Vikti

The way I'm trying to make it is with 1 piece wrapped around 3 sides with a gusset taking care of the 4th side and bottom. An pic of what I'm working with can be found here. What I've done so far is cut out a piece big enough to wrap around the front and back of the player using the natural curve (or the top of the image on the web site) of the player itself and sew the gusset onto the flat sides. Probably what I'll do is try the wet form like Kathy shows. I can always put the player in my wife's seal a meal to get all the air out of the bag and get the bag to a small enough size too. Thanks for the help all. Damon

I'm trying to make carrying cases for my kids mp3 players and whenever I make up a pattern and transfer it to leather it always seems to be too small. In this case I added 3/4" to 3 of the sides that are going to be sewn up (top will be open). I cut everything out, punch my holes for sewing and wrap it around the player to see how it will fit and if I continue with what I got then it would seem that if it fits then it would be just barely. How do I figure out how much to add to my dimensions for stitching based on the weight of leather I'm using? Damon

Hit the local flea markets, you may be surprised as to what you'll find Get some of the steel bandings that lumber yards use to hold wood together for shipping for clicker cutter blades or for general stiffening of your work. Usually, they'll point to where they keep them at and say have at it. Someone moved out of my apartment complex a few days ago and maintenance threw out the tenants old dart board, I snagged myself a good, solid metal dart (about an $8 dart) pulled the fins off and now I have a good scratch awl. A modified arbor press works pretty good for letter stamping Stropping X-acto blades work good in a pinch if you forgot to pick up scalpel blades yesterday while you were near Hidecrafters Occasionally asking for paper bags at the grocery store will give you some pattern paper Damon

A coworker of mine is wanting a new wallet and I was thinking about making him one with a longhorn on it for X-mas (he's a Texas Tech fan). Mixing the paints to get the right color isn't the problem with me, my problem is because I haven't really worked with leather paints before what would the best paints to use. I've used a couple of Eco-Flow paints before but I've never mixed them so I don't know how good they would come out. And with E-F being a water based paint how well will it hold up after drying, getting sweat on it, working in the rain, etc. Any advice? Damon

I found this a little bit ago and thought I would share it. I don't know how well it will work with leather but I'm going to take a shot at them. watch band bracelet lanyard Enjoy! Damon

Your right on just about everything. At times you will see 2-3 different types of armor on a person and then it may not match the period that that person is representing. I was aiming for 16 century France but I'm a member of a group that goes for the Saxon culture and before I started my haietus I had started on working on some plate armor for myself (go fig, none of it matches either culturally or time period). Down here were I'm at we do have "authenticity police" but they also know that everyones budget has been tight for years so as long as people make an honest attempt then they're happy. But as far as combat goes, we wear what it takes to minimize injury even if it means having a little bit of mundainity showing. As far as the heraldry goes, you said that you don't see anything that matches in real life. Well, as far as the heraldry itself goes, the SCA follows established guidelines enacted well before Edward I. You won't see anything from history because all heraldry throughout history has been registered with various college of heralds throughout Europe and therefore protected and the heralds in the SCA can be somewhat hesitant to allow something that even closely resembling protected heraldry be allowed. Costumes: You hit the nail on the head! They are both well researched and put together for the weekends. Many a time has my wife finished outfits in the car on the way to an event with the hopes that it will last till Sunday afternoon. I have seen people buy inverters for their cars so they can run a sewing machine on their way to an event to get that last bit of clothing made while hubby drives.

You gave in too easily. I was looking for a reason to go digging through St Gabriels' archives. My wife is the former Asterisk and Arbalest Pursuivant for Ansteorra, so I kinda got a crash course in heraldry. Good work though. How well does it hold up in combat? Damon

Metric is the devils' toy!!! I honestly prefer points & picas. Spent most of my life measuring with them, 16 years in the printing industry. But I guess that the standard system works for me at work. But what other unit of measure will allow a pound of feathers to weigh more than a pound of gold. (Does anyone know why?) Damon

Wow, I didn't know that. Not to change the subject of the thread, but is that why some people get dead-blow hammers (as a cheaper alternative) so they can get that harder hit on the stamps? Damon

Sweet!! We aren't worthy to be in the presents of such uber-greatness

Nice site. Question, what would you use a 96oz. maul for other than home defense?

I was noticing the same thing with a couple of my own Craftools. I have 2 A401 (?) background tools and they have different checker patterns on them. What got me to notice was earlier today while I was doodling around I started using one and took a break and afterwards I picked up the other and noticed that I wasn't getting the same "darkness" that I was getting earlier. I've only been hanging around the Hidecrafters in Ft. Worth for a couple of months now, but one thing that they have shown me is that at times "night and day" doesn't even begin to describe the differences in quality between what Hidecrafters sells and Craftools. I bought myself a Barry King mallet about 2 months ago hoping that I would get a better look out of my tri-weave tool that I got from Tandy but was dissappointed in the results. Today I got myself the small tri-weave from Hidecrafters and now I get very satifactory result by just using my light polly mallet. So now, every few weeks when work permits me to go up there I get myself a couple of new tools to replace my Craftools that I have. Damon

Or maybe our dealer or pusher. I'm thinking about getting a 3rd one for myself with a ceramic blade but I don't know whether to get a straight or angled blade. I use my angle blade during times when my arthritis acts up. Maybe I should take the advice of this thread and get both...

If you want to try yourself or if anyone in your area wants to try for you, you can look at Glove.org and get a basic understanding of how to make a pair. The lady who runs the site has been making gloves for years but I don't think that she has done any in leather yet so you may need to adjust the pattern some to account for stitching. Damon

I say, if you have the money, use both. Use the single action for your big areas like your back ground and such and use your dual action for the actual work (image). As far as internal vs. external, you'll find very few single actions that have an internal mix and you'll find very few dual actions with an external mix. There out there but you really have to look for them. You can't go wrong with either Badger or Pache. Until I sold both of mine a couple of years ago I never had any problem with either one, not even a hic-cup.

So far I've had great luck with just a utility knife and a broad blade x-acto. I have a friend who is a knife/sword smith and I'm negotiating with him now to make me a custom head knife

I would look past pewter and go straight for Britainia (sp?). It only takes a few more minutes to melt and it's a good bit harder that pewter. And if you do sand casting (which is what I do when I have the time and money) it won't burn your sand any more than pewter because it cools almost as fast. Damon

That's awesome! You should be proud of that work. Damon

Thanks for the link, lots of stuff for me to study. Looking through some of the files of tools and my wife said "no, you can't have all that" so I now have my shopping list together Damon

Thanks a bunch all. D

I talked to a friend of mine from back when I was in the printing industry about getting an old paper drill bit sharpener from him but he reminded me that paper drill bits have the bevel on the inside of the tip. Does anyone think that this would work, basically regrinding the bit so that the punch can use the sharpener or would having the bevel on the inside eventually interfere with punching holes? D

I see a small money making opportunity for you if you could drum up the business Damon

Yesterday at a flea market I found someone who was selling hole punches from 3 to 8mm for a dollar a piece. Next week I'm going to send my wife back up there with some money to buy a few for me but some have a bit of rust and most are dull, the rust I can take care of but how can I sharpen them up without buying an expensive (by my budget) sharpener? The only thing I can think of right off the top of my head is using a tapered grind stone on a dremmel but all I have is a very high speed dremmel and don't want to take the risk of shattering the stone, as it's my only one right now, or damaging the punch or simply hurting myself. Damon

I'm in Cleburne but when work allows I'm starting to try to bring projects up to Hidecrafters in Ft. Worth so if I have any questions or problems I can quickly get some help.

Hi all, I just found out about this forum this last week and I'm amazed as to all the experience and help that everyone has posted. I started working with leather when I joined the SCA about 11 years ago and put it up after about 2 years and just started back with it again about 6 months ago. I haven't done much lately except try to build my skills up but here is what I have done earlier today, my first attempt at an oak leaf mind you, not bad in my opinion though my photography skills can use a lot of improvement. And from time to time I'll post some of the stuff my oldest daughter does now that she has an interest. Talk to everyone later, Damon