chuck123wapati

Oh yea now i remember lol.

I love this truck

you can smooth out some of the imperfections by running the beveling tool back and forth over your work with just hand pressure.

and it comes much sooner than you think lol.

i would start by searching this forum for a few days virtually everything you need to know is in this knowledge base.

You will be surprised at what you will make in the future. if you take one thing from "Sheridan Style Carving" It should be the last paragraph on page 98 under helpful hints.

I use the nerdiest headband type I could find with my 2x readers underneath and wear it like a badge of honor.. Have some fun in life heck yea...

Your file pouch idea would be a needed and excellent addition for sure if you can figure out how to add it on to your existing sheathes. I bought cheapo 5 dollar machetes and have one stuck in about everything that leaves the road. lol same with cheap knives. I'm going to grind a new blade out of 1095 and temper it to the point it bends instead of breaking and put on a nice handle then maybe a new sheath as well. Always wanted to do justice to a blade so plain but so purpose-built and functional.

I'll add some stamps don't need to be top quality to work well while others do need to be very precise to get a good effect.

those look great!! I use a cut-off machete with about 15 blade" for pack-ins instead of a hatchet. Lighter and just plain better for choppin small stuff.

thats the ticket!!! cartridges are expensive and rimless ones don't play fair and is added assurance on the off chance the person actually rides a horse with it on.

I haven't tried corn, but it reminded me of an old story I read where an old cowboy bought a pair of boots that were too tight. So, he packed them with dry corn, filled them with water, and the following day the corn expanded and they were stretched way too big seems ripped and unusable. I used bbs and some plastic beads I recovered out of a kid's store-bought bean bag for the one below I made but it didn't take overnight to form them so corn would work IMO without causing bumps depending on leather thickness very thin leather might show bumps, A guy might try rice, air soft pellets, or any source of small plastic or glass beads or dried grain. I would avoid sand unless you feel you can clean it out well enough. oh and pack it hard in from the bottom up don't fill it then try and pack it won't stretch the leather .

mark the piece that will show mark the starting hole of the other piece glue them up then use an awl.

yea that's why a guy still needs the books and why they are so expensive. IMO but the web is only half a**ed at best. As i see it the basics of most styles are so the artist can be faster and easier. the the tools fit the size of the pattern the patterns fit the work. Sheridan for example starts out with circles indicating the area for the flower everything flows around the flower basic flower and leaf tapouts are used then the stems and leaves are added all flowing around the original circle pattern. Then the tooling is done in a very specific way but all repeatable and becomes muscle memory for the artist to the point most is free hand drawn onto the leather itself. some sheridan saddles have dozens of these repeated images the flowers are rotated so they appear different but are in fact the same image. All done with just a few specific stamps and edgers. Sheridan also uses bar grounders specifacllyfor background

well maybe I can help a lacing chisel is what you need for punching lacing holes they come in different widths to match your lace. I glue it up before lacing i'm sure someone will follow up with their own methods also as leatherwork is not written in stone lol.

pretty cool I watch an English show "The Repair shop" where they repair and restore things for folks. there are many leather projects they do, one was to finish a pair of baby shoes that was started over 100 years before and never finished because the baby outgrew them before they could be finished. the guy had to make lasts first before he could finish them. but they were perfect when he was done.

I think I'll clarify a bit. tracing a tooling pattern on the front of your project is somewhat different than tracing a template to be cut out of a larger piece of leather. For example the rectangle that makes a wallet that you cut out of a larger piece you can trace with about anything you want as at least mine are oversized and will be trimmed off. i use a soft point pencil and trace around my pattern. my previous comments were mostly about tooling patterns. hope this helps

lol its my specialty, a stylus is cheap stress free and used for more than just tracing patterns. Mine is a dulled large needle in a exacto knife handle. The really really really good toolers draw their pattern directly on the leather. I am nowhere that good but it's what to strive for if you're in it for the money.

I wouldn't suggest a ballpoint pen unless it's empty. Please don't ask me how I know but if you rip through your pattern you will draw a beautiful ink stain on your piece of leather then you can toss it. some folks use craft tool aids, plastic impressions you tap into your piece. The really good toolers use what is called a tap-out. it is simply a leather pattern with the swivel knife marks cut into it. you case your piece and tap the leather impression onto your piece then cut it. it is much more precise than any traced pattern. The swivel knife is the most important part of the tooling process as its the basis for the design so if its off then your design will be off.

You are the best-dressed mountain man in the Rockies, indeed. Nice work! Horns are fun getting them thin enough to see through will make you pull your hair out lol.

i use the round sportsman's model with a brass handle I've managed to wear out two of them in the last 40 + years. they are a great product no doubt. I sharpen my awls similarly to what you do; it's much easier on tiny blades to get the proper angle.

nice rig indeed!

Thrift stores are your friend! Check out old leather goods, leather clothing, and boots, and such. Also, scraps and cut-offs make good tooling and sewing practices. This sheath was a scrap that i practiced tooling on then I reversed it and made a roughout sheath for an old beater and practiced my sewing on it also. I have a cheapo china patcher so a lot of scrap was burned in the process of setting up and practicing lol.

I'm not that far yet but I do have a Sheridan carving book coming so who knows. I use the books more for the study of the designs and how they flow, and especially how negative areas affect the overall design. I've always drawn, painted, wood carved and other artsy fartsy stuff so most of the design will be mine to a certain degree but yes maybe not Stohlman or Sheridan but somewhere in between lol. I'm having a problem finding cheap 1 1/2" Ridgid tubing lol. I'm thinking of a reel on case so there is some carving room.

i'm planning two fly rod cases for this summer. I'm not one for a lot of carving on a project but just a bit in the right places. My carving is so so I've read far more than I know on the subject lol.