presumably) were designed.....and in reasonable times. It was just the front page that was a bit slow....again, probably on my end. Categories were able to be individually searched, or in combination. Also....and perhaps most importantly, the site loads as a secure site. From my perspective, it looks like everything that was causing our issues has been addressed. I'll defer to the folks with the IT experience to report on any other issues Again, thank you for taking time to address our concerns.

I got ya now....I was envisioning a lead with a snap clip on the end, and needing to protect the lacing from the metal ring on the snap. Yep, forget the rawhide. vegtan dyed to match, or contrast should work just fine. Then again, if you've conditioned your strands well, and they're beveled so that there's no 'edges' in the braid, it should slip past itself just fine.

Exceptional work as always, Ken. Can you perhaps do an edit and drop the pic sizes a bit...say 600x800? Those are pretty large and take quite a while to load for those of us using an abacus.

Something like that ^, but out of a leather. You don't have to use rawhide, but it's worth considering because it IS tough. You could also just use some regular vegtan, or even chrometan garment leather....all you're doing is making buffer. As far as using strips of kangaroo....sure if it'll stand up to the metal.

meh.....it's okay....if you're into that type thing. JOKING! Fantastic work, and a well deserved win, Ed.

Welcome to LW.net! One of our long time members recently moved back to Scandinavia, but I can't recall which country she's in.....I'll shoot her a PM and see if she can chime in with some recommendations.

How do you feel about chemistry? I've made close to that color, but I'd call it more of a "linda blair green" than OD....just mix up a batch of vinegaroon and leave a dauber handle in it....well, any zinc plated metal will do, really.

Yep, that was one of the threads I was thinking of. The issue seems to be the effect of a metal ring on appearance of the 'roo, so I'd say if you can, get a small piece of rawhide to line the loop with. I'm sure you've seen cables with the metal 'eye' in the loop, and I think that would work well. Simply use the rawhide to make your burner in the braided eye and you can use the metal rings without damaging the kangaroo. If you can't find small amounts of rawhide at Tandy, look at pet supply stores for the rawhide chews. Better stores will have better quality rawhide strips/rolls and you can simply wet it, flatten it, and cut out what you need....a word of caution though: I think they have something else added to the rawhide...I just don't know what it is. But for experimentation, it's a cheap source of rawhide.

Good work for 3 weeks out of the gate. Basket weave stamping takes a good bit of practice to run straight and like Mike said, some very lightly scribed guide lines will help out. Also, for the camo stamps along the edges, I've found it works well to have a guide line for them too. When you run the BW along the edges, tilt the stamp so that you don't get a full impression along the edge, and do the BW first. That way the camo stamp will cover the lighter impression of the BW. A border line, whether it's stitched or just creased into place gives a nice look.