OldLeatherGuy

To me it has a "well worn" look, be it accidental or by using antique paste to "age" the color. The other one looks "new".

This is nothing more than my own personal opinion, since you are dealing with a special kind of "leather", something akin to hair-on cowhide, you do not want to find out a year from now that you have caused some of the scales to fall off of that skin. I was once told by a veteran leather crafter that you don't want to treat any "special" type leather with oil, neat's-foot, olive, or any other oil as you might do with veg tan cowhide. I can't prove his theory but I did believe his common sense reasoning about the subject. The reasoning he had was that snake or lizard or gator, examples of skins of this kind, will stay soft with age, when oiled, and the connecting points where each scale is rooted in that snakeskin will soften also and will eventually begin to shed from that piece of skin. There are accounts of Indian tribes who used the same type of skins to adorn their dance moccasins and clothing and they laced or sewed the skin pieces on the leather rather than using hide glue or some other permanent fashion of attaching the trim pieces. Then, if the snakeskin pieces started to show wear or shedding scales, they would simply cut the laces and lace on a new piece. I tried to attach a photo of a rattlesnake inlay I am working on for a knife sheath now and the program limits the photos to 1.46M so most of my HQ photos are higher than that. I will try to downsize the photo and append it to this message later. Getting to what to use for a final finish, I use Fiebings Tan Kote for most all of my leather which I feel needs some kind of protection for outdoors use. it goes on easily, dries quickly, and doesn't run the neighbor kids out of their homes with a nasty toluene smell. It is not water PROOF but it is very water repellant and it gives the scales a sort of grab onto each other if you put a second coat on after the first coat dries. It also imparts a sheen to the snakeskin and to the leather surrounding it which I like much better than a "fake" look of some of the high gloss finishes on the market today. I also have heard that some leather workers use saddle soap rubbed "with the grain" of the snakeskin with good results. Fiebings saddle soap probably is not the best for this as it contains a fair amount of lanolin, which is danged good to keep cowhide in good healthy shape but it may cause the same shedding problem with any scaly type exotic skins. Good luck with your project.

And, to add to Grumpy's question, if you are gluing, are you applying enough weight to the glued panels and/or lightly hammering the glued edges with a leather type convex head hammer? Also, are you allowing the contact cement to thoroughly dry at least overnight. I live an a very humid area on the FL Panhandle and, if I don't give the glue adequate time to completely dry, [sometimes up to 48 hours, depending on how high the humidity is], when I work the edges with sandpaper, [I hand sand only], sometimes the leather gets a bit "mushy" and begins to "bend" back and forth as I sand with usually 150, 220, and 400 in that order. Much of how the leather reacts, as you work it through the various stages of finishing, depends on the grade of the leather and how much time you are spending doing a certain procedure like dressing the edges. The more you work the edges on lower grade leather, the more flexible the leather can become. Good luck on getting it worked out.

I believe that many leather workers, who specialize in handled carried bags such as folios and laptop/Ipad type bags, make their own handles from various types of piping and other materials. Innovation most times requires a bit of trial & error but that is all part of the fun of working out new ways to do things, for me anyway. When I taught an Autobody Program in a community college back in SoIL, I included a course in auto upholstery basics and I showed my students how to make leather and naugahyde welts, for seats and around many of the leather trim panels, from a paper type piping "foundation", bought from upholstery supplies shops, and then wrapping matching and also contrasting colors of thin leather around the paper piping to set off the design of the new upholstery. Much of what I did back in the day was focused on custom interiors on custom street machines and also boat seats so we tried to be "different" in ways to set our work off from other guys who stuck to the OEM styles of reupholstery. I can imagine a really beautiful look on a stiffened bag type of construction by contrasting the welt and/or the round handles with leather of another color to offset the monotone overall color of the bag or folio. One of the very best jobs I did on a total restoration of a Triumph TR-3A, which was finished in a very bright red 2 part epoxy top coat, was to do the interior in black leather with almost exact matching bright red welting on all of the seat seams and door and trim panel coverings. It was a real show winner, literally and otherwise, as it would take top spots in almost any of the Sportscar shows in and around the St. Louis area over to SoIL and into the states adjoining IL! [I can see where the same basic concept could be used in doing bags and folio covers, it they also had a welt around the outer edge or along the seams of the project.] Those shows were quite popular back in the early 70's into the late 80's when I had to get out of the trade for medical reasons which probably would have killed me had I stayed active for a few more years. As it was, it took me over 2 years of coughing and hacking to clear my lungs of the accumulation of bondo and paint and primer dust and also fiberglas dust [think Repairing a 'Vette] which I had inhaled over my autobody career. [We weren't much concerned about the repercussions of inhaling those types of things back in the day.] I became aware of the risks when I had to teach ONLY the correct ways to almost anything done in a repair shop coupled with more stringent OSHA laws on using respirator masks and air assisted paint respirators while doing any kind of spray painting or priming. I had the white paper "dust" masks available in my shop for my employees to use when sanding or painting but that was about the extent of our "safety" precautions back in that time. The reason I mention this is that I notice many leather workers are applying dyes, sealers, and other products with airbrushes and a furnace filter fitted to a makeshift box type of affair, and that will not adequately stop all of the overspray and airborne fumes and spray droplets that are generated by even a tiny airbrush when used by itself in an enclosed airspace like a small shop or studio. [Just a heads up from a guy who almost killed himself by not understanding the ramifications of not using proper safety gear in his work environment.] Consew was the top o' the line walking foot machine in those days for light upholstery sewing and I was lucky to get one on my school shop's budget when it was the deciding factor in expanding the teaching program to include the upholstery class. Nowadays I wouldn't have a clue which are the best of the best, almost all of them are now much better than the machines which a vocational program could afford to buy back in the 70's.

Thanks guys, as I mentioned in my last post, I have a penchant for wanting to get ahead of myself when trying something new. My first try at basket weave was 10 times better than my last try along with incorporating wet molding along with the stamping. I found that the heavier leather thicknesses, 6 oz. and up, all became easier to get a nice deep impression than stamping on lighter oz. leather. Casing is paramount to getting the full effect of the stamping detail and I consistently case my projects with a good spritz or a full dunk in warm water and then placing them in a ziplock bag for an hour or more. But I underestimated the amount of room the 1911 Commander I was working with on this project required to get a tight fit while still being able to wet form the lines of the gun on both sides of the holster. this particular holster was also an "Avenger" style holster and I probably should have handled the stitching later on in the process instead of sewing it on just after the tooling and before the final assembly and stitching of the one piece fold over holster shell. The resulting amount of wet forming I had to do flattened some of the detail of the stamping, much to my dismay. But a holster built a tad smaller than the frame and slide of the pistol won't be worth much if you cannot keep the weapon seated in its place at all times when it is holstered. So, I opted for finishing the holster and keeping it for my own use and to remind me of the dorky way I messed up an hour of good basket weave stamping when I had the chance to do it correctly. I plan to do a search on Paul Burnett to get more ideas on making my own lifting tools from all these old beat up screw drivers I have been toting around for the past number of years. I knew that it was worth all of that embarrassment when my "tool" friends would point and laugh at my one beat up old tool box hidden in the corner with all of the stripped sockets and rounded off screw drivers and other junk tools I have "collected" in my travels just waiting for a use to come along for them. Thanks again for the advice and all of the answers in this thread, I hope it helped others as much as it helped me rethink what I need to do with my own work.

My suggestions would include 2 products made by Dupont, one is Cordura and the other is a heavy grade of Tyvek. Both are water resistant and very strong and will wear well in outdoors type conditions. some types like Cordura will repel water from the outside while allowing air circulation from within.

There are times when I will line holsters and knife sheaths but there are reasons to do so. If I have to place rivets, Chicago Screws, or any other metal item inside the holster or sheath, I usually line the item. Common sense dictates that you do not want that rivet or screw type attachment to rear its ugly head a year down the road and start to abrade the surface of your client's weapon. I have not lined the few wallets and belts that I have built but I don't see anything wrong with it if it suits the customer's whims and you charge for the time and materials.

Thanks Yin TX for your hints/tips on the effects created from the shading and lifting techniques you have worked out. One of my very basic problems is that, many years ago, when I was in my teens and 20's, I was quite interested in Leather Craft. But, a number of obstacles got in my way along the journey, which I was following at that age, the war in the 60's, my immediate needs and goals after my discharge from the military in the late 60's, marriage, kids, very drastic medical problems with one of my sons, etc., and I left my interests by the wayside in hopes that I could pick them up at a later date. Now I am halfway through my 77th year on this rock and I have almost a "phobia" to learn at much as I can in the time I have left which causes me to take in much more than my aging brain is capable of storing/processing now. I am a very fast learner, always have been, and it seems like I cannot get enough information crammed into my skull to feed this demand for more education in the things which really matter to me now. I wish to address some observations of your work, which looks to be a finished notebook cover or a portfolio cover, on how you arrived at such an apparent high lift to your undercuts on the oak leaf carving. From the way it looks and the apparent angle of light hitting the surface of that closeup, I am guessing that there is more to the amount of height to which you have lifted the leather that gives the edges of the leaves such a sculpted finish more than the shading techniques. I have tried to duplicate that look on a number of oak leaf practice panels of 7 oz. to 9 oz. veg. tanned hide and cannot seem to get that amount of lift in my attempts. The leather you used in your example looks to be maybe half that thickness and you got much more lift than I am getting using conventional tools. I am not sure if I am simply afraid of maybe damaging/tearing the leather surface or if it is the tools I am using. I have premade lifters I have acquired and have done a bit of modeling around those areas with modeling tools I inherited from my older sister who was in the art and sculpture world back in the day. I am finding that a good polishing and a bit of creativeness with the modelers can sometimes give a much darker shading to the leather carving but your shading looks cavernous compared to my efforts! [Yeah, I had THAT happen a few years ago also .....] You mentioned making lifters out of cheap screwdrivers, ... of those I have a plentiful supply lying around my shop! Could you mention ways to modify them with basic hand tools so that I would give that technique more thought and practice? (All I seem to conjure up this morning is a bent common screwdriver blade with a rounded and sharpened edge??) I have been a "modifier" of other things to suit my needs through the years so I would probably not have much trouble once I got a few "don'ts" and a couple of "do's" under my belt. I will leave that for now and close by saying that I admire your work and hope to learn much on this forum about such things as wet forming and order also. I just finished an "avenger" style holster for a 1911 that started out with basket weave tooling and, by the time I had all of the wet forming done to help retain the weapon in the holster, much of the tooling had been damaged or obliterated in one way or another ...... Still learning as I go ......

I found this image on Pinterest and the link led me to the Leatherworker forum. I expect that the stamping and carving belongs to someone here on the forum but I don't know very many crafts people here who I could maybe match up their work styles to this one. Any ideas on who did this very good looking work, I wanted to pick their brain with a few questions .....