Bonecross

Do you know the IMHO, For hunting, antiqued/darkened solid brass is so ideal! Acetone / liver of sulfur / oven. Kills the flash - a hunter can spook prey with a small flash of reflected light. For show? Shiny solid brass. If they wanted to polish the brass they could bring it back to a high shine with some Brasso... And if you can, get the buckles stamped "solid" - cause I guarantee the customer will see that Afterthought: you could also look into nickel "fuming" with vinegar - darkens the nickel hardware.

Super impressed with your work, love how you positioned the buckle on the side of the pouch - that's different!

Devilish!

I'd be proud to wear such a finely crafted belt!

I almost exclusively use Fiebings Pro dye. After dyeing I rehydrate the leather with a very light application Lexol leather conditioner to the flesh side.

It's Xenomorph Love these stamps!

That belt looks amazing, did you hand carve all those Celtic knots? One aspect did jump out at me though, the stitch line near the buckle. I have seen more than a few straps and belts fail at the location of stitches across them like this. I could compare it to the perforations on a sheet of postage stamps.

I used to work with silver and gold, and find that setting the stones in a leather is quite fun. More importantly, a metal setting is not absolutely required. I basically set them in a leather bezel. After cutting a hole slightly smaller than the stone, the leather is wet-formed around the stone by pressing with polished wood tools. The stones can be epoxied and then the bezel is contact cemented and stitched. This can be done with almost any leather thickness, but I generally use 5oz vegetable tanned leather (tooling leather) or greater for bezels. So far I have been only doing it with cabochon stones though... But just so you know, even cut gemstones can technically be set in leather using the same wet-forming to smush the leather around them! You could also use specific properties of leather such as how it sort of shrinks as it dries One issue to consider is that leather is pliable, so stones set too gingerly could potentially pop out when the item is flexed - lol! The images you showed appear to be silver jewelry which is most probably riveted to the leather items, or it could be fastened in a few different ways such as with screws or bent prongs.

Nice whips!

Great work!

Ya sorry it's a large pattern so it makes 6 pages

I searched for "corner" in their search box Oh and that circle tool is neat Demetra Gayle - just ordered one! I have plastic circle tools which work great when drawing out a pattern, but this is perfect for direct cutting.

They still make this product: https://www.zelistore.com/products/zelis-corner-punch-3-sizes