YinTx

Ah, a bit out of range for me. Thanks though! YinTx

Location please? Thank you, YinTx

Nice. That should last a good bit longer! YinTx

Heh, yeah black and blue! But seriously, nice design work. I had a random thought on straps: how about a D ring coupled with a Sam Brown stud? Or velcro...And form a permanant loop for the thumb to fit into that comfortably positions the mitt on the hand prior to adjusting the wrist straps...kinda like in your first example photo.. I would think it might be more comfortable than a rigid strap across the thumb for long term use. I really like the idea of the neoprene palm - good grip, water resistant, won't hold grit... Look forward to seeing your next iteration! YinTx

I get the frustration, I have a few pieces in the bin or on the side waiting for a solution to my screw ups. I agree that putting the NFO on after the super sheen is probably the problem. It's possible a bit of saddle soap, which you may have a can of laying around from shoe shine days, or a buddy may have, with a bit of water could help. Acetones, reducers, mineral spirits, etc. will likely wreck the paint jobs. A bit of denatured alcohol might do the trick. If all else fails, yah, paint it black, chalk it up to learning, and put time in again on new pieces, which I find always seem to come out better than the ones I did before, on account of all my "learnings." At least your leather pieces aren't all that large - I have some sizeable bits that are currently complete fails. I've started doing practice runs on unusable odd sized pieces and belly leather to try out my ideas on before I go after the final object, because I dislike wasting good materials. YinTx

Thank you fredk! YinTx

That really is something else. Well done! I like it. And the saddle blanket is pretty cool too! YinTx

Oak Leaf Vegetable tanned leather side for sale. 8-9 oz (3.1-3.5mm) leather thickness per the label, backside is marked 25.2 square feet. (floor tiles are 18" tiles for reference). This side is fairly clean and large, as can be seen in the photos. The backside is fairly smooth. I have more leather than I can use right now, so I'm selling off some pieces such as this when I have the time. This is Tandy item #9157-58 8/9 oz Veg Side per the labels, their price $205-$270 plus tax. This is Tandy's nicer Oak Leaf tooling leather. My price: $185 plus shipping. YinTx

Thats the beauty of art, I think. There is no one way to do it right, and sometimes when folks break all the rules, new art emerges. There are tried and true methods that work once you learn them, and you end up using many different methods sometimes on the same project to get the stitching to look right all the way around. And there are some outright wrong methods floating around, you just sometimes have to decide for yourself which ones you don't like and jettison them. The sample runs you are doing I found really helpful when I was trying to figure out what worked best for me - keep doing them! I made notes so when I went back to look at results, I knew what method gave which results. YinTx

+1 for that. Looks like your needles are reversed from what they should be. The pattern Tugadude refers to should show identical on both front and back. YinTx

Thanks, Rossr!

I agree. Nice buckles, they deserve their own topic/thread, as does Sonydaze' topic. Perhaps an administrator can assist with separating these? YinTx

Seriously? In the "Musical Instruments" forum? heheheheh.... Ok. lol. YinTx

Not sure what the grit equivalent is, I'd have to look it up. What I do know is that I had a cleaver that was major banged up with dings you could see, and a round edge. I was able to remove the dings and re-profile the edge on it with the Atoma 1200 plate. I suspect the 400 would have made things move along faster, I think the 140 would just be way to rough for it or any leather working tools. None of my tools, even the old ones, would warrant the gouging that would impart to them. I agree, the 1000 Cerax is a fairly smooth stone that would get damaged by a bad edge, which is why I profiled on the Atoma first. If you have an edge that bad, absolutely get a coarser stone before honing on the finer stones. The prices you list for the Atoma plates seem a bit high to me, I'd shop around. YinTx

This is cool. Are you creating your own designs? YinTx

You don't have to pay big bucks for a really nice set up. I am really happy with my Cerax combo stone and Atoma diamond plate. See this post, and my comments on research and pricing: The Cerax stones only soak for 30 mins, you are not supposed to leave them wet. The diamond plate is splash and go. The fine grit as I have learned is necessary to get a clean edge that really helps your leather knives do what they should be doing: cut clean and easily. Woodyworkshop: I really like your method of creating a flat strop: I hadn't put a lot of thought into it, and just assumed that my board was flat: likely not. Time for a new one! YinTx

I have purchased from both retailers in the past. From leathercrafttools, https://leathercrafttools.com/item?id=3657 the Nobuyoshi knife. It appears to me to be the genuine article, though I will admit I am no expert. The blade, while unbelievably sharp, is exceptionally delicate. I broke the end off with my thumbnail, and will have to regrind quite a bit to recover the edge. It is supposedly a hand crafted hand tempered blade using Aogami Super Blue steel, which as I understand it, is difficult to do well. I have owned many knives, never one this scary sharp out of the box. And that includes Hattori and Hiromoto Damascus blades. Nor have I had one so delicate. I ordered the no longer available Kyoshin Elle pricking irons from goodsjapan, and absolutely loved them. Some complained the steel to be too soft, and easily bent, something I never experienced. Lost mine in a fire, wish they still made/sold them. Don't know if this helps answer your original question. YinTx

I don 't believe you will be able to thicken a spirit dye: you will likely just get dark dye or crystals. I''ve not done it, but you can use the spirit dyes in the neutral Fiebing's antique paste, as shown in this tutorial, way down in the weeds: To save you some time reading CitizenKate's lengthy and fantastic tutorial, here is what she said: "Thanks for the kind words, all... I'm glad to know you are finding it useful. LeatherBum, for antiquing, I use the following recipe: 1/2 cup Tan Kote 1/8 cup neutral Fiebings antique paste 10 eyedroppers-full of spirit dye (any color you like); you can adjust this amount depending on how much color you want. Most of the time I use medium brown dye, but you can use different colored dyes to make just about any color of antique you want. I mix this up and put it in a squirt bottle; it makes a creamy liquid that I can just squirt onto my project and wipe into the tooled impressions with paper towels. When I wipe it off, I wipe flat over the surface, so that what is in the impressions stays there. I also try to make fairly deep impressions with the pair shader." I've also read others say never to mix Tan Kote with antique paste... so maybe just the paste and the dye? Best of luck. YinTx

Those look very sharp. What kind of leather did you use? YinTx

Also, to answer the original OP's question on leather drying out, as I had the same issue: it seems we should be rewetting the *backside* of the leather as we work to keep it from drying, not waiting until it is too dry to work. I experienced my leather tooling reversing when I added water to the front, just as this poster noted would happen. Live and learn! CowboyColonel, thanks for that info, it will help me out some. I have tried to organize tools etc before I start, but I do tool slowly as well. I have found I can do most of my backgrounding at once - should I not be doing that? YinTx

I think you might be a lot faster than me, if you can do a 6x6 piece in 2 hours. Its taken me 5 hours to get to this point, and I still have to do the eagle: YinTx

JD62, and NVLeatherWorx - Thanks for that! I have never been a painter or an artist, I suspect I'd get outside the lines if I had to color anything! Maybe in the future I'll get enough gumption to give it a try. I would like to see yours! might be some inspiration in there... But, now that I have finished up a couple of projects, I can get back to carving and tooling again. I am in the midst of the antique experiment, and I must say I am a bit surprised by the results I am getting. I am using the Tan-Kote with success, so much so I will probably be using it in the future. I think it was as I suspected, I was using it way too thick. I am pretty much wiping it dry after applying - this really cleans things up and keeps it from cracking or peeling. Still have the finish coats to put on the experiment, so I will probably post a separate thread to illustrate the differences. Even with the number of results I have, there are still a huge number of combinations that could be considered. For now, I am trying to master a couple before I branch out into new realms... i.e. learn to walk before I try to fly! (which is kinda the opposite of how I operate) YinTx

I may give the copper bar a tweak upwards to lift it off of the leather, not a bad idea. I debated putting it on the other way, but I wanted the uneven bit on the underside. Not entirely happy with the bar, since it didn't exactly come out even, and I think the music case design does not translate well to a large case like this one, so I may reserve music cases to smaller works in the future. If I tire of the bar design, I can alter the bag with a clasp or some such thing, or just replace the straps with longer ones and go with a straight bar. Thanks all for the positive comments! Now to decide on how much to price it, or to use it... YinTx

Yeah, I conveniently forgot about that detail! I'll see what this one does.. cold drinks tend to sweat a lot around here, so the potential is definitely there! I'll keep the "texturing" thought in mind for future creations. Your's look pretty nice, by the way. Spot on stitching. YinTx