Olle P

Yea, I could be more clear. Referring to the case where the uppermost layer is removed just to reduce the visibility of imperfections. If users want embossed or brushed (nubuck) surfaces, good for them. I prefer damaging the surface (by tooling) myself.

"Top" or "full" grain makes little, if any, difference. With the right selection of raw hides a tannery shouldn't need to bother messing with the upper layer of the grain. I began doing leathercraft about a year ago, and half a year ago I realised the advantage of using locally produced instead of (Latin) American leather. Swedish cows typically have: No branding marks. (Marking is done by tags on their ears.) No scratch marks from barbed wire. (Pretty much no longer in use.) No nasty insect bites. (No insects of such types live in the cool climate.) In my mind chromium tanned leather is a second rate product every day of the week. Its main advatage is being cheap, the second advantage is a fairly good resistance to abrasive grinding before looking worn. Disadvantages are: It's toxic. Remains should be treated as chemical waste products. Not good for tooling, embossing, burnishing. Not good for hardening. Must be dyed at the tannery. Looks awful before dyeing and is difficult to dye later on. Mechanical properties are also questionable (but definitely not much different) compared to vegetable tanning. (*) A football being "tough"? Depends on what you mean by tough... The ball isn't subject to much wear and tear during its relatively short life span. It does have to stand up against a (mostly) constant stretching force from the bladder within. The seams must be strong enough. Then there's the odd hard kick it will see every now and then. Any one piece of ball surface won't be subject to many kicks though. I can think of a couple of other uses for leather that see much more abuse: Punching bag. (The area that gets hit.) Shoe outer soles. Cover on the toe steel dome on protective work shoes worn by for example construction builders and brick layers. Belts used for driving industrial machinery. (These were made from a type of leather called "remläder" in Swedish, I don't know the English term. I now use that type of leather to make regular waist belts and straps.) Boarding on boats trafficing the icy waters of the North Atlantic. (Cow hides and salt water is usually a vey bad combination, but it used to be very common in Ireland. See "Brendan Voyage" for reference.) (*) A direct comparison between chromium tanned leather and leather tanned using traditional oak bark tanning showed oak bark being supreme in terms of surviving abrasive grinding. (Source: Timothy Severin, "The Brendan Voyage")

Skiving the edges down a bit will reduce that challenge.

Being located in Europe it's a must to handle both the US Imperial (not to be confused with the slightly different British Imperial) and the SI systems interchangeably. A lot of the litterature is written in USA, using imp, while European retailers often provide product information in SI units. What seems like the only globally adopted standard is to sell leather by square feet when sold by size.

I have this very same problem, trying to get the right gusset length. Measure the outer circumference: - Each time I measure I get a different result. - Requires the front part to be cut before starting with the gusset design. Count the number of holes: - Can work for large diameter shapes, like the bags above. - Won't work as well for tighter radii since either the gusset then will need to stretch quite a bit or (better) you need to place the stitching holes further apart at the corners. - Requires the front part to be almost finished before starting with the gusset. Not that good for drawing patterns before touching the leather. Add to this the implications of wanting a gusset that's more complex than a straight rectangle. - Tapered at the ends and/or with pockets and such mounted onto it.

I made a button and found that the strap does sit firmly in the hole, once tightened. Northmount's advice should work!

I suppose the trick is to keep the hole through the button narrow enough to squeeze the strap. I'll try it!

Then the button won't hold together. If it's unclear, this is what I'm working with: The strap is an integral part of the button and by locking the strap after pulling it through the button core the button is prevented from unrolling itself. A solution I've found from similar buttons is to have the strap split (lengthwise) into two that can then more easily be fastened where needed.

Seems appropriate...

How should I use a rivet to fasten the button? (Got plenty of those!)

I encourage you to do the design yourself! What you ask for is simple enough for that. Any "modifications" required to an existing design will be less difficult if you do (design) it all from scratch. You will also be more proud, skilled and confident when you deliver the finished bags.

Surely someone here have come across a/the solution for my problem...?

I've learned quite a lot by watching videos on Youtube. Ian Atkinson and Tandy Leather for example have several informative videos. Then I've also read a few books. Took me about three months after starting with zero knowledge to get confident enough to do just about anything I want and can afford. (It also took me some $3,000 spendings on tools and materials to feel I have most of what I need.)

Increase the distance between the buckle and keeper. A 10-15 cm "flap" won't be held down when the keeper is that close to the buckle. I have 3.0-3.5 cm between buckle and keeper on my belts. (Have the keeper closer on my hat band, but then I rivet instead of stitch the buckle in place.)

I've done some airbrushing, mostly on R/C car bodies though. First I used a very cheap single stage airbrush, and it was a pain to use. Each time I stopped spraying for ~30 seconds (or more) the device required disassembly and cleaning (which took about five minutes) or it would first splutter and then stop spraying completely as the acrylic paint hardened at the nozzle. Then I got a double action airbrush, much like the G44, and it's okay. Needs much less maintenance during work! For my leather work I've this far only used it to apply R.O.C. S20 Leather gloss. I went from sponge to airbrush in order to avoid smearing the previously applied colour(s). The S20 is runny like water, so the process is very simple. I consider using the airbrush for (Eco-Flo) dye as well, when applied to larger surfaces. That dye is also very runny, so I don't expect having to thin it out just for using an airbrush.

It took me a while to find the very discrete "Help" link at the very bottom of the pages. (When viewed on a PC. Don't know about small screen devices.) It leads to this page, from where you can find the help about the forum. I don't think it's sufficiently informative though, since I've already found the hard way that this forum have many unmentioned limitations regarding for example the ability/allowance to edit posts and show images.

I know how to make* a button like this one: It's commonly used on medieval style bags, pouches and shoes. What I don't know is how to properly (as in historically mostly correct, yet neat) attach the button to the item. The simple way would be to punch a hole and pull the strap through. Then tie a knot on the inside. This knot would be a bit more bulky than I desire, and feel really awkward inside a shoe, so I don't think that's the regular way to do it. Any help appreciated! * 1. Make (cut) a wedge ending with a thin strap at the pointy end. 2. Roll up the wedge. 3. Punch a hole straight through the roll. 4. Pull the strap through the hole.

Seems like this forum doesn't like moderately sized (~1000 pixels wide) images. The file names are in fact links, that now doesn't work since I deleted the files before figuring that part out... Editing a post is obviously also something you can't do a couple of hours after the initial posting. Here are slightly shrunken versions of the lost pictures referred to in the first post: A simple medieval style belt for my daughter. A grip for my Viking longbow. A quiver with permanently attached belt, designing it from scratch and incorporating just about as many techniques that I could come up with. Thats my way to learn. Saddlers stitch, whip stitch, double loop lacing, braiding and use of rapid rivets. Its lined with some burgundy coloured linen cloth. A decorative small plaque for my son named Örn (the Swedish word for eagle). Here the leather was too dry to make good impressions. I think my use of the camouflage tool to create feathers was fairly successful though. A Viking style belt bag with contemporary Celtic decorations. This is done in goatskin. A belt for myself. My daughter, named Idun, got a barrette made from a Tandy kit. Then I went all in for my mother, who got a handbag (the first Ive ever done) based on Tandys Nostalgia Handbag.

I like the designs of your work! Discrete yet stylish and oozing of quality. It's much in line with what I try to do myself.

There were (long) links to my pics, but now all but the file name has been erased. I have no idea why... Will try to find a lasting fix.

Tack!

My (initial) leathercraft history. Who am I? My name is Olle Petersson. I was born in 1969. Been living in Sweden all of my life. My fascination with leather started early on, but leathercraft didn’t become a hobby of mine until late summer of 2015. It came as a result of my wife arranging a family membership in the local SCA branch at the start of 2015. We decided to turn ourselves into “hobby Vikings”. Over the next months I figured out we needed some leather products: Belts, belt bags and shoes for a starter. I was taking up archery as well, and for that I needed a bow grip, arm protection, a quiver and a protective pouch for the bow. Most of these can be purchased “off the shelf”, but I thought I could do it cheaper and possibly better (as in more historically accurate) myself. Being oblivious to most aspects of leathercraft I intended to do shoes first. Having found a picture of what looked like some simple Viking shoes (made of suede) I ordered some vegetably tanned belly leather, waxed linen thread, a sewing awl and some 3x3mm lace. Didn’t take me long to realize that belly leather is totally unsuitable for those shoes and the sewing awl is a piece of crap that I can do better without. (The awl might become a little better if I get around to sharpen it though.) I used that leather and lace for other projects, after buying more tools and materials and watching several “how to” videos on Youtube. Starting in August I made: A simple medieval style belt for my daughter. A grip for my Viking longbow. A quiver with permanently attached belt, designing it from scratch and incorporating just about as many techniques that I could come up with. That’s my way to learn. Saddler’s stitch, whip stitch, double loop lacing, braiding and use of rapid rivets. It’s lined with some burgundy coloured linen cloth. After this I increased my repertoire with embossing and colouring as well, resulting in… A key-fob for my key to the scout cabin. (I’m a scout leader.) A decorative small plaque for my son named Örn (the Swedish word for eagle). A Viking style belt bag with contemporary Celtic decorations. This is done in goatskin. A belt for myself. By now it was more than obvious that my initial expectation to save money by making the goods myself was laughable! I’d spent a small fortune on tools and materials, so I’d need to produce huge quantities just to break even with no labor cost… On the other hand I realized that I can (and will) do items that are much better quality and more historically correct than the ones available for sale, and I love doing it! Closing in on Christmas it was time to make some gifts: My daughter, named Idun, got a barrette made from a Tandy kit. For this one I went with a personal motif, with a Linnaea since Linnea is Idun’s second name. Then I went “all in” for my mother, who got a handbag (the first I’ve ever done) based on Tandy’s “Nostalgia Handbag”. Tandy’s design is a very “Western” style which doesn’t fit my mom at all, so I made some changes to make the look more European while also increase the “handmade” and “quality” parts. Instead of desert roses all over I went with a more conservative Magnolia pattern on the lid (adapted from a pattern made for another bag design). For the initials I picked a font that’s close to my mom’s hand writing. Tandy’s design calls for double loop lacing all around. I reduced that to single loop (which I’d never done before) along the lid’s edge and the front edge under the lid. The rest of the lacing was replaced by saddler’s stitch using waxed linen thread. The stitches were recessed using a stitching groover. Saddler’s stitch also replaced the rapid rivets holding the axle strap (saddler’s stitch is just as strong) and the machine sewing for the inner pockets and zipper (it’s not really handcrafted if you use a sewing machine, is it?). I also added a buckle to the axle strap in order to allow for some adjustability of the length. All edges were properly slicked, burnished and painted. My mom got really happy receiving the bag. She was really surprised how much work and detail I put into it, and thought I must have taken many classes to get that far. But as my wife so accurately put it: We’re not the ones who take classes. We get a hobby, read and otherwise learn as much as we can in a short time frame, and then (if needed/desired) give classes. Now I’ve also made my first pair of Viking boots, using a proper pattern and proper material. More will follow…

I tried to post a presentation in the member gallery, including a number of pictures linked (not uploaded) from my OneDrive directory. Got a message that there are "more pictures than I'm allowed to", but I can't find any limit mentioned anywhere. What's the limit? Is it per post, per message or grand total?