ethanv

yeah, I'm not positive that edge finishing is super necessary here but I thought it might help with wear over the long term. in most spots the leather's going to be doubled-up and stitched together, anyway. I was mostly looking at the flaps covering the pockets, since they'll be handled regularly. I'll look into some edge paint this weekend and experiment

edge paint (which I'd not heard of before) seems like it might be a winner. I'd like to hear more about how I'd go about sanding something this soft, though. do you just sand the edge flat and then seal it with something like edge paint? it seems like it'd be too fibrous to actually sand to smooth finish. do I even need to sand it if I'm going to apply edge paint? how do you deal with all the fibrous bits on the unfinished side near the edge? I'll be popping into my local tandy this weekend, but I've not always gotten the best advice for them (e.g., telling me I can burnish the chrome tanned leather they just sold me with a simple wood slicker...). so, I want to be pre-armed with the right questions/needs

hi gang, I'm working on my first project (multi-pouch festival belt) and have gotten to the stage where I need to start finishing some edges. about this time is when I realized the leather I'm working with probably isn't veg tanned and therefore doesn't want to burnish worth a damn I'm pretty sure what I have is chrome tanned. this is the stuff: http://www.tandyleather.com/en-usd/home/department/cowhide/9112-71.aspx. it doesn't curl up in boiling water and after burning it the ashes have a mossy greenish cast to them (thank you, internet). it's fairly floppy despite being about 3mm thick. I've tried burnishing a few test scraps with a wooden burnishing tool. both dry and wet, it seems to make the edge rougher than before I started. that might just be because it's tough to hold straight and apply enough pressure, though. I haven't tried using a wax yet, but I'm not convinced I could generate enough friction to seal it in anyway. is burnishing just not an option for this type of leather? I don't think I have enough material on each piece to roll the edges over. I did a little searching through the forums and did find http://leatherworker.net/forum/index.php?showtopic=63759&p=413429, which would be one option. what other types of finishes would work here? cheers!

hi gang, new to these forums and new to leatherwork as a whole. but not for long! my first foray into leatherworking is a festival belt and I've run into a bit of a snag with the design. what inspired me to do this in the first place is that all the belts I'd seen for sale had tiny pockets and I wanted something bigger. to that end, the design I've come up with uses pockets that are about 6" wide and 5" high. I've wet molded the pocket fronts and mocked up a design for the rest of the parts in card stock, and that was when i realized that the pockets are going to have to curve around my hips. here's what the mockup looks like, with the pockets set in place: and here's what it looks like on: the problem I'm having is that when the pockets curve around my hips, the front of the pockets collapse in on themselves. this isn't a big deal for the pocket itself, but I think the flap that goes over the top of it is going to sit funny as a result. I haven't had a chance to mock it up yet, but the flap will be as wide as the pocket and will reach about half way down the front, closing with a swing clasp. I'm not sure how to deal with the curved pocket thing. a couple ideas I did have were to build a different mold that has some of that curvature built into (this sounds pretty hard) or to just attach the pocket front to it's own backing and then attach that to the belt at a single point (like a belt loop) rather than stitching all the way 'round the pocket. that would let it float free and not have to conform to my hips, but I don't think it's going to look as finished. what other options do I have?