DJole

Your dog is too smart! Give her a merit badge!

For security, you can't go wrong with the bowline. It doesn't come untied by itself or slip. It can also be untied easily, if you need to. Scouts and climbers know and use this knot for those reasons. The hangman's knot has a cool name, but I don't know if you can depend on it in this case.

The whole piece is a great design in which all the elements work together. That is some very nice work with that "scale"-look stamp-- getting geometrics to work is a pain, but you did it very well here. Maybe you shouldn't hide the work by using a colored antique dye/stain at all, but a highlighter, instead, which will darken the leather slightly but help the tooling to "pop." The stamped elements already have a nice dark contrast, and I'm not sure that darkening them would be an improvement. This looks like a job for the scrap leather test!

What kind of project is it? Is it thick veg-tan (like a sheath) or softer leather (like a purse)?

An interesting question. It could be one long row, with a single stitch down the middle which makes the pocket, like this example: (the colored line is the middle stitch.) or it could be this way: My thinking is the second way, to reduce the leather thickness like you say. I am curious to see what the actual experts think about this. I'd spend some time with some templates and possibly some scrap leather, making a mock-up.

Maybe these past threads will help you find the answer you need. I don't know enough to risk answering you myself!

Nice work -- but you only show one side! I want to see the other side, too!

This is a practice piece, looking closely at patterning, and stitching. And it's green -- because I wanted to use some of my nice Angelus green dye and some Forest Green linen thread. My brother-in-law is a Green Lantern fan, so he gets first crack at it, but if he doesn't want it, I'll find another home for it. I learned some important things with this project: 1) I get straighter stitch lines if I don't try to make holes in all three layers at once. I laid out the lines and (using my 3 mm stitching chisel) made the holes on the top layer only, then I marked the ends of the next line on the next layer down. I then made a nice straight line going from one set of marks to the next, and then made holes along that line. Same for third layer. 2) Make the inner piece slightly bigger than I plan for, because trimming to fit is better than trying to get it exactly right. 3) cutting card slot pieces is exacting work. 4) skive, skive, skive!

You might also find what you need at Brettun's Village: https://www.brettunsvillage.com/leather/hideindex/ They stock sole bends, and they also will cut you a partial hide if you don't need a full piece.

Using a GRINDER?! Egads.... good thing you rescued this antique beauty from its tormentor!

I'm working on an idea for a wallet. I'm thinking about using a nice piece of soft green garment leather for the outside, with a cutout "window" showing a white background (a nice piece of white garment leather). Both the green and the white background will be stitched to a thicker piece of tooling leather. I'm thinking about the best way to stitch it, after gluing it down, considering the following diagram: (A) represents the normal saddle stitch, close to the edge. The edge of the green is not underneath the thread. (B) represents the other possibility, where the stitch passes over the edge of the green, locking it down and precluding the possibility of the edge being pulled up as the wallet goes in and out of the pocket over years of use. Is this something anybody here has experience with? There are two other possibilities: 1) Forget the inlay idea, and just tool the design into the leather. 2) Keep the inlay idea, but cut it into the tooling leather instead, dye it green, and then stitch the white background behind the tooling leather. What do you folks think?

Lovely work! I like the curved lines for the inlay. Too beautiful to hide in a pocket!

It's hard to stamp after you mold the leather into a shape. It could be done, but it would require a molding object rigid enough to stand up to repeated blows and to make crisp impressions. Plus, you would now be working in 3-D, instead of working on a flat surface. So stamping or tooling is going to come first, before you mold the tooled/stamped leather around the object.

Nice work -- Great design on the dragon and the color work. I really like the wings turning to birds. I can't imagine trying to cut that intricate design by hand-- I need a laser, too. Anybody got a spare one?

I find that the woodcut matches my abilities. I'm not up to the realistic, more natural looking modeling, but woodcuts are pretty straightforward: where there's a cut in the wood, there's a cut in the leather. It's basically outlining, with thick and thin lines, background and foreground. Not much 3-D modeling needed, but there's enough there for the tooling to work.

Got it all stitched up and ready to roll: There's our front Samurai, with Antique black all around him, which matches the worn, pseudo-historic look of the white-dyed skin. Inside the wallet, with card slots. I'm not sure what happened down in the lower left corner -- one hole short on the inside, but not on the outside! So I took an extra stitch through one hole, and the outside looks fine. The outside of the wallet, with the edges all blacked (permanent Sharpie marker makes it so easy!) and slicked with gum tragacanth. So now it's all ready for its new owner! I hope he likes having a one-of-a-kind wallet like this!

For my tooling things, I use something similar to this, with modular compartments so I can change the sizes to fit the tools. My modeling tools, awls, swivel knife, sharpening stones, lacing and stitching chisels, and burnishers all fit here. However, this only holds half the tools--- the bigger tools (mallet, L square, strap cutter, rivet assortments, thread and needles, sharp tools) are in a box. And the leather dyes are all in their own box!

The blue fringes are surprising touch of whimsy-- a nice idea! Can you do a closeup on that tooled flap? Western floral isn't my thing, but I still love to look at and learn from good tooling, no matter the style.

Here's a work in progress--- this is the outside of a wallet, using a historical woodcut as a design. The dyes are Fiebing USMC Black, Fiebing Red, Angelus Tan, Fiebing White. I like how woodcuts translate to leather. I was also pleased by how the white turned out -- it looks antique here.

If it's not a raised letter, perhaps using the inverted carving technique would work? The line would still need to be wide enough to do this, though, and that doesn't seem to be your case here.

I've been working on augmenting my existing arm protection, which is adequate for nylon sword simulators, but I want more for steel. Plus, armor is cool! This is the whole shebang together: Leather: unknown source -- I have a variety of veg-tan leather, and these pieces are from the bellies I got last year. Dye: Angelus Burgundy, and gold Acrylic paint. The arm guard is meant for motorcyle use, but it covers all the bone points of the elbow and has a nice 90 degree articulation. But that 90 degree caused problems in this design -- originally there was just one piece riveted to the plastic plate. But I found that I need the arm to close to a more acute angle than 90 (30 or 40 degrees), so the elbow kept popping open and locking. Oops... So this is my solution-- I cut the piece in half, and added an articulating lame at the back. So now I get this: Note the lugs just under the circular pivot joint -- those are meant to only go 90 degrees, yet they can pop out under stress. The articulated lame lets the arm bend more: You can see the cracks in the cuir boulli leather -- there are just so many variables that make it a risky proposition. The surface here is rigid, but the leather underneath is not. The lame is water hardened a different way-- I got it wet, shaped it and dished it (onto the plastic here) and then let it dry in the sun. I am lot more satisfied with that method (I've used a wall heater in the winter to do the same thing). I used split rivets to fasten the lower leather piece to the plastic (easier to remove them in the future) after drilling three holes in the plastic. The rerebrace is closed using cotter pins -- eventually I may have additional holes so that I can close it tighter if I want. And inside, held on by the bronze covered rivets, is a Kydex plate (.080 thickness), heated into a nice U shape with a heat gun, adding a layer of plastic rigidity to the leather. Here's a shot of the backside: The cutout over the split rivet will make removal a lot easier. The articulating lame is sewn to the lower plate, and riveted to the upper plate. After I put the articulating rivets in, I'll test this Wednesday night and see how it goes. I may also take the heat gun to the plastic "dish" pieces and flare them out so they'll "catch" on each other, preventing any pop-open.

Your brown block seems to be a sharpening stone of some sort, for the swivel knife or other sharp tools. I don't recognize the hardness or the grit, but my guess is it seems to be a fine grit Arkansas stone. Is that wooden handled tool an edge creaser?

That's an interesting "negative" effect!

What nice work! I am happy to see that you were able to develop this into a small business, too. More success to you!

It's always scary to post your work and have others look at it. But take heart -- we understand you are just learning, and we want you to feel the joy and accomplishment of getting a piece to look right. You've got the ideas of various tools; now it's just a matter of practice with the basics! Here are some things that I see, based from my own learning experience: 1) You seem to have cased the leather correctly -- you have pretty crisp imprints, without excessive mushiness, and that helps. I see your granite slab there, and that makes a big difference in tooling. 2) The beveler tilt is not uniform -- it's not a stamp, so you shouldn't see the whole "footprint" of the tool. It needs to be consistently leaned into the cut a bit off the 90 degree vertical so that the "uphill side" (away from the cut line) fades to nothing. You can see where sometimes you did that, and sometimes not. 3) The beveler needs to be "walked" along the line so that it becomes one continuous line, rather than discrete imprints. Use a series of lighter taps with the mallet and a continuous motion along the line. It's a "tappity-tappity-tappity" motion, rather than a "*smack* -- move the tool--*smack*" action. It takes time to get your hands to do this, and properly cased leather makes this possible. I have found that It may also be necessary to go over the same bevelled line multiple times to smooth out the tool marks. It's a pain, but it's worth it! 4) Using a lighter touch on the beveller will also help you follow curved lines. You can see this in the wing edges, where the delicate curves look like a series of straight lines. Part of that may be the cutting of the lines, which leads to... 5) Swivel knife practice -- the knife must be sharp and stropped, and the leather properly cased and ready to carve. Then, you need to practice cutting curved lines. Spend some time learning the feel for the tool so you are relaxed when cutting. It should be like drawing, rather than actually trying to "cut" the leather with force. I can tell you are still tense and unsure of the lines, so they end up straighter instead of sweeping curves. We all go through this at the start! 6) It seems you are cutting deeply enough, but I am not sure-- people who have more expertise can correct me if I am wrong. 7) That's an ingenious use of the textured pear shader for the eyes! I think that the effect would have been better if the tool had not been turned for the 2nd eye (so the pear shape orientation matches on both eyes). And to suggest the convex bulge of an actual eye (rather than the concave tool-print), maybe bevelling around them would work? It may be possible to do modelling from the back to push the eyes out, but that may be more than you want to do. It's also possible that there is one tool, a concave shader or flower center, that would do this, but I don't know if it's worth the time and money trying to find the ONE tool just to make dragonfly eyes! 8) I see you did some bevelling on some of the lines on the front legs and the face area, but not doing all the lines makes the design look incomplete. If you didn't do them because you realized your beveller was too big, then you know that a smaller beveller might be something you need to have! (That's what happened to me.) 9) Doing all six legs is a scary proposition, because in real life they are very thin! I am guessing this is why you only did the front two. It's possible to make a thinner line than the ones you used here, bevelled on both sides. It takes some practice, though, especially if the lines aren't straight! Or what might be possible is to not tool them (so they stand above the leather) , but sort of "draw" them in with the stylus end of a modelling spoon tool. 10) Using the camouflage tool on the body was a good idea. But up towards the head some of those lines got tilted and crushed together, like you were rushing it. 11) Dragonfly wings would be tough to do in leather, since they are delicate and lacey! I think I can see why you went minimalistic here, because doing those wings with all those lines would be a LOT of fiddly, complex swivel knife work. (I Googled dragonfly images, just to see what it might entail .) But it does leave the design looking half finished. Maybe using a checked backgrounder tool might work to suggest the texture of the wing. There are my 11 cents worth of comments. A dragonfly is a nice subject, and not a simple one to tackle -- I certainly didn't try doing realistic insects back when I first started, so good on you!