Windrider30

First pardon my french but skip using an awl. I used mine for about 5 minutes and jammed it under my thumb nail. After teaching my wife and the neighborhood kids a few dozen new swear words i ripped the awl out of my thumb and tossed that evil ice pick out the door. Now i use...hear the collective gasp. ..Tandy's pricking irons and love them to death. I do want to get a set that is 9spi but yes tandy's are a bit expensive but i love mine. What you really need is a pair of wing dividers and a set of good pricking irons and band aids as you will still put an iron through your finger once in a while...leaves a nice square hole in you. I set my wingdivider to an 1/8 of an inch (once in a great while just a bit more than an 1/8th depending on my project and leather thickness) then again depending on my project i use my...collective gasp..Tandy groover to run a neat line down the line my wing divider just made. The groover just protects the thread a little bit better. Then use my pricking iron and my mallet and try not to hit my hand with my mallet cuse that makes me scream out sumdabitch that hurts and the 6 year old neighbor kid has my southern accent down to a tea...funny to hear a 6 year old auzzie kid scream that out in a southern twang!!! The go about doing my saddle stitching. And i honestly believe after all of my projects...one messenger bag which took me 28 hours in hand stitching alone...I can claim to be an "expert " at hand stitching.

Ok as there are more then a few images and I am still working on this bag thought I would just post the imgur addy I have for this project Its a combo of Montana hide from tandy, and sheep skin as a liner I am just kind of stuck on how to hook the shoulder strap to the other bloody d-ring but I will figure it out will post more photos of the finished product. http://imgur.com/a/ywKx0

Birdsall is damn good for roo hide and the service is great

Ok from what I can find out yes this would actually be considered boning. Seems "boning" has two purposes and traditionaly an actual bone was used it would seem to help polish out a dye to help give it a smoother look. I have seen one thing on youtube where they are using a "bone" (metal rod) to put details into a wet formed holster so basicly boning a strop would be the same thing as using a glass slicker..with out the bone.

I have found with what little carving that I have done if I burnish it with the glass slicker it seems to make it easier to carve as well as seems to go a little deeper but that could just be me

I avoid using pigskin as I do not like the stretch that it has, started using sheep skin which is a nice feel and doesn't have the stretch that pigskin does, though of late my go too for inner part of the wallet is roo hide, very strong, very thin and easy to work with, but living in Australia I can get roo hide a bit cheaper then most lol. As for thickness really depends on your personal taste on if you prefer a thicker wallet or a thinner one.

I have used a glass slicker on a few things and it makes the leather rather stiff (tried it with a bracelet wrong idea lol) and really does smooth things out. As for boning the only kind of boning I know is for corsets, and those are either steal or plastic bones that are used to give the corset the vertical hold that cloth needs

Looks like a natural color to me

Very nice and the bottom part is a "normal" mistake when making your first wallet did the same thing. As for 4 to 5 oz being to thick really depends on your taste. I personally prefer my wallet to be a bit thicker so I use 4 to 5 oz for the outside and 3 oz for the inside some times. There is no "right" or "wrong" thickness for a wallet.

Got bored so decided to mess around with a small project, this came out rather nicely have one other style with two different variations that I will be making just to see how well it works. This is made from Tandy's Montana side (veg tan 4 to 5 oz leather with a nice feel and dye job) and sheep skin. Hand stitched took maybe an hour and half to do (most of that was letting the dye on the sheep skin dry enough to where I could handle it). Thinking of seeing if these will sell for around 15 bucks

Very nice

hmmm will have to give that a go as I do have a 4 prong angle lace pricker had not thought of that thanks JLS!

Yeah the sheep skin did rip a little easy but so does pig skin. Personally I dont like the lace all the way aroundvon a bi fold drives me a bit nuts.

I am going to cheat the top right the damn lace ripped the damn hole I punched (really just punched it a little to close to both tops) so I am going to round both ends off to match should be able to fix the lacing with a little bit of splicing and no one will be the wiser...so SHHHHHH. The sheep skin is roughly 1-2 oz saying around 1.5 I think. The Montana is 4.0z and its veg tan. I like both the double loop and really like the Mexican round braid but sadly did not have enough lace to do the Mexican round. Next project I will have to do some of it as I actually like braiding, drives me bat shit crazy at times but still gives it a good look.

Got a new hide that I have never worked with from tandy called a Montana side, along with a bit of sheep skin, which again haven't worked with this either so figured a simple bi fold wallet would give me a bit of a feel for the way the leather handles both have ab it more pull in them then what I am use to but do like the feel of both of them

Sorry it has taken me so long do you have a specific female in mind for this as there is an easy way to do it

Thanks I am getting a little better at the wood effect.

Ok after having to undo 2 hours of hand stitching because of a up!! UGG its finally finished! Decided to make another smartphone case but went with a bit of tooling this time, wanted to do another project with a wood grain look to it so here it is. Since we are limited on size of files we can upload and I am tired will just set the link up to the imgur photos I already have set up http://imgur.com/a/2fY0Q

I always dye the inside of any bag I do as to me it looks unfinished if it's not dyed but that is my own personal preference as you said no right or wrong answer to it. I tend to use what ever dye I am using to dye the inside as well just saves a little bit of work.

Yep finished it finally have an idea for the next one that will have an eyelet in it for the headphones right now I just cut an oblong hole for the head phones. It sits very comfortable on my belt, doesn't rub against anything and it looks rather stylish I think.

Here is the side of the case as you can see no sharp edges, actually going to curve the edges of the flap cover as well in a little while. Didn't turn out half bad for just an idea in my head.

Was a little bored so figured I would make myself another case for my phone. This is just a prototype that I had in my head figured I would give it a go. Only screwed up just a hair when it comes to the buckle and strap I wanted the strap to go all the way around the case even on the bottom well I kind of screwed up the measurement just a hair after I stitched it to the back. Ah well was an easy fix just cut the part with the buckle off and stitched to the front like I had originally planed just no strap on the bottom is all. I have my phone in a protecitive case already as I am a bit of a cluts and this thing is drop proof from up to 10ms but I hate having it ride in my pocket so this case has a slot for a belt loop. Phone sits nice and snug in the case. All hand stitched and all rounded edges did not want a typical square container kind of bag.

cool thanks

Decided to try and make a biker wallet design, turned out pretty good I think, and since I was on a leather kick decided that using a simple chain would not do so instead I braided 4 strains of kangaroo lace together to make the "chain". Saw the idea of the key on another photo some where and thought that was a damn good idea really. This actually has 5 extra slots (hard to photo them all) along with a three card slot above the key (couldn't fit any more in due to the size of the wallet.

HA I wish if that was the winning loto ticket my work space would NOT be the kitchen table any longer lol