MADMAX22

I have tooled after and before and there are drawbacks to both. Tooling before I think works better and is easier since you either gotta wait till its dried and rewet or wait for the proper moisture content which is hard to do once the leather is black. However from time to time the tooling where beveled and such wont allow the vinee to penetrate the leather, same with wet molding. However this can be fixed with a quick touch up of black dye. Your tooling should hold up fine just dont play with the leather until its pretty dry. Looks good though. ChuckBorrows is the man with this stuff, hes been using it for years so look back at some of his posts on the subject.

Oh man I thought I was gonna grow out of that Just 33 here.

The tandy oak leaf is ok if you hand pick it out but the herman oak is far better IMHO and you can get it at springfeild leather for 4.89. Good advice all the way around. Free hand groover is pretty nice for holsters since your not allways stitching next to the edge. One thing I think is that the cordovan is a little dark even when deluted. I use it for edges but not much else. Dark brown or regular brown is a good color as well as saddle tan or regular tan.

Sweet looking seats.

WOW those are some nice pens. To bad I dont have time for another hobby.

Ive heard and havnt tried yet but will that dying brown first then black will save you from the blueing effect. With vinegaroon you wont get that effect unless you dye ontop of the vinegaroon and even that has variouse effects. Some good some odd. I will touch up a bad vinegarooing with black dye and it works great allthough the only time I have to do that is if I make the mistake of wetforming before I vinegaroon.

I would follow Kevins suggestion and also when your folding the buckle loop wet it down and fold it. To thick of leather sometimes will split where you fold it if the fold is to tight atleast I have experienced that from some leathers.

Overall looks good to me, stamping all looks really good and great colors. Surprised theres no comments yet. As far as comments from me as not having done much holsters and no western ones is work on your edges some. Thats the biggest thing I notice. Check out the cornfused thread at the top of this section. Maybe make the loop around the holster a little tighter but not sure if thats necessary just something I like. Other then that great work man.

Thanks for the info.

I dont know about in California (cant stand the state, great place but government I mean berkley is out of control) but weldwood makes a really good contact cement that I have switched to. I use the gel stuff, easier to control. I think its about $4 for a 16oz can. Coat both surfaces and allow to slightly dry and press together and your good to go in about 15 minutes. You gotta rip the leather apart if you wanna separate it.

Sorry Ray I didnt mean to get off topic. Im just use to being in museums (some pretty nice ones) that allowed photos of there work, they still sell photo books but that was so you could have professional pictures instead of the ones you took. I have scene ones that dont allow flashes and what not. It wasnt until more recently (past 15 years) that they seemed to force people not to take photos to ensure they sold there books of there work. Its just kind of a sore spot with me I guess. Ahh well, thanks for sharing the link with us, makes me interested to see if they have one in the Seattle area for something like this.

Oh yeah forgot what kind of world we live in.

Definatly some cool looking art. Thanks for sharing. Whats with the no pictures thing. I dont get that. Theres a glass blowing place I visited and everything on display was the same way, no pictures. Not like flashes are gonna hurt glass.

Nvm guess its working now, I was having that issue. Just tried it and it works fine now.

Hey Ed great looking work as allways. Im still loving my mauls you made me and they are performing very well. I havnt touched my mallet since I got the mauls lol. One question, on the eyeglass cases what weight leather do you like to use? Im playing with your pattern you posted and was gonna make one for a guy at work but wasnt to sure how thick the leather should be.

Great looking seat, excellent job on the lacing as well.

Once you figure out what you wanna make I would recommend giving Esantoro a PM or maybe he'll jump on the thread but hes got alot of experience making bags of variouse types/

I think both of you may be right. I know David does mostly motorcycle seats which see a different type of abuse (I mean use). With the constant weight of someone sitting on them with 90% of the time levis rubbing against the finish with the thrown in vibration from the motorcycle along with the elements I could see how it could test finishes pretty well. I think a gun belt and holster like that style has a little bit better chance of surviving with the finish. Not saying it wont see rough use and get tested just that its a different type of use and may benefit the use of the antique for your projects better then his. It will be interesting to see how it holds up.

Dinosaur hide

Pretty good looking sheaths. Personally I like the ostrich inlay one the best, I think those ostrich legs give a really cool effect when used as inlays.

Looking good storm. Hey by chance have you checked out Paul burnetts tutorial on carving. I think you can get the pack of like 5 tutorials for a decent price, I just picked it up and man alot of good info. There is some stuff in there on doing fine work and and extra tutorial on scroll work too.

Pretty much any of the links at the top of the forum will take you to good leather working dealers. Not sure if you want to find just old stuff or general overall everything leather working.

Thats really nice looking. So whats the next big project you have in store, I see you have been working on all these nice scroll work and such,

I like using my round knife the most but sometimes I will use my utility knife as well. For the corners your talking about either will work fine. Personally I like about 5oz for wallets and about 2oz for the interior portions. Ofcourse that is just what I have used and Ive only done a few wallets but they turned out ok. Once you get all your stuff in there they will be plenty big enough. Also if you want a thicker wallet do a trifold. Kevin has some great tutorials on wallet making. I recommend checking them out. http://leatherworker.net/forum/index.php?showtopic=9940

Wrong size or not it gives a very interesting look/effect to the stitch.