rodneywt1180b

Gary's way is better.

You can also leave long tails and tie the thread off. Hide the knot either on the back side or between the layers.

+1

Beautiful job! I'm sure you could find a market for more restorations like that.

I like both the knife and the sheath.

That's what I was thinking.

There's also the small matter of it being a gift. Possibly a surprise. It'll be a fun project regardless.

Pm being sent.

Starting off like that makes me embarrassed to show my own work. I haven't done much with furniture in quite a while. Beautiful work from Ferg and Pintodeluxe both. Lately it's been canes for me. Here's a couple of my latest ones. This one is a rustic market stick style with a white oak handle, holly spacer and a red oak shank. It's as crooked as it looks and was a fun one to make. This was a custom order for a man's wife. Quilted maple handle and black walnut shank. The handle was scaled down to fit her hand. The quilting in the handle is much better in person.

Nice work and seeing the handle it's made for makes it make more sense. It looked wide on the skillet. Beautiful cast iron too BTW. I really need to dust my skillets off and learn to use them better.

Bikermutt: I've been learning the hard way that stitching leather is technically easy. Stitching it neatly is not. The devil's in the details and my hat is off to those who can do a neat job of it. I still have a long way to go. Battlemunky: Thanks, let's hope it's many years before you need one. YinTx: Thanks. Maybe we could work something out? I like your work. I would love to see a cane with some tooled leather on it. Maybe I do the wood and you do the leather on one? I think it would mean more to your dad if it had your work on it too. Maybe something along the lines of a smooth handle and you add a tooled leather panel down the shank? I think there are a lot of possibilities there.

I finally finished the other one I had mentioned and covered a Cardigan style handle as well. I'll start with the cardigan. I started this handle before I bought the foam so the foam was an afterthought. The handle was already finished with a 1/8" recess intended for just leather and no foam. I tried splitting the foam down to 1/8" on the band saw with mixed results. The way I did it was dangerous and scary with my fingers way too close to the blade. NOT a smart thing to do. If I try anything like that again I'll do things differently. For being an afterthought it's not terrible but the foam is a little lumpy in places and I still had trouble getting a decent fit at the edges. I really need to re-think my process for this style. Baseball stitched on the bottom but I forgot to take a picture. Here's the other Fritz I mentioned. Overall I'm pretty happy with it. I'm getting my sizes worked out. This one is normal sized. I also think I have a pretty decent process for this style now. I glued the end caps on after they were shaped and finished and the leather was installed. I would have done the same for the collar but had to correct another mistake and couldn't on this one. Still, it did remove most of the risk of damaging the leather. Still struggling with the bottom seam. It's not quite centered and is a little wobbly. I'm not really happy with the different brand of finish I'm using right now. I'll switch back to Minwax Tung Oil for the wood when this can is gone. It seems to dry harder.

I'm sure glad this made it back to the top. I missed this thread until now. Beautiful job on the restoration!

Congrats! I fall on the tool junkie side of the line. The older the better. Better to have and not need than to need and not have.

Great display! Just having it at the library will inspire at least a few people to try working with leather.

Lee Valley makes a very nice cane tip that has an ice point. Spendy, but nice. They're a little more work than just screwing them on but it's not hard. If you're careful you can do it with just a utilty knife. http://www.leevalley.com/us/wood/page.aspx?cat=1,250,43243&p=63218 There are also accessory ice tips available. This is just the first one that came up. https://www.ebay.com/itm/Cane-Ice-Tip-Attachment-Cane-Ice-Grip-5-Prong-Ice-Grip-Attachment/323444996001?hash=item4b4ed2f7a1:g:4I4AAOSwmWFanYub

It looks good and should serve it's purpose well. I think most of the mistakes you mention bother you more than anyone else. We are our own worst critics.

Thanks. My other one I'm working on I didn't get my stitch line centered very well. So i fixed some mistakes and made some new ones instead. @ScoobyNewbie What wood is your stick? Looks like a fun one.

Thanks guys. This first one turned out bigger than I intended. I made the core of the handle a little too big. Someone with large or extra large hands will like it. I have a second one in the finishing stages right now. The second one is normal sized. I'll post it when it's done.

Beautiful work!

I love the design!

That's a good sale.

I just finished this prototype of a padded handle. The padding is 1/4" closed cell cross linked polyethylene that was recommended by the supplier. I like it. The leather is brown kidskin from Springfield. The woods used are white oak and holly on the collar and end caps with a maple core on the handle and an alder shank. Overall I'm pretty happy for a first attempt. The padding made it easier to get a decent fit on the leather. There are a few small errors. The seams on the foam telegraphed through the leather a bit. More care was needed fitting the foam (fixed on the current one I'm making). I managed to put a small scratch in the leather at the top front of the handle. I'm working on changing the order of work to eliminate that possibility in the future. The handle ended up about 1/4" taller and wider than I intended. It doesn't sound like a lot but the handle is huge. I have large hands (short but wide) and this handle is big for me. My seams are still a bit wobbly but they are slowly improving. Critiques and advice are always appreciated.

Thanks for the link! I'm downloading the book now.

I like the brogue detail.