YinTx

Picked up a plough gauge, spare knife, hammer, a bookbinder's leather paring knife, and a smaller paring/skiving knife. Spent the afternoon working them over with my stones and stropping them, they seem pretty good. Wish I had remembered about the round knife, I could have included it in the same shipment and likely saved some $$ on shipping. Not too sure how to use the paring knives, they don't really skive great - or I don't know how to get them to skive great yet is probably more like it. They all seemed to have about a 30 degree bevel on them, pretty rough but cleaned up ok. YinTx

I just got some other great stuff from these guys, but somehow missed they had a round knife. Anyone use it that can provide some feedback on how it well it performs? YinTx

I agree. Couldn't undo it at the time tho. Haven't had a chance for version 2 either! And thanks for the compliment. YinTx

Don't have any skirting though! Mostly Bridle.. and chrome tans, and veg tans. YinTx

Thank you, and you probably don't know the half of it. This was done with a set of irons I had someone hunt down for me in Taipei and shipped here. Took nearly 6 months to get them in my hands. Still don't have any Blanchard Irons, still curious about them, hope to get a deal on some one day. I think there is a photo of when I started collecting irons in my tools section of the photo gallery... not sure, will look again. YinTx

Don't try to follow my logic and understand my pricking iron collection at the same time... YinTx

Just did some calcs, looks like about 3.3 sqft of bridle leather, and about 1 sqft Chevre Chagrin. There is other leather in there for stiffening, etc. that you don't see, and doesn't include lost leather that comes from trimming and not using sections like belly, etc. Hope this answers your question. Thanks for the compliment also! YinTx

...form follows function... thus, a thing of beauty. also, in the eye of the beholder, etc. Do tell on the performance cars.... YinTx

Some of us do have all kinds of leather, and willing to sell some as well. But I imagine most don't wish to compile a list of leathers available, and a suggested price for each. If you have a color, type and square footage you are looking for, and a price you think would be fair, be specific and you'll probably get a bite. YinTx

That came out pretty nice! Is the back section two layers? Or is the leather finished on both front and back? YinTx

Your knife is a beautiful work of art as well, by the way. Kind of the custom leather belt vs. Wally world belt comparison I suppose.. once you try the super nice leather belt I make, you won't want another cheapo Wally world one! YinTx

I test drove one for about an hour. It was a smaller one, and yes, it was nice. I had only been tooling for a month or so before that, so I realized I needed my tooling to actually make money for me before I could justify laying that kind of $$ down for yet another tool, especially when I already had 4 different ones - albeit all Tandy versions, I was able to cut leather and work. I even did the wallet with tiny tiny tooling with my large 3/8" heavy thickness swivel knife. On top of that, I think before I lay down a lot of money for a blade and knife combo, I need to understand which diameter shaft and length of shaft best fits my needs. Seeing that folks have sharpened a screwdriver and gone to work, or use a utility knife instead of a round knife and get to work making things, makes it even harder to spend more $$ on one. Yeah, I want one. Might be a few years before I convince myself to get one. Having a hard enough time convincing myself to buy a 1/4" thin blade for $20 when I have already cut flowers the size of a quarter with the big blade I already have. I think we all to often get bitten by the "I need this better tool" bug, when we could make a perfectly useable petal lifter with a free screwdriver. (Which works better than my $40 petal lifter that I had to fix brand new anyhow). Also, it's tax time, and I see how much I have already spent in the last year on this craft! YinTx

I hadn't thought about "casting shadows" when doing acorns.... might make a big difference on my next set! I have 4 swivel knives that came with a bunch of stuff I bought at the same time, 2 of them don't really swivel, one is a filigree knife so I haven't used it much, one is a really big knife, and two are cracked ceramic blades, so the big knife is the one that gets the use. The swivel is ok, it's a Craftool Pro. Your leaves have a lot of details in them, right down to the leaf liner. I think I might have a pattern for a belt similar to this, I'll make a belt out of it and try to pay attention to those details, maybe my acorns will come out better. I've done some leaf work, shown on a separate thread, they are a lot different from yours. Acorns not so good on mine I think. Your border bead is absolutely perfect all the way around to. Admirable work! Was that simply carved with the knife, or did you run a border tool around it? YinTx

I would go with the water wicking up. Not a good seal at the rubber interface. I've heard a lot of folks really like Obenauf's for boots: It's pretty heavy stuff, so leatherworkers don't generally use it on the types of stuff you see here, like belts and wallets and briefcases and purses and such, but made more for your application. Also curious what you have tried? YinTx

Those acorns are spot on! Tell us how you do that! and some close ups would be cool... YinTx

I did not expect that soft essex would make a nice wallet leather, but it seems as though it has! Nicely done, I like the hint of blue on the interior. YinTx

Awesome, he is going to get asked 1000 times where he got that! YinTx

Try a smaller thread. You might be pleasantly surprised at the results. YinTx

Yes, the wet molded box pocket came out really nice, and the stitching is spot on. Nice! YinTx

Your stitches in that photo look pretty decent to me, what is it you are not happy with? Battlemunky, your photo doesn't show, but I suspect .25" might be ok to carry, depends on how many cards, etc. one were to carry in there as well. Thanks, Capt.! Some stuff I want to improve on the next version, when I get to it, but this one turned out pretty good considering all the firsts for me. Thanks for that, I also do appreciate the suggestions, only way for me to improve! YinTx

Millie, thank you for that. Good thing the pink thread matched the pink leather, because the backsides started to show I was getting exhausted! Thank you, tzleather. It was a bit over 100 hours of labor as best as I could tell...I'm not the fastest maker out there! Thanks, alpha2. She is a good friend, so I was happy to do the work for her and her husband, plus she was really really happy with it, which makes me glad. Other unexpected consequences: She likes it so much she's been showing it to everyone that will give her 30 seconds, whether they know her or not! And it got some serious mileage on her facebook page, lots of folks liked it, even though she only posted a far away photo of it on the kitchen counter! YinTx

Makes perfect sense, I like the method. YinTx

I have always kind of wondered what that basket stamp would look like. I think I kind of like it. Do you have to rotate the tool each time you hit it to get the look? The pattern it leaves on the back is pretty nifty too. I like how it came out. What did you use to antique it - acrylic or paste? YinTx

Thank you. It was made as a gift for someone else. I just used Fiebings paste antique, followed up with Tan Kote, then Resolene. It is not originally my pattern, I slightly modified a Chan Geer pattern I have. Thank you both. Stitching isn't perfect, I was getting tired (was nearly 11pm, had to be done for today) so it has a few errors as always. Just some judicious use of camera angles It was 532 thread. I have a couple of other wallets I just finished that the stitching isn't nearly so good, so the photos didn't make the final cut. Every brand of thread I have lays differently. Every size and brand of stitching/pricking iron I have leaves a different look to the stitch. Even when I use a different awl blade, the stitch comes out differently. Really have to just decide what I want a particular piece to look like, and select my thread/iron/awl combination from that. Thank you. Thank you! Thanks! Firewalker, Thank you for the compliment and suggestions. Corners are hit and miss for me, sometimes I get em just right, other times complete failure. Of course, once done, I have to decide whether to keep it or add it to the growing pile in the scrap bin. This was the smallest lettering I had done to date, and the thinnest leather I'd tooled to date, so I agree, a bit choppy around the lettering. I use a casing solution of my own creation. I think in this case, the leather was probably still not quite dry enough to tool (and I need more practice, practice, practice...). Inside flap I had seen before, and I liked it, so I put it in my memory bank for later use. YinTx Battlemunky, how does a wallet feel with that much thickness to it? Once folded, this wallet would have 7 layers inside, and 2 layers from the outside. So using 3 oz interior and 8 oz exterior would be 21 oz plus 16 oz for a wallet of 37 oz thickness, or over 1/2" thick without the cash or cards. I would like to go thicker with the leather, but this has held me back... YinTx

Yeah, I'm not seeing any detrimental errors. Looks quite good to me! YinTx