DJole

Wow... can anybody really top that? That's a great experience.

You mean men's dress shoes in Western (i.e. European) style, or some other kind of shoe?

Welcome to the forum! Looks like you're off to a decent start with the tooling on those pieces. I'm not so sure about the dye job on the right hand piece, the flowers and leaves. It seems that the green and pink are mottled somehow, or is that just an illusion?

Hey Kopio, welcome to the Forum! (I have a sister who lives in Meridian.) For a good place to start, try this: http://www.ianatkinson.net/leather/toolset.htm Ian Atkinson lives in the UK, and he has an excellent set of videos about how to construct basic leather articles, tools and their use, and so on. The webpage I reference there might be just the thing you are looking for. And you should definitely look through his videos!

Make boxes. Bottles and mugs. Masks.

What about split rivets? (such as these: https://ohiotravelbag.com/blog/wp-content/uploads/2016/09/set_split_rivet_3-907x430.png

Good work! That's so clean, with a lovely shape and design. How many times did this take you to reach this point?

heh! So excited you forgot to take pictures! Yeah, that's a common problem. (Of course, maybe your lucky friend can send pictures to you?) Was this a welted scabbard? I can see that the tip is wider than the throat -- by looking at the stitch line, it seems that the top of the scabbard was not sewn together to allow sheathing the blade. Is that right? Are those incised design lines, or stitched?

I haven't noticed this with the Royalwood thread, but I don't stitch with it frequently enough to be a good judge of this.

I can't picture it in my mind. Can you take some photos of what you mean and post them? That might help others help you out! (Welcome to the forum, by the way. You'll meet a lot of people with a LOT of helpful experience here. )

Purple bullhide... the mind boggles... ;-) But those will be truly unique shoes which, more importantly, keep your feet happy! (and dry... dry is good!)

Oh yes, of course! Now I see it! The parallax and reflections threw me off. Good eye, there!

Hey, that's nice set of boots for first time! I can see why you want to keep going after being pleased with them. Sorry, I can only comment on the picture.I know nothing about machines!

Someone referred the Ian Atkinson videos above -- those are great places to learn the basic craft. Once you get started on stitching, watch everything on Youtube by Nigel Armitage over in the UK, for information on expert saddle stitching. Like this one, for example (but realize also that he has many other videos on Youtube and his main website): https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TGuiha5S2oE

heh! I can just picture this happening (and I bet you were there to see it happen!)

How about this one from Ohio Travel Bag? https://ohiotravelbag.com/products/item/66c6aace-8181-4af6-8e1f-d5e0eb6fb583/Radio+Swivel+Clip+Black Or this one, which is closer to what the video shows? https://ohiotravelbag.com/products/item/0c1c3461-4d53-456e-8a0b-f0ffad4a1c18/Swivel+Clip+Nickel+Heavy+Duty

And if he ever needs it, he has some emergency paracord right there in that sheath! ;-) Seriously, though, that sheath looks like it'll take the beating an active forester will give it.

It looks like you are in Ohio, so you can easily get waxed linen thread at Royalwood Ltd., in Mansfield, Ohio. Website here: https://www.royalwoodltd.com/ I've ordered from them before, with good results. Lots of good color selection!

That's likely the same one I picked up, but mine has a hole in the center of the leg board. Easy to put one in with a drill, of course! Not hunching over is a good thing! It ought to do the trick just fine.

Keep the pix coming! this is great!

Got this in Seoul, capital of South Korea, a few days ago while on a tour. Cost: 28,000 won (about 28 US dollars). Hardwood (birch or maple), sanded but untreated. Uses a cam lock (red lever on the right, with wooden triangle to help reduce thread catching on the lever, I think) Cam can be adjusted by a screw on the opposite side of the lever. Jaws clamp to board with wingnut; hole in middle of the board and on the end. There were 3 other types of stitching clamps available; one was made with laminated wood, and the other was twice as long as this, going from the floor (I guess floor mounted?) I need to l line the jaws with thin leather before I start any stitching, though.

Just got back from a trip to Korea. On a day outing in Seoul, we managed to find the neighborhood in the city where leatherwork supplies can be found. It's located on the Western edge of the city, in the neighborhood of Sinseol-dong. Go east of downtown to the Great East Gate (Dongdaemun), where there is a subway stop by the same name. The subway line (line 1) going East from there stops at Dongmyo, and then the stop you want is Sinseol-dong. You can also take a spur of line 2 (the Green line) which terminates at Sinseol-dong. From Sinseol-dong station you need to go up to street level and east to the large intersection, where Choui-ro (east-west) meets Nangye-ro (running north-south). Look at the map below -- follow Nangye-ro SOUTH from the intersection, on the WEST side of the street until you see the smaller road Nangye-ro 27-gil crossing the main street east to west. (You could also get a taxi-driver to drive you to that intersection; as of September 2017 I estimate the taxi fare from the center of Seoul (Seoul station or the downtown palaces) to get here as 4,000 to 10,000 won depending on traffic.) Now you need to turn right and go to the WEST, following Nangye-ro 27-gil. it's not much of a road, more like a wide alley, but don't be fooled. Look at the Google maps road view below -- this is looking NORTH WEST from the intersection of Nangye-ro and Nangye-ro 27-gil. See that blue street sign in the center of the picture? That's what you are looking for. After maybe 50-100 meters you should find the store fronts that sell the stuff you want. Here is a picture of the first one along the line, looking back towards the intersection you just left. It's the small store to the center right, with the silver car in front of it. This first store you see here is full of rivets, decorative and functional. Some map applications in Korea (for smart phones or computers) can use the phone number to locate the store on a map, and the phone number of this shop is 031-528-1626. The other stores start west of this one. Google Maps streetview won't go down there, however. In my 15 minutes of looking I saw at least 3 stores FULL of rivets, grommets, etc. (HUGE bags of them, as well as small ones). One store had nothing but thread, thread, thread and more thread. Leather, buckles, tools, oh my! One store had paint, more sizes of hole punches than I knew existed, needles, thread, templates, and 3 different kinds of stitching ponies (I bought one for 20,000 won). I didn't go very far down the row, but I believe that skivers (big and small) and hides (including tooling) and elec I saw very few stamping and tooling supplies. Lots of leather and hardware, thread and coloring, for bags, clothing, and the like. (skivers, head knives, needles, strap end templates and punches, stitching chisels, etc.

From what I can see in the photos, I think you are not using the beveler correctly yet. Take a look at the crude diagram below-- The top line is a side view of what I think I see on your leather. You have made cuts, but you seem to be using the beveler to just widen the cuts, into a wider Vee-shape. The bottom line is what a beveler is meant to do: push down one side of the line into a smooth slope, making the other side of the line (the "cliff" in the diagram) appear to stand out from the surface. Also, ditto on the different sizes of bevelling tool sizes from the commenters above. Also, you might look into textured tools and see if you like the way those look.

Beautiful work! Sure hard to tell that's just a "practice" bag!