zuludog

It looks good! There's nowt wrong with basic or simple. Search Google for 'English leather belts'

Put ' Bench Grinder drum Sander' into Google Put 'Armitage Leather Tools Leather Burnisher' into YouTube Both of those should give you ideas

You should skive on a hard, shiny surface - marble, glass, or your granite slab might be OK if it has been polished. I use the glass oven door from an old stove. As you skive at an angle, the blade edge slides over the surface of the glass and not directly downwards, so it doesn't get blunted by the glass, but of course, it will be blunted by the leather.

That's straightforward enough. Thanks

Are 'Head knife' and 'Round knife' two alternative names for the same thing, or is there a difference between them?

If you get on to this website & forum I'm sure you'll find someone who can make exactly what you want Where are you? Although it is a British website you will see that there are lots of members in the USA http://www.britishblades.com Some of the confusion stems from the fact that (I think) the British and the Americans call a left a right, and a right a left, if you can follow that. Then there is the decision of using it bevel up or down. I believe the approved method is bevel down, but there's no law to stop you using it bevel up. I have made my own skiving/paring knife by cutting & sharpening a decorator's filling or putty knife, but a good one with a forged blade, not cheap stamped. The blade is thin enough that the bevel is hardly noticeable, and so I can use it left or right as I wish. Have fun!

If you think you might have problems with the traditional hand held saddler's awl you could use a stitching chisel, though you might need to finish or tidy up the holes with an awl. Make sure you get a stitching chisel, not a lacing chisel or a pricking iron. Search YouTube for Armitage Leather. There are reviews & demonstrations of pricking irons & stitching chisels; 'Part 1 Tandy' is good for showing holes without the use of an awl, but they are all worth watching Could use a small drill like a Dremel. Start with 1.5 mm drills and see how you go. If you fancy a device like BearMan's Rapid Repeater, search Google for 'hand drill press' and a lot of the work will have been done for you. Then make an adapter to take the awl blade. If you wish you could use a Dremel drill press + drill then that's the job more or less done. BTW - congratulations, BearMan, your Repeater looks an excellent piece of work! As are the other tools you have shown.

A stanley knife with a very sharp blade should do for most cutting. The more you practice the more you will get better, neater, faster, and more confident Try this method. Mark out the pattern with a pencil, then scratch awl, then a light cut, then firmer/heavier cuts For very tight curves Tandy offer an Industrial Knife with 2 blades, #3595-00, but it's quite expensive at about £34 - $50? Not much point getting it till you've really tried a stanley knife as far as you can, especially as you already have one I treated my straight edge in a similar way, except that I used some very thin garment leather Have a browse through YouTube, especially Armitage Leather and Leodis Leather. You might not want to make specifically a wallet or a messenger bag, but those sorts of videos will show you most techniques

Thanks.

So you don't put any oil on the stone each time you use it?

There are other knives, such as a Japanese leather knife, and the traditional leatherworker's head knife, aka round knife, but only you can decide if you would like to try them, or pay the prices. Make a simple sheath or slip cover to protect the blade edge, and to prevent it cutting the things you don't want - like fingers! Whatever you get, you need to be able to get them very sharp. Search in YouTube for 'sharpening knives' . This video is interesting; although it describes wood chisels, the techniques can easily be used for knives. 'Preparing and sharpening a woodworking chisel - with Peter Sellers'. Have you got a strop? They're easy enough to make from odd pieces of wood & leather; Surf for tutorials & videos on making & using. Get your husband to buy you something - that's what they're for!

This is my way of cutting leather; I've posted it a few times, but I hope other members won't mind seeing it again. By chance, soon after I became interested in leatherwork I met a retired cobbler - in a pub, where else?! - and this is a summary of his advice. Find a craft/utility/box cutter type of knife that you like and is comfortable to hold. In Britain we often call these after the best known make, a Stanley Knife. Find some blades that fit well without wobbling; that will usually mean a fixed blade knife, which is cheaper than a retractable anyway. The blades are disposable, but seem to get better as you re-sharpen them. Use this knife for cutting leather only Mark the pattern with a scratch awl (hence the name!). The blade will follow the scratch, and then the previous cuts if you make more than one pass. The approved method is to cut all the way through in one pass, but it doesn't really matter if you need 2 or 3. You will need a second knife which can be anything you like. Use it for opening parcels, cutting string, sharpening pencils, and so on. It's purpose is to make sure you use the first knife exclusively for cutting leather "them green mats" are as good as anything he's ever used. That's it. I've been using that for years, and it works Sharpen the blades on a medium-to-fine oilstone or waterstone, and a strop Play around with the search box on YouTube - cutting leather - leather knives - using a Japanese leather knife. There's a lot of information there, but it's all a bit fragmented. Nevertheless, if you can work through the videos it's a way of getting ideas and 'instant experience'. Can also do a similar search for sharpening knives

This is my sequence for making a one piece knife sheath from 3.5mm veg tanned leather Make a pattern from stiff paper Transfer to leather & mark out Cut, including the welt (alright, that's two pieces!) Fold over, check & adjust the fit, hold with clamps if necessary I don't usually do any skiving on sheaths, but obviously this is the stage for it if you need to Dye? Sew the tail end of the hanging loop to the back of the sheath, as this will be inaccessible soon Glue Trim & even up the edges with a sharp knife Make the stitching line with a groover. If you are using ready dyed leather, might want to dye the groove Bevel the edges? Dye? Use a stitching chisel to both set the distances & make the holes. Tidy them up or finish them with an awl if necessary Sew with saddle stitch Bevel the edges? Tidy edges fully with sharp knife & sandpaper Apply gum tragacanth to the edges Burnish the edges Apply edge dye Burnish the edges Apply whatever leather oil or grease is your usual treatment As 11 above. Note that you can fit in bevelling & dyeing as I have indicated, to suit you or the work. A look at tutorials, and videos on YouTube will give you the professional version. If you have problems using a stitch marking wheel you could try a pricking iron instead. And if you have difficulty using an awl you could use a stitching chisel as this will both set the spaces and make the holes If you have problems with a marking wheel and an awl I wonder if you have got the Tandy starter set? The 4-in-1 awl in that set isn't very good. Keep it for the scratch/round awl, but get a simple fixed blade saddler's/harness awl. I'm sure someone would tell you a suitable American supplier Do a bit of searching on YouTube, especially Nigel Armitage

There was a similar thread recently under 'How Do I Do That' so here is my similar reply. I'm a bit of a dinosaur and a technophobe, and I've yet to learn how to use my digital camera and post pictures, but I hope my written descriptions will give you some ideas. Not really homemade, but home - improved. I have a knife I use exclusively for leatherwork. It's an old Stanley knife, with a smooth handle that tapers slightly from the hole end towards the blade; Stanley 199A. I find it particularly comfortable; they don't make it any more, I got it for £1 in a car boot sale. I fettled it with a small file & abrasive paper to remove any moulding faults, scratches, and to make sure the two halves mated well with flat surfaces; then sprayed it with car touch up paint. Although the blades are disposable I found a few that fit well without wobbling and re-sharpen them; they seem to get better that way. I have Tandy stitching chisels in the 88046 range. I polished & fettled those with a needle file & wet & dry paper Got an old decorator's putty knife at a car boot sale for 50p, Rather battered & rusty. Cleaned it up, cut the blade at an angle and sharpened it with files, oilstones & strop. That is my skiving knife. It is a good one, with a proper forged blade, brass bolster and, I think, a rosewood handle. I have two scratch awls. One is an old dart head, the other is a piece of hard steel rod that was part of a magazine binder. Cut & sharpened it. Handles are from an old file, and an old vegetable peeler. Made a strop from scrap wood & some split leather that came as part of a job lot. For sharpening compound I use Autosol chrome polish. Made a sewing pony from scrap wood and odds & ends. I don't use a bolt or clamp to hold it together, I use several turns of 1/2" elastic that came from some old waterproof overtrousers; wrapped round like a big rubber band. Not very pretty, but it does the job. I use the glass oven door off an old cooker for skiving, but I don't do any stamping, tooling, or carving. I had a cheap & nasty block plane with pressed steel body & plastic fittings. It's fiddly to use and I don't like it so I dumped everything except the blade, which seems quite good. Sometime soon I might try making the blade into a skiving knife or a Japanese style leather knife Made a flat leather burnisher & edge slicker, based on pictures on websites. Wood was a broken axe handle Speaking of improvising or using tools for other purposes, I have been reliably informed by a professional saddler that a head knife is just about the best thing ever for cutting up a pizza.

In Britain there is a lot of interest in restoring & rebuilding classic cars and other vehicles, including military vehicles. Also historical re-enactment groups, so you could consider Hoods, covers, tonneau covers for open top cars; covers & tilts for military vehicles Look at soldiers from any period - Roman, Middle Ages, right through to Napoleonic period and beyond. Lots of haversacks, knapsacks, belts, ammunition pouches and so on, in canvas and leather. American War of Independence & Civil War? Covers for restored and replica covered wagons? (perhaps I've been watching too many cowboy films!) There must be websites & magazines for this sort of thing, do your homework and see if you can spot any opportunities. Could offer to do a collaborative job with one of these groups at cost, just to get your name established, and would also help you find out what's required Car interiors would be good, but I suspect you would have to invest in a lot of stock & equipment for a relatively small & specialised market. But you can wait months to have such work done, so perhaps there is a gap in the market. Concentrate on one make at first? Now and again on this forum people have enquired about tuition & courses, on leatherworking of course. Can't remember the exact prices, but in Britain the cost of a leatherworking course is about £125 per day; £225 per weekend; and a few hundred for a week - that's just for the course, then you have to pay for accommodation. Could you offer something like that, but on your kind of work? Ask a local motel so you can offer a package deal

I've never really thought about selling till now, so here are a few ideas, though I have hardly made any of them myself Belt pouches, sometimes called 'possibles pouches'; look them up on Google Pouches for pocket/folding knives, including horizontal carry; custom knife sheaths. Include a few knives to demonstrate Key fobs; plain ones and some kind of stamp/creaser/brander/stylus so that you can put on an initial 'while-U-wait' Dog collars; for the furry kind, not the religious kind! Sharpening strops; a bit of cheapish wood & leather so people can sharpen pocket & kitchen knives. Take along a couple of cheap kitchen knives to demonstrate - Don't take anything expensive, it might get stolen. Take some polishing compound such as Autosol to sell for each strop, in something like an old 35mm film tub if you can still get them. Or demonstrate with an impressive looking Japanese kitchen knife, but keep your eye on it! A large sign that you are willing to do repairs or commissions - dog collars, repair dog leads/leashes; wallets with initials, or zodiac signs, reduced to basic diagrammatic outline; repair belts or make to order; repair handbags & shoulder bags. Take along a couple for display, and see if you get any commissions/requests. I'm British and I don't know much about guns, but it seems to me that there is a demand for holsters Loads of flyers, business cards; an order & general contacts book - take lots of pens & pencils, you're bound to lose a few. Make your own belt pouch/purse/money bag, a bit like the ones that in Britain, at least, bus conductors and milkmen used to use; it would be a shame to lose your takings or have them stolen, and will also advertise your wares & skill Take along a bit of 3mm veg tan leather and a few tools & thread, and part made items so you can explain the difference between mass produced and handmade/handsewn. you never know, someone might be willing to pay you for some tuition. It depends on how much business you want. For example; my main hobby is knife making, and leatherwork is a part of that, by making the sheaths. I sold 2 or 3 knives at a car boot sale last summer. One customer was very interested in my knives as he had a hardware shop, and wondered if I could make 25 to 30 a month. I had to turn him down, as I'm retired and do this for a hobby - probably one every month or two! but it shows that there is work/business available if you want it.

I really must learn how to use my digital camera & post pictures, but I hope you will get the ideas from my written descriptions. This first one isn't really home-made, but I have a dedicated leather cutting knife. There is an old Stanley craft/utility/box cutter knife that has a smooth handle, which tapers slightly from the hole end down towards the blade - Stanley 199A. I got one from a car boot sale for £1, including a few old rusty blades inside it. I find it very comfortable. I fettled it with a file & abrasive paper to make sure the blades fitted well, and that the two halves were truly flat where they met, and generally cleaned it up & sprayed it with some car touch up paint. I picked out a few blades that fit well without wobbling, and resharpen them as needed. I use it exclusively for cutting leather. The old blades polished up well, and are very good when resharpened. I made a flat burnisher & edge slicker from pictures on the Net. The wood was an old broken axe haft, beech, I think Got an old rusty & battered putty knife for 50p. Cleaned it up, cut the end off the blade at an angle with a hacksaw & sharpened it with files, oilstones and on the strop. The blade edge is very sharp, and that is my skiving knife. The putty knife has a good forged steel blade and what I think is a rosewood handle with a brass bolster & pins. I made two scratch awls. One is an old dart head, the other is some steel rod which came from an old magazine binder; the steel is quite hard. I cut it to length and sharpened one end with files & oilstone. The handles were an old file handle, and an old vegetable peeler. Made a strop from a scrap of wood and some split leather I picked up in a job lot. The sharpening compound is Autosol, the car chrome polish. Made a sewing pony from scraps of wood; this & pony were old skirting boards I think, and other odds & ends. I didn't use a bolt to hold the halves together, I used several turns of 1/2" (12.5 mm) elastic salvaged from an old pair of waterproof overtrousers, like a big rubber band. Not exactly a shining example of the cabinet maker's art, but it does the job. For skiving and staining I use the glass oven door off an old cooker with a bit of rubber anti slip mat. I don't do tooling, if I did I'd have to get something stronger My straight edge is an old 18" steel ruler from a car boot sale for 25p. Rusty, I cleaned it up and tidied the edges on a sheet of abrasive paper on the glass door. I doubt if it is up to engineering standards, but it's good enough for cutting leather. Somewhere along the way I acquired a cheap & nasty block plane; pressed body & plastic fittings. I don't like it, and I can't ever remember using it. But the blade, or 'iron' is quite good. So I'll scrap the body and sometime soon I'll turn the blade into a skiving knife or a Japanese style leather knife. There is, though, something to consider about improvising your own tools. For years I have made model planes, done house repairs & decorating, and car mechanics. That means I have accumulated a fair selection of tools, and am reasonably familiar & confident in their use. To make these leather tools I used files, oilstones, a vice, hacksaw and so on that I already had. If you had to start completely from scratch that would obviously add to the cost, and you might be better off buying proper leather tools in the first place Ever heard the phrase 'the converse is true?'. You can use leather tools for other things - I have been reliably informed by a professional saddler that a round knife is just about the best thing ever for cutting pizzas.

We have all got to know you over the past few months, and hope you are managing any problems as well as you can. I suspect you are no longer physically able to do leatherwork; but you have the theory, and I know you will pass on that knowledge, and probably the tools & materials you have acquired to a newcomer, probably a younger person. Even if you can't post regularly, let us know how you are from time to time; or get someone to do so on your behalf. Best Wishes Zuludog

Can you do Ernst Ludwig Kirchner? Now you're being silly! But Ad Reinhart should be easy enough. Anyone who is unfamiliar with Modern Art should read up on the subject. Start with the story of The Emperor's New Clothes.

The sort of question you ask appears regularly on this forum, have a look at past threads under Leatherwork Conversation, Grtting Started, and Leather Tools, and the replies would suit you. Yes, there is a lot of information on the Net, such as this forum; and YouTube - there are about 15 pages each with about a dozen videos, but it tends to be a bit fragmented & long winded, that's why books such as the one by Valerie Michael, and Al Stohlman are often recommended; you'll find them when you look back on this forum On Youtube, you could put 'leatherwork' into the search box, or 'Nigel Armitage' for his videos. But here are my ideas for a beginner's list You'll need a cutting board, the usual green things with a grid pattern are good & cheap; get a big one you will need two knives A craft/utility/Stanley/box cutter knife. Get one you like & that is comfortable, and find some blades that don't wobble. Use this exclusively for cutting leather. Although the blades are supposed to be disposable, they seem to get better when you have resharpened them a few times the second knife can be anything you like. Use it to open parcels, cut string, sharpen pencils, and so on. It's purpose is to make sure that you use the first one only for cutting leather the 4-in-1 awl you often see isn't very good, and is expensive. You're better off getting a separate diamond section awl, aka a saddler's or harness awl;and a round aka scratch awl. A number 2 or 3 edge beveller Something to mark stitching holes; a pricking iron or an overstitch wheel will mark the positions, but you have to make the holes with a saddler's awl. A stitching chisel can be used in a similar way to mark positions, but it can also be used to make the holes, though you may well have to tidy them up with an awl. Make sure it is a STITCHING chisel, and not a lacing chisel. I suggest a 4-prong stitching chisel with 3mm spacing to start An adjustable stitch groover You can start hitting tools with an ordinary hammer, but that will soon burr over the end of the tool, so get a wooden, or a hide, or a plastic mallet asap. Don't use a rubber one as they bounce too much. Somewhere recently I've described using a small piece of leather as an edge burnisher - 30mm square & 3mm thick or so. Fold it over the edge and polish it along, holding it down with your fingers. For thread, start with a small roll of natural colour 18/3 linen thread, and some beeswax, and see what else you want as you go along. Ask the supplier for needles to match. I wouldn't get the stitching-cum-hand sewing machine, it, too, is expensive and not very good. Concentrate on getting your saddle stitch right You can make a strop and a hand edge beveller yourself. Could try a stitching pony too. It doesn't have to be perfect, as long as it does the job Plier type rotary punches are best for very thin leather. I would get those you hammer. Could get the set with interchangeable heads to start with Read, Surf, watch YouTube, especially Nigel Armitage. the more you do that, the more you will learn & know, and hopefully make a few less mistakes

You could try selling it, either back to a dealer, or secondhand - whatever is the Korean equivalent of cards in newsagent's windows, free papers, or local Internet based sales scheme If you are leaving soon you could make a bag or case, even if it's simple/basic/a bit crude/, then pick it apart to re-use when you get home; save's buying luggage & kills 2 birds with one stone. Perhaps this could be used for heavier, stronger items, like tools, or shoes In fact there's no need even to make proper luggage at all; sew the things up completely, like a big parcel. There will be a bit of wastage when you come to re-use the leather, but it would be better than just leaving it behind. Or just wrap it round like thick wrapping paper, and use a helluva lot of Duck Tape. You could use a razor strop, but Surf the Net a bit and you'll see that strops for knives, plane blades, chisels and so on are usually leather on wood Make some key fobs as mementos for friends & colleagues you leave behind. By the way, sometimes the links don't work. It's worth putting them into Google manually.

I'm sure you'll get lots of useful suggestions; here are a few comments:- I make knife sheaths from 3mm leather. You could make belts; a general belt pouch or for specific items like a folding knife; a handbag or shoulder bag; covers or slips for your woodworking tools - chisels, axes, saws; or a larger tool roll or tool bag Have you made a sharpening strop yet? There are tutorials & videos on this forum & YouTube, or just copy the one in Tandy's website. You don't need to be in a hurry to use all the leather at once. It keeps well if you tie it in a loose roll, somewhere dry and out of the light. As with any hobby you will soon acquire a collection of tools & materials. They're bound to come in for future projects. This company's website has some good tutorials on basic techniques, including a comparison chart for leather thickness http://www.bowstock.co.uk This website has a forum section on leatherwork http://www.britishblades.com This company's website has some tutorials on sheath making http://www.brisa.fi Put a few ideas into the search box of YouTube, there's bound to be something interesting Have a look through these sections on this forum; Show Off, and Critique My Work

I've just found this Company, based in Denmark http://www.thegoodstuffshop.dk They sell materials for knifemaking and other crafts; outdoor hobbies; and other odds & ends. Also some leather, and lizard skins; and leatherworking tools. They say they chose the name to get over the message that they supply interesting & unusual items, so it's worth having a browse round their website. There is an English translation Don't be put off if at first glance the prices seem very expensive - make sure you're looking at euros and not krone!

Piet Mondrian was a Dutch artist who was active in the first half of the twentieth century, and produced simple, striking, abstract images. From our point of view we can group him with other styles of modern art & design around that period, like Le Corbusier & Bauhaus. Look them up in Google & Wikipedia. The belts themselves are interesting, and a change from traditional styles; I am impressed. It must have been quite difficult to do the carving or tooling, and prevent the dyes bleeding into each other Jazzman; you don't need to actually make a Jackson Pollock, just cut a strip off an old work mat!

1 litre of glue is a lot of glue. Why not try a tube of Timebond first, to see if you like it. Alright, £3-75 or so is expensive for 65 ml, but it's cheaper than spending £13 or more, and you would only need to do it once. Or shop around to see if you can find 250 ml for £6, which would be a reasonable compromise. PVA glue is usually used for wood, but might be OK for leather as it's only being used to hold the leather together for sewing, and it's cheaper than the others. Again, why not get a small amount to try? It can be used on paper, card, and wood, so if you don't like it for leather you or your wife could use it for other things. Should be easily available at DIY stores.