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DJole

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Everything posted by DJole

  1. A nice case! The instrument should be proud to live in a case like that.
  2. Maybe this fellow who posted here back in December can be your new hire: Posted December 10, 2018 I’m a leatherworker, i’m living in Viet Nam I have 4 years experience I can do any step for high quality product, design, handcutting, carving, dyeing, stitching.... I’m looking for job at somewhere speak English (US, Australia, Canada....) My email: ducduyqn79@yahoo.com You can search my Facebook by my phone number: +84903651030 My Instagram: tum_leather https://uphinhnhanh.com/image/Cf9sYd https://uphinhnhanh.com/image/Cf9yhG Some of my product: https://uphinhnhanh.com/image/CkCtlz https://uphinhnhanh.com/image/CkC2No https://uphinhnhanh.com/image/CkSPq4
  3. Why does your LARP group demand that you use leather, and not foam or plastic? If you're actually going to do combat LARP in that costume, you may find those shoulder pieces (pauldrons, sort of?), as designed on the character, ineffective: 1) A hit downwards on those sticking-out pointed shoulders will put a LOT of stress on whatever is used to attach it to the rest of the armor. They stick out so far that it would be very difficult to prevent any hits to them. 2) A hit sideways onto the shoulder bits is going to be guided straight into that un-armored bicep, or maybe the hit will pop the shoulder piece up to smack you in the side of the head. 3) If the arms are extended to the front, the shoulder pieces don't seem to be designed to turn 90 degrees to the front. Thus, if you arms are reaching out to the front, and you get hit on the shoulder piece, that will drive the edge of the armor into your arm. Depending on your weapon rules, that might hurt more than you want. (Leather should just give you a welt or a bruise, but you wouldn't want that with metal!) 4) Your LARP group (like most) may disallow hand shots, but those wrist bones are sensitive and tender, and getting a smack there might ruin your day. Plus, those "gauntlets" would dig into the wrist as you moved your hands, causing contusions and scrapes. Not very comfortable!
  4. Ah, yes, I've struggled a bit with this, too-- water hardening is often a hit or miss process that I spent a while playing with. So you got one test piece to work, and the next piece didn't -- was that a piece from the same hide? Everything you mentioned above shows you did your homework-- but leather hardening seems much less a replicable science than a dicey art. The type of hide may make a difference, too: belly or shoulder or sides have different characteristics, and the same hide can vary, depending on which edge of the side the leather comes from. I've tried some with bellies, and they just don't harden well. I've had better luck with a side, but even then it's difficult to keep the dimensions intact (due to uneven stretching).
  5. Not all designs need the ability to draw and sketch. If you can transfer a design that somebody else drew onto the leather, then the expertise comes in figuring out how to replicate that in leather. Some people do amazing, nearly photo-realistic work from drawings, using figure carving techniques to blend and shade. Others of us choose to do things like line drawings (or wood cut block printing), which work well on leather. I have some examples of this on my website: Serpent box <http://djole.altervista.org/djole/Publications/Leather/SerpentBox/SerpentBox.htm> Boar elbow guards <http://djole.altervista.org/djole/Publications/Leather/BoarElbow/BoarElbow.htm> Nativity panel <http://djole.altervista.org/djole/Publications/Leather/NativityPix/LeatherNativity.htm> Comet pouch <http://djole.altervista.org/djole/Publications/Leather/Pouch/CometPouch-1.htm> Dragon box <http://djole.altervista.org/djole/Publications/Leather/TomsTower/TomDragon.htm> As you can see, the lines are copied, but then the art is learning how to work those lines into the 3-d medium of leather, to get that dimensional look and feel.
  6. I always have to remind myself that paper is flat, and leather is not, so you have to take the thickness of the leather into account. If you've done that, you're ahead of the game!
  7. That's a nice introductory story! Welcome to the forum; lots of friendly people with lots of leather experience hang out here, and perhaps you can learn better techniques than cussing at the leather!
  8. Where did you get this from? a place like Harbor Freight? I've seen leather tools there before, and they are worth less than what one would pay for them there.
  9. you might give Inkscape a try. It's free: https://inkscape.org/ Inkscape is professional quality vector graphics software which runs on Linux, Mac OS X and Windows desktop computers.
  10. I enjoyed watching the time lapse video, paying attention to each step, then pausing the video and thinking about which tools and which techniques had just been used. The end result is a very nice piece of artwork.
  11. Cheese...I think they are made out of cheese! They do indeed have genuine leather, but it's just a thin cosmetic layer to hide the cheese.
  12. Good call with the bone folder!
  13. Nice work for the first project! You might need to polish your chisels to help them slide through the leather better. I did this to my Tandy diamond chisels and it did make a difference. My JapanGoods stitching chisels don't need it.
  14. Check out Ian Atkinson's videos-- he does a great job of addressing this question: Beginners’ Videos Top 25 Recommended Leatherwork Tools (45 mins) The Tools You Need for Leatherwork (15 mins) The Hardware You Need for Leatherwork (30 mins) Information About Dyeing Leather (45 mins) Choosing the right type, weight and quality of leather for your projects (35 mins) Hand Stitching Leather (1 hour 35 mins) Videos here===> <http://ianatkinson.net/leather/videos.htm> Now, if you're looking at learning tooling, that's a different set of skills.
  15. What YinTx wrote-- ditto for me. Also, use cheaper leather for learning and practicing things. Once you have a technique down, you are less likely to ruin a more expensive piece.
  16. If you are making a lot of them, then getting a cutting die made is the way to go. If you are making a few of them, then make a durable template for this (out of heavy cardstock, or plastic). Then you lay it on the leather and trace around it to get that same shape over and over.
  17. Keep the build-in-progress reports coming-- you never know when somebody else will want to do the same thing and find your experiences valuable. Let's see the coolness happen, step by step!
  18. Oh, that's a great piece! That's a real eye-catching (pun intended) design in so many ways! I bet you could sell a bunch of those.
  19. Ah, the puzzle becomes clearer now! First thing that comes to my mind is the decorative designs on the armor -- it seems to me that to get that same effect on actual leather, they would not be tooled on the surface, either with a pear shader tool or with a beveller tool. I think that modeling those lines from behind in an embossing effect, perhaps even wet-forming them over some kind of rigid mold, is the way to get those deep ridges. As for the black (which is your original question) -- hopefully some color and finish experts (not me!) can help you out here.
  20. On a Facebook group, somebody posted this video of a person making his own stitching pony out of wood. The maker creates an ingenious cam mechanism using a wooden cylinder.
  21. Hey, it's another Tacoma member! Welcome to the forum. As for the desired effect, if you can put a clearer picture up, then that will help viewers figure out what look you are trying to replicate.
  22. Angelus makes a Lt. Rose colored dye which I have used. It's quite pink! (See their online color chart: https://angelusdirect.com/pages/color-chart) You could also dilute it with their Neutral (colorless) dye if you desire.
  23. Condolences on the passing of your father-- may your leatherwork be a memorial to his life. Here are some names to go with the tool numbers posted above, as found on Tandy's current website. b197 = smooth beveler p206 = pear shader v407 = veiner c431 = camouflage s722 = seeder The following chart may help you figure out which tools you have (https://www.tandyleather.com/media/downloads/CraftoolConversionChart.pdf): 100 = background seeder (?) 429 = camouflage Some of your tool numbers I can't locate on the catalog or the chart, but now we've got a good start on what you have. You currently have a good starting set to learn the basics of traditional western floral style, except that you seem to be missing a background tool (see the A series in the PDF chart above-- A104, A114, A118). Recommending further tools depends on just what you plan on doing with them. (Like checkered backgrounders, mulefoot tools, border stamps, figure bevelers, etc.) Do you have a swivel knife and a way to sharpen it?
  24. Vegan leather is leather made out of vegans.... Right?
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