dougfergy

So cool! I"m trying to imagine her feet after wearing these all day--would love to see that imprint on the bottom of her foot, assuming they are for a girl! Great work!

Stunning work! Stunning!

For a knife sheath or holster, I cut out the parts, do my stamping, let dry, do my wet forming, let dry, Tan kote the inside, let dry, glue together, let dry, lay out and prick/chisel my stitch holes, NFO, let dry a couple days. Then I apply my stain, dye and/or antiquing, let dry. Buff really good. Then I stitch, unless I'm using a dark thread, then I stitch after I glue. Once I have dyed and stitched, I finish my edges. Then I cover with 50/50 resolene and water. When I'm stitching with light thread, I will take a long piece of thread and run it through all my stitching holes to clean up the residue that collects inside my holes to try and keep my thread from discoloring.

I wear an IWB every day and I'm so used to the smooth side against me, seems like that rough out would be a bit chappy? It is beautiful though. Even with the smooth side in, I have to wear a tee shirt so it isn't against my skin. Just wondering out loud... Very nice work and great pictorial!

Yes, you have a lot going on in there! Sounds fantastic to have your wife and dog as co-pilots. It would be difficult to have space for anything much in the way of leather craft, unless she got into it too. I wish you well!

Probably a dumb question but why the two twists and why does it matter? Just curious!

I've been there! Welcome from Texas too!

Fantastic work! I love the first dog photo. He seems a little over dressed! The other dogs definitely look the "high society" part but that first dog is just tolerating. He'd be happy with a rope. I really like the lion bag too but the simple beauty of the dog's running belt is something I would be proud to own! Nice! And welcome.

Welcome from Texas!

Me too, and my wife is just as into it as I am, never missed a show. And yeah, I've dreamed of forging but I've only bought knife blanks and built up from there, which is a stretch for me too but funner than heck! I agree, the bar is set pretty high for you, but you'll soon see, the leather work is pretty cool and calming, much softer to work with! Looking forward to seeing your work, and more knives!

Do you have a sleeper on your truck or do you stay in hotels along the way? I could sure see my sleeper turned into a mini leather shop!

Nice job! Very clean looking and nice color.

Very nice! Would like to see it installed? and the gun...

I have a couple of those and use them for wood working but I also had three or four c-clamps and I tried that first and it worked for me. I've been tempted to rig some sort of stand for my c-clamp to hold it in place and then I think I could be OK with only two hands. Never have time.

It is just a basic 6" C-clamp like the one pictured below. I tried to hammer the stamp into wet veg tan and it didn't make a good impression. Once I tried the c-clamp I was done trying. I only leave it clamped in for maybe 10 seconds but I think with the pressure a c-clamp provides, you could just tighten it and immediately loosen it and it would be just as good. Never tried it with anything but veg tan. I do use a flat piece of 1" x 1" brass that is about a half inch thick under the piece of leather because my c-clamp isn't wide enough in the surface areas to back the leather completely for the size of my maker's stamp, and when using the c-clamp alone, the edges of my stamp would be shallow and less defined.

I used to shop in Allen's Boots in Austin for years, and walking in there was a dream of leather smells. Most of the leather I've used has a faint smell but never had any that stunk. Of course I don't have the volume of leather experience most of you do. I will say though, I did time years ago at a Ford dealership selling new trucks and those King Ranch packages with all the saddle leather interior were something to smell! Reminded me of the boot shop. I didn't realize there were so many types of tanning etc. Very interesting.

Yes, the more I try, the more I learn that I have so much more to learn! Something like that. I wrongly assumed that all veg tan would act the same and that is obviously not the case.

Thank you Tom. I'll be testing.

Has anyone here ever done one similar and if so, can you share any secrets? Is there some trick to fitting it together? I'm thinking about this type sheath for a large Bowie I just about finished and the blade alone is 10 inches long. With that length blade I'm thinking I will have some kind of time fitting the sheath part through the slot in the back piece. I'm just kind of bumfuzzled. I can't find any videos on building one and only a rare photo here and there. Instead of risking copyright infringement, I drew up a sketch of what I'm talking about. Don't judge me! I'm not an artist!

I don't have a press and have always used a large C clamp and a large square piece of brass for the back of the leather piece, wet the entire piece of leather lightly so I don't get a spot around the stamp, then sponge the spot for the stamp so it gets soaked a little deeper, wait for a few minutes and put the stamp on the top, the brass on the bottom and tighten. Often I get my wife to help with the clamp while I line up the hardware. It comes out nice and burnished. This pic is after I antiqued so it is pretty stark, but you get the idea.

I'm resurrecting an old thread because it has a lot of good discussion about casing, different techniques and formulas. Lots of us are newer members and might have missed this thread. And I have some issues with the latest leather I bought. After reading all three pages I'm convinced that everyone has their own way and not one thing works for everyone. I've been messing with leather for several years as a hobby, with minimal tools and no training other than this forum and you tube videos. I've never purchased Hermann Oak or any really good leather even though I've read that stamping and tooling on the good stuff gives you best results. My observation has been that the leather has characteristics that determine how to case or wet it for tooling. Seems to me that the leather is the key. The last leather I purchased (I only buy one piece, a double shoulder or something similar, at a time, use it and run out and go back to Tandy and buy more) was a better class of leather from Tandy called Craftsman grade Oak Leaf, in 8 or 9 oz. It was much lighter colored than anything I've bought in the past, very smooth and consistent in thickness. Seems pretty stiff too, tight grain I guess. My first couple of tries to case and tool didn't give me very deep impressions. I dunked for three different time periods, half bubbles out, all bubbles out and third was just a pass through the warm water to get an even wetness front and back. I have been dunking in very warm water but I just read here that warm water is for molding since it makes the leather dry very hard. Makes sense. I will be testing the sponge on the smooth side to wet the leather half way down, leaving the flesh side dry and see how that goes. I'll also just use cold water this time. If this doesn't make it easier to work, I'll try dunking and bagging for 24 hours, letting dry back to color and see how that goes. The softer veg tan I've used in the past just seemed to stamp fine just using a sponge in cold water to wet the front side good before letting it return to color to stamp, re-wetting it a bit as needed to complete it. This leather just seems stiff to start with compared to any I've used in the past so I'm thinking it has to be handled differently. Me using very warm water probably didn't help.

I definitely like the coloring your sheath has.

I usually dunk for about 10 seconds, let it sit for however long it takes to get back toward normal color then start stamping. Usually about 20 minutes. That's pretty much what I did last night with the new leather and it didn't darken much at all with the dunking. I didn't let all the air bubbles come out like I did this morning. It just seemed like the leather was tougher than normal when I was stamping and I just couldn't get a good burnish with my stamps. I wiped water on several times during the process because it seemed like the leather was drying out too quickly by the way the stamping was going. This piece of leather that I wet this morning is still cold like it is plenty wet. I did let it soak til all the bubbles stopped rising.