Jamespio

That's an awesome belt. You've inspired me. The first belt I made, and still use, was a single layer (bought a tandy strap) tapered tip to host a ranger buckle set I've owned for a couple of decades. The buckle is solid sterling, made by an unidentified Navajo artisan, and given to me by my uncle who for many years had a shop in Old Town Albuquerque. When he gave it to me it came with a very nice lined and stitched belt and I never appreciated the craftsmanship of the belt until I tried to replace it. That's what got me interested and started in leatherworking (purely as a hobby). The buckle calls for better treatment than I'm giving it, and although I'm sure my skills will be challenged, it's time to take on a more serious ranger belt. Thanks for sharing.

I own that same knife and was recently thinking that the cordura sheath it came with might be an appropriate tactical choice, but certainly not a good aesthetic one.

Love the idea and the leather work. Couple of practical points. Is there any risk of those falling out when you bend down, for instance leaning over the side of a boat to lift a fish? If so, straps with snaps would fit well with the design you've created. Second, if it were me, I'd put the micro scissors on a zinger/retractor.

So I wanted to improve my edges. Decidd to make a dog collar. Cut the leather, punched my holes, then burnished the edges with gum tragacantha. THEN, tried to dye a dark brown. Dye won't pentrate on the edges, or in spots along the edge where the gum worked into the leather. Any way to salvage this, or do I just need to start over and dye before burnishing?

that is a beautiful piece of luggage. Your customer should be enormously proud to carry that.

Was getting my gear together to go fly fishing tomorrow. Realized I needed a "holster" for my powdered dry fly floatant. This was about a 30 minute project with a scrap piece of leather. Here it is after cutting, gluing, riveting, and stitching. For stitching I used a royal blue nylon thread. Actually a rod-building thread, but it's UV-resistant, and the color works with my fishing chest pack. Then decided to use some resolene, for the hell of it. The resolene was applied with a wool dauber I grabbed off my bench, which had, apparently, beenpreviosuly used with buckskin dye. So the stitching turnd from royal blue to a greenish tint. Surprisingly, the color still looks really cool with my Fishpond chest pack. Here is how the item is used, the little bottle holds a fine white powder that dries flies, which means it is most useful if it is very handy while fishing. This will hang on the outside of the pack so I can unscrew and drop a fly in to dry it. And, yes, indeed, I will be spending tomorrow throwing dry flies.

Thanks for the comments and suggestions. The pattern I used recommended the single rivet, and although I doubted that recommendation, I took the easy way out. I think I'll go back and glue/stitch/rivet the handles. I might also roll them. I'm also planning to stitch the edges of the shoulder strap. I gave the bag to my wife, and told her I'd make whatever mods she wanted, and she liked those suggestions.

And I made these for myself and the kids. Unhappy with the stitching, but it's a useful little product.

My photos are too big. Here's a few more downsized I've owned this buckle set for many years, but the belt it was on wore out a few years back. I coudln't find a replacement locally, so went this route. Realize now that the leather belt blank from a craft store wasn't very good, and I think I'll try again, now that I have some Herman Oak leather to work with.

New to this, and my first attempts are a mixed bag. But I've had a lot of fun, and I've gotten some decent leather, and plan to do much more.

Still just getting into this activity. I've done a few small projects which have been chosen mainly to focus on different skills. Only one has been truly "successful" so far; a leather tote my wife loves. The rest have been functional and educational, which has been their main point. But it got me to thinking. I've been working wood for many years now. And have come to a point where I know when to trust my glue joints. There are often times when just gluing two pieces of wood together is more than adequate in terms of strength, reliability, and long term durability. When is it safe to rely purely on glue to hold two (or more) pieces of leather together? Are there times you've relied solely on glue? Under what circumstances? What kind of glue? And how did it work out?

Never mind. For some reason when I first did some searches I wasn't finding answers. But just now a search got me several answers. Thanks for reading.

I've got a bag of buffalo/indian-head nickels. Cheap ones, nothing rare, worth a couple dollars a piece. I'd like to use them on some bags I have planned, and maybe even on a belt I'm working on right now (basically as a concho) but not sure how to attach them. I considered epoxying them to chicago screws or rivets, but I'm not confident that a rivet or screw head provides enough area for a secure connection. Since I'm pretty sure I'm not the first person to attempt this, i thought I'd ask if there is a product or a method already out there.

Thank you, Halitech.

Hey folks, brand new here. I just started doing some leatherwork recently. In fact, so far I've put more time into making tools than I have into working leather. Maybe tonight I'll post some pics of tools I've made (stitching pony, edge burnisher, a couple of awls) since those are much better than the results of my leather work so far. My craft background is in woodworking, building bamboo fly rods (and graphite rods for that matter), and fly tying. So although new to leather, building tools has been easy for me, and many of the other skills are coming pretty naturally (indeed, while stitching last night I was reminded of the process of making woven flies used in euro-style nymphing with a flyrod). That said, and despite the awfully rough results of my first couple of small projects, I think I found a project that will be challenging, but is still within my skillset. But I have no idea what leather to use or where to buy it, and could really use some help. This is the project I want to make (for my wife): http://www.instructables.com/id/Leather-Tote-DIY/ (maybe somebody knows of an even better pattern for a similar project, if so please do share). And I generally like the look of the leather used on that page. I want something with a very natural finish, a little bit "rustic", what I love about leather is that it is a natural product with natural variation. Heavy enough to stand up on its own, and heavy enough to get good, even stitches (I discovered last night how hard it can be to get even stitching in really soft, thin leather). But not so heavy it's more like a box than a bag. Any recommendations? Thanks in advance. James Boise, Idaho