Hi, newbie here trying to cobble together my starter kit and need some help! I'm interested in making small leather items like wallets and bracelets for a hobby and as special gifts for friends/relatives, having been inspired recently by Jim Linnell's tutorials. I'm honestly a lot more interested in developing my skills in the carving/stamping part, my end goal is to be able to carve out my own illustrations onto leather, if I ever get good enough. So far, I have these picked out from LCT:
Kyoshin Elle Pro Swivel Knife + blade
Diamond Awl (Small)
Pronged Chisels 2mm 1 & 4 prongs
Other tools like needles, wing dividers, dyes, etc. I'll be hunting for in my local area (I'm in SE Asia). At the moment, I really need some help regarding a core stamp list to learn the Sheridan style. I've added the 6 stamping tools listed under the Basic Leather Carving Tutorial stickied in this subforum, and added a few choice picks of my own.
Camouflage C431
Veiner V407
Background A104
Mule Foot U858
Seeder S722
Beveler B702F
Beveler B701F
Pear Shader P233
Pear Shader P206
Beveler B892-C
Beveler B60
Is there anything in that stamp list that I can do without? I'm already way over budget and I still need to buy a lot of other things from local shops. I thought maybe I'd need a minimum of 2 sizes of bevelers, 2 of pear shaders, and a few undercut bevelers to start with. Can I just make do with one of each, and if so, which beveler, pear shader, and undercut beveler from the choices on that site would be better? (Preferably around the Y900 range)
I'm also wondering if I'm better off just buying one of those budget Chinese stamp tool sets. I hear the quality isn't good and that the tools break or deform, so I've been really hesitant to go that route. Considering I'm still just a beginner though, maybe it's better value for money at my stage?
Would also appreciate anyone looking over the rest of my starter kit, if it's not too much trouble:
Swivel knife + blade
Awl
Pronged chisels 2mm, 1+4 prongs
Stylus w/ modeling spoon
Jeweller's rouge
Mallet/maul
Cutting mat
Rubber mat or poly cutting board
Tracing paper
Needles
Thread
Large box cutter
X-Acto Blade
Wing divider
Cobbler's hammer
Edge creaser
Edge burnisher
Metal + transparent rulers
Leather dyes + stains
Leather finish
Dense sponge
Leather glue
Spray bottle
Vegetable-tanned leather 2mm (outer work/carving)
Vegetable-tanned leather 1mm (inner work)
Leather cords 2mm
Would love to know if I left anything out, or if there are things I can remove to ease the budget.
I'm pretty excited to get into this, but I don't want to be careless about my first purchases, especially considering my tight budget. Sorry for the lengthy first post! Thanks in advance for any help.
(Posted an earlier version of this yesterday on Reddit, but I took down the post and made an updated version here instead. Apologies if this seems a little familiar!)