fredk

Which camouflage stamps and which backgrounder have you? Which are you going to use? The numbers on the handles would do for info. Is your plan to use the camo along the border above and below the 'makers' stamp area? I'm just trying to get a picture (in my head) of your design.

Mycelium is the fibrous part of certain fungi. It sounds like this stuff makes a sort of suede felt in composition

Pictures help

Well. I'd treat it like a work of art and not a bit of leather. What I would do, 1. get a piece of marine grade plywood for a main back piece. 2. cover the plywood in very thin acrylic sheet, such as a perspex, about 1mm thick 3. use a hard wood such as oak, walnut, teak or redwood, to frame the plywood. But never use any soft wood. The frame to cover the edges of the ply, plus the depth of the leather plus about another 3/4 inch, plus 1 inch off the back of the ply 4. whilst making 3, drill 1/2 inch holes along the top and bottom edges of the ply/perspex combination, depending on length of the leather piece and ply backing, one hole about every 6 inches, do not have holes along bottom in a direct line with the top ones, stagger their spacing. Rebate the front edge of the frame about 1/4 inch deep 5. use brass tacks to tack the leather to the ply/perspex combo. 6. cover the front with a sheet of clear acrylic perspex type, set into the previously made rebate in the frame This is basically museum type casing for preservation of artefacts

The only stuff I've had success with is lacquer thinners, aka cellulose thinners I usually use a ball point pen to mark leather, but those marks are either cut away, skived away or they mark gouge lines - see the pattern The very worst to use is an indelible marker, aka a Sharpie. Even when you remove the ink the mark comes back as a ghost through you dye and finish

I got some from Le Prevo and it seemed ok. It was only used on a few odd projects but I had no problems with it. I got and used silver and gold. Scroll down just about half-way on this page; http://www.leprevo.co.uk/hides.htm

And why would you not be proud of your first sheath, made all by yourself? Now, this is where ye need to think ahead - where are you going to put that 'makers' stamping? On the HLS or on the sheath back? cos the front is all nicely tooled. On the HLS or sheath back, its best to do the stamping afore ye sew it all up closed

I think you are finding, as many of us have found out, 1. making an item from scratch is like a 3 dimensional jigsaw without either instructions or the box picture to guide us 2. its worse than chess, you need to think about things many stages ahead and plan on them, doing them in sequence when you least expect to have to do them 3. for every 'how do I?' question you'll get dozens and dozens of answers, and all can be perfectly correct

I'd say they are pretty much the same on all my belts. I do sometimes make the billet end a couple of inches longer for fat guys. Their weight, thus their waist size, can vary a bit more than thin guys, so an extra few inches to let that belt out a bit more also. I mainly use buckles which have a keeper made into them, so on the buckle end I don't need to fuss about a strap keeper eg, this sort of buckle http://www.leprevo.co.uk/photos/14724-40.htm

How far have you got with this: This suggestion needs doing before the front is sewn on. 1. cut a piece for your hanging loop strap (here after, hls ), make it the width you want and about 7 or 8 inches long* 2. cut one or two 'spacers' the width of your hls and about 1/2 inch high 3. sew one end of your hls thru the spacers to the back of the sheath, with the rest of the hls going upwards 4. bring your hls up, around and down past the part you sewed and sew that end to the sheath, about 1/2 below where the spacers end is sewn. 5. you now have a sheath standing-off from the hls * hls = say 1 inch from sewing point to top of sheath, up for about 2 inches, curve over 1/2 inch, then down 2 inches, plus 1.5 inches past the first sewn point = 8 inches

Most excellent 'Pre-distressed' - some people just like that look At lower school no-one wanted to be seen wearing new denim jeans,

On the buckle end I just taper long enough to take the smaller buckle and a fold over to main wider part, so thats about 2.5 to 3 inches. On the billet end I narrow about 6 inches or maybe 8 inches max and I have a steep curve up to the wider section

Put in the spacers. Angle the tops a bit to guide the blade into the sheath On this copy of a 16th century sheath the knife has a 1 inch wide blade. I cut spacers to the main shape and to narrow the blade area down to 1 inch wide. In this case the spacers are also the welts, but the same idea holds

did you remember to take photos to share with us?