olfart

Beautiful work, Dwight!

Grinding on thin material will heat it up very quickly. Use light, brushing strokes of the steel against the grinder and keep a cup of water nearby to cool the steel frequently. If you see a change of color, you've already lost any temper it had.

Good looking sheath! You'll have that machine tamed in no time.

You're only as old as you feel. Some days I'm 16, some days 136. Most days I split the difference and go with the calendar at 76.

Thanks for the images. The belts look great! I may have to tackle a belt someday.

OK, thanks for that clarification. Looks like a semi-crossdraw application in the photo. That looks like a fun sport!

Welcome from NE Texas! Like everyone else, I admire your ability to hand stitch with machine-like precision. Beautiful work!

Welcome from NE Texas! I look forward to seeing your work. How does a mounted shooting holster vary from a non-mounted?

Thank you!

Thanks!

Time for a followup. I ended up cutting a new back piece to replace the one that was too small, added welts to build up the sheath to fit the knife, got it all glued and stitched today. Here's the result before dyeing. The knife is my first attempt at a real knife after a few knife-shaped objects, and it still needs some work. No, it's not a RR spike knife. I cut the head off a spike and welded it to the handle as a pommel.

Welcome from the Great State of Texas!

That's a nice first project. It shows hope for future improvements and gives hope to those of us who've yet to complete a first project. Good work!

Thanks for that information. I'm a total noob, so details of how things are done are very helpful to me.

As a hobbyist with no plans to go commercial, I don't have or need a maker's mark. My screen name is just an apt descriptor of me.

While you're right about the cycle, the reason behind it likely is to dump what's on their shelves before the mandatory inventory in January where they get hit with a tax for everything they have in stock. After tax time, they rebuild their stock again. Same with all retail stores. You're also right about the staff at the Bossier City store. Great folks.

Yes, I know. It's nice that you are willing to share Texas hospitality even across the border in a foreign land...

Some of you may have noticed bikermutt07 mentioning he has granite remnants to give away. I took him up on his offer and met him at Tandy Leather in Bossier City, LA, where he not only gave me two large granite slabs, but some nice leather and a bunch of tools to help me get started! Then he graciously guided me through Tandy and helped me find everything on my shopping list. I asked a clerk if he gets a commission on sales. She grinned and took the 5th Amendment. The staff there knows him by name, so it was all in good fun. Thanks again, bikermutt07, for your generosity and hospitality!

I'm in agreement with the others here. That bag is way too nice to carry onto a job site. That's a beautiful piece of work!

Welcome from the Texarkana corner of Texas! If you're just beginning, I haven't been born yet. Those masks are magnificent!

Ding, ding, ding! I think we have a winner! I'll give that a try if I can find where my wife hid the shelf paper. Thanks for the feedback!

OK, since you insisted... Here's an image of the item that drew me into leatherworking along with my first attempt at basketweave stamping. It's a little late for trimming the stamped piece to match the back. Any trimming now would remove part of the stamping.

Thanks for the quick reply. Please explain what you mean by "stick it to something". Tape? Glue? Staples? I used a thrown-together pedestal with a laminate top that I could use outside so my pounding wouldn't bug my wife, and the laminate (Formica) top is slick.

Recently I won a knife made by a local blacksmith friend, and it included a nice sheath with a basketweave pattern. Now I'm hooked on blacksmithing AND leather. After making my first knife, I decided to embark on making a sheath for it. The simplest thing to do was to copy the one made by my friend, so I bought leather and some tools and set about the task. I cut out the top and bottom pieces, carefully matched in size, and tried my hand at basketweave stamping. Aside from being a little bit wonky in places, it looks OK to my untrained eye. The problem came when I started laying it all out to stitch. The stamped piece has grown about 3/8" inch in length and about 1/8" in width, so it no longer matches the bottom piece. I thought maybe it would shrink some when it dried, but it hasn't shrunk enough by far. I'm guessing now that I may need to either stamp the bottom piece as well, or at least dampen it and pound it with a mallet to spread it out. Any other suggestions?