battlemunky

He's back! Good to see you @JLSleather!

Aquilium 315 is good. I still prefer the smelly stuff over it for bond strength but I can use it in the house. I haven't had it fail but during testing, it will come apart where Barge seems to tear the leather apart with it. #15 is good stuff, don't get me wrong but it isn't as strong as Barge. Unless you are making working reins or something I think you'd be fine.

I used the rough edge on a few sides to make similar but for the dogs to hit so we know they need to go out. @Vikefan, are those the Weaver bells? They are so wonderful and melodious.

You may deaden sound between the bench and the granite with some rubber sheeting but you're gonna have a hard time dampening the noise between the tool and the thing striking it.

Beautiful!

It looks great but having seen the inside I'd love to see that on the outside. I bet with some pocket wear and getting tossed into a valet/glovebox a few hundred times it'd develop some crazy character you just don't get to see with black leather. As is, it looks really well executed and professional though!

I have a Frog Jelly 2lb rawhide maul and am super pleased with it as well. It was pretty inexpensive in comparison to others. I have one of those cheap jobbers from Amazon too and it is crap and chipped early into ownership. I have a few rawhide mallets too and they are both good.

This^ I'd drill a few holes through the length of the head. It's a one #'r so it shouldn't be smacking anything too awfully hard and polypro is pretty resilient if you do. You could then paint the inside of the holes some contrasting color for fuller customization if they are visible.

That's a nice honey/tan color as well. That whole thing looks pretty darn good.

If you subscribe to his YT channel you'll get notified as well. I don't do Facebook either. He usually puts up a free pattern every month and if you don't have the 1.5 mm punch, his hole spacing is 6 mm so you can use an awl or iron. I've bought several of his patterns as well as the freebies. He's a good designer/pattern maker as well as being generous with his stuff.

Great sentiment behind that maul! Also, you get to see the difference between BK stuff and other stuff. I was impressed with my first BK tool but not blown away like I thought I'd be. I was expecting mythical but they are just really good tools.

Yeah, I have a very expensive (forgot/stopped counting) knife sheath as well. I also have a shell cordovan wallet that was an extremely good value (at this point) out of the deal now too though :-) There's also a fully functioning custom leather shop in the mix too :-) There are few things I'd rather do instead.

Looks pretty good @Stetson912

I know I have expressed very little love for Tandy in the past but one of the few things they have that is really effective is the strap cutter @chuck123wapati mentioned. They are hard to mess up and they work really well. Once you use one you'll not want to use a straight edge again. The Tandy one is fine but Romanov Tools's offering looks amazing but I haven't used one, just internet window shopped them.

@Sheilajeanne, I've had some good experiences at Tandy also so it hasn't been alllll bad just maybe 7 out of 10 times it has been. Just enough to keep me from completely shunning them.

I think the antlers are quite well sculpted. As far as getting rid of the chop, lots of tapping and walking the beveler instead of tap/move, tap/move. Not sure if there is an analog to wood carving or not on this one or not. There's a ton of YouTube out there on this that seeing will do far better than trying to describe in words. Smooth beveling is a bit easier to get choppiness figured out than checked beveling but you don't need it if you don't have smooth bevelers. Ok, think about it like this: one whack per tool width and move leaves a foot print of the tool that is easily discernible, half the whack and its half as discernible, quarter it, even less. Now pretend you are Xeno and keep on halving that distance until you achieve smoothnicity. Yep, I just made that word, smoothnicity.

I agree with 99% of this. Some tools are just crap though. There is a certain level of tool that you can no longer place blame, there is the lucky few good cheap tools that are a freakishly good value that you get where you can't place blame, and then there is crap. Unfortunately for me, and I assume a lot of folks, you don't really know how to tell until you've been doing this for long enough to figure out if it is you or the tool.

"I have also sharpened the knife." Depending on if the seller knows what they are doing that statement may be problematic too.

He just rescued a puppy and so did we so we took his since it's gonna be around 80 lbs and ours may his 25 if he's lucky, so we could train it before he gets here. He went in the navy and is getting out so we're letting him land here until he gets things pointed in the right direction. Hopefully he gets routed quick because we don't get along too awfully well for very long and I miss my leather shop already and its barely accessible anymore. Kids...

Adorable @Marius Pirvu, good, clean work ,as usual, too.

I have one of my kids moving back in or I would jump in front of that bus actually. He'll only be here fora few months (not holding my breath...) so if nobody has done anything with it by then I may pull the trigger. You know, for the team

It's my main complaint about Tandy. I really dislike it when those know it alls act like they are the only game in town and try to push other, often inferior, products onto you. I wish I was familiar with that skiver/splitter. If you end up taking one for the team and its not a turd I may be interested at that price.

I have noticed that if I let it dry thoroughly before joining, whether it be Barge, Weldwood, or water based Aquilum, the joint is far less visible. Having said that, on an unstained edge there will always be some type of line visible.

I can't argue with any of it. It ain't gonna win any contests but it looks just fine.

Wide and narrow are for bigger projects and filligree, respectively. Thick and thin is for depth control. If you search "Cut less, bevel more" Mike explains this in pretty decent detail. Some folks like to cut to the core and some folks don't. Its an aesthetics thing as well as a structural thing depending on the thickness of the leather. I have a Barry King, a Tandy cheap jobber, and a no name and like them all pretty much equally. As long as they swivel freely, I'm pretty happy I reckon.