hivemind

"German leather shears" refers to a set of heavy-duty, spring-loaded, high-quality scissors. Mine happen to be German-made. Mine are also kind of serrated on one edge, which helps it grip the leather when cutting.

Cripes, that's like a short sword! Very nice - the blade and the sheath.

I'm far from a pro, but I use my German leather shears a TON. I also have never bought a rawhide mallet. For driving hole punches and stuff, I use a rubber mallet with a piece of thick hide glued on the face of it. Everyone talks about a head knife, but I have an Osborne one that I've never used. I can see the utility of it and all, it just seems like I already have a purpose made tool to do everything that other people say they use their head knives for. I also don't relish the idea of what looks like a steep learning curve to master that particular tool, nor the constant sharpening and stropping that goes with it. I'm probably wrong though...

Here's some leather armor I'm making for for a guy at the LARP I run. It's not done yet - there are shoulders coming - but it's wearable now (and being unwillingly modeled by my lovely wife, Diana). It's made of HEAVY vegetable tanned leather, over a quarter inch thick. My hands hurt from working with it, but the result is what the game system would consider 4-point reinforced hide armor, essentially equivalent to light plate in the game. It's also adjustable for manly-sized men (I can wear it if I want to, and I'm a big guy, and it goes bigger than that even - I bet it'd fit a 60" chest if it had to) because the buckles on the back are attached with Chicago screws rather than rivets. There are a series of three holes, each three inches apart, for each buckle strap. They can be moved all the way to the edges of the back piece if desired. All the tongue straps are held on with peened copper rivets, so they're super-strong. The lower panels are attached with a floating joint - three in front, two in back. There's no tooling at all, simply because the customer didn't pay for that level of detail. The strapping is made from 8-10 oz vegetable tanned leather, while the oak leaves and the tassets hanging down off the front are from a tooling belly. This is some of the more serious armor I've ever made. While my wife had her back turned, I whacked her with half a broomstick. She jumped and was startled (and pissed at me ), but just by the noise - she didn't really feel the hit she said. It's definitely not "costume" armor.

Thanks for the welcome, and the compliments. I'll put up some pics of other stuff soon - I'm in the middle of making a suit of torso armor for a guy right now, and my hands are killing me! It's getting made out of much thicker leather than I'm used to, and it's also super stiff. I've never worked with a sole bend before - about how thick are they usually? This stuff is coming in at a little over a quarter inch thick. My local leather distributor often gets in "special" stuff, and sells it to me cheap (our wives are friends, they're in Kiwanis together). I got two shoulders of this stuff from him for $80, which seemed like a bargain until I started working with it... The last time he had "special" leather for me, he had a stack of 10-12 oz sides he was selling for a song - I later found out that thy were from cattle in Europe that had been destroyed from the mad cow disease scare there. Whatever, I'm not eating it, I'm riveting it!

Hi all, I'm Dave. I live in central New York, I'm 35, been married for about seven years, no kids (have greyhounds instead!). I work in IT for a living. My leatherworking consists primarily of armor/pouches/belts/accessories/etc. for LARP games, traditional sighthound collars, and belts, long gun slings, repairs and so forth for family and friends (I'm sure I'm not alone in that last one ). I realize while getting ready to make this post that I don't have a single picture of any of my leather work, with the exception of some of my dog collars. They are traditional sighthound collars, made very wide in front because sighthounds have little heads and slip their collars easily. Some of them are Martingale collars, which means they have a limited choke action to them. So, here you go! They're mostly made from 8-10 oz in the front, while the strapping in back is made from bellies - it has to be thinner for the flexibility. Dyed with Fiebing's dyes and sealed with Super Shene. Anyways, thanks for looking!