DaveT

As you have found, the action of stamping/tooling leather will stretch it. You can use rubber cement to glue the leather to a backing material (cardboard, plastic, wood, etc.). Most folks use something like mylar film (Tracing film or used x-ray film works well). A lot of us use clear packing tape on the back. Remove the tape after you're done tooling. One word of advice though, if you use tape, buy the good stuff with a thick base material. Cheap packing tape works, but will tend to shred when you try to pull it off. The better tape comes off in a single piece. You can also rubber cement the leather directly to your tooling stone. Just makes it a bit tougher to turn and tool. As for the use of a stone, it is to provide a firm surface to tool on. The heavier the stone, the less noise you'll make and the less the table will bounce. The mass of the stone also makes it easier to get nice deep tooling. Hope this helps. Dave T.

You got it. When you soak the leather to wet form it the fibers swell and the tooling disappears. You can wet form first, then stamp, but it can be difficult. Most of the time, if you are wet forming you won't tool. In saddle making the fork cover is wet formed and then you stamp it while on the saddle. Not sure how you'd do a holster, unless you didn't sew it, opened it up and stamped after forming. Alternatively, don't soak the leather as much and it won't swell as bad. Dave T.

You can buy "honing oil" or "cutting oil" that is made for stones, and works really well. I have also used plain vegetable oil and that works very well. While you're sharpening wipe all the oil off with a paper towel/rag when it gets too black. Then add some more drops of oil and keep sharpening. When you're all done you can clean the stone with soap and water, let it air dry, and it will stay clean for years. As a side note, if your stone starts to get a "dip" in it, you can flatten it by using black wet/dry sandpaper (Very coarse grits) laid on a piece of thick glass (Like you skive on). The glass acts as a surface plate and will flatten the stone out. It does take a lot of work though. Dave T.

That looks like a thonging chisel, not a pricking iron. The pricking irons I've seen (I got rid of mine, prefer the wheels) have much sharper points. More like needle points that chisels. I suspect you've received the wrong tool. Nice chisel though. Dave T.

Here's a couple ideas. Mark your corners like you've been doing, anything round will work as a template. You can use a knife (Any kind) to cut the corner at a 45 degree angle to nip off the extra material. Now repeat a couple times until you are really close to the curved line. Once you have all the corners nipped off, fold your card case so the opposite corners match up. (Do all this BEFORE laying out your stitching lines!) If you don't want to tap the fold lines flat with a hammer (I use a polished smooth faced ball peen hammer) clamp the edges in line with clothes pins, binder clips, or small plastic spring clamps. Cover the clamp jaws with some masking tape if you're worried about leaving marks. Now use a rotary tool (Dremel) with a sanding drum or a small belt sander to sand the corners to the marked line. This way all the layers of the leather match up and are sanded to the same shape. Finally, to make your own half round and quarter round punches, I buy a cheap set of hardware store hole punches. (http://www.harborfreight.com/9-piece-hollow-punch-set-3838.html) Using a grinder or dremel with cut off wheels, remove half or three quarters of the punch. For larger sizes, use a hole saw that you grind the teeth off of, then grind the edge to sharpen it. Remember to keep the steel cool by frequently dipping in water. Keep your fingers near the area you're grinding, if it's not too hot for your fingers, it's not hot enough to ruin the steel. Hope this helps Dave T.

Check with your local steel supplier and ask for "Steel rule die stock." It comes pre sharpened (Well, mostly, like any knife blade) and in various sizes/lengths. You can use this to form just about any shape die. Then mount on a board or weld in bracing to make clicker dies. Dave T.

For dark leather I use a silver pen or a white pencil. Pretty much any light colored "glitter pen" will work on darker leather too. The silver is the best, but as stated earlier, chalk or tailor's pencil (Look in the sewing notion section of a fabric store or Wal-Mart) works well if you need to clean the marks off. Dave T.

Tandy has several of the old stamping books you can purchase as "Ebook" and print out what you want. http://www.tandyleatherfactory.com/home/ebooks/ebooks.aspx I've bought a couple this way and they are really nice to have. Enjoy the stamping! Dave T.

Check out CarvingPatterns.com. Lora Irish does a lot of wood carving patterns and I know she has some great bear pattern packs. They are downloadable and you can scale them in the computer to whatever size you need. There are no photocarve patterns, but you can also find info on carving bears in Al Stohlman's Figure Carving Finesse. (Recommended, BTW!) Dave T.

Congrats on getting started on a new obsession. I'll warn you now, it will get expensive, and you'll never quit learning. On the up side, you'll meet some of the nicest people you could ever want to meet. One thing you said jumped out at me, you bought a tooling belly. That's all fine and good for practice, or anything that doesn't need strength, but for a dog collar or lead you really need to go with good strap leather. A double shoulder will work, but if you can afford it go with a "double bend". The strongest part of the hide is right up around the spine area. This part of the skin moves and stretches the least. The belly the most. The shoulder area is kind of in between. Anything you can use for belts would be good for leads and collars. I own two Rottie crosses and either one would stretch a poor quality lead in a heart beat. I finally made a couple up out of 1" wide latigo. This is the same stuff most horse harness is made of! Now if they didn't outweigh my wife she might be able to walk them. There's lots of good info on selecting a hide, and what areas of the hide are good for what kinds of projects on this board. There is also good info in the basic Leathercraft book from Tandy. Hope this helps Dave T.

Finally made it through the house and was able to pick up my book. The title is: "The Cheyenne Saddle" by James R. Laird. Copyright 1982, published by The Cheyenne Corral, Westerners International. ISBN: 0-9609648-0-0 I found several copies available for sale through www.bookfinder.com. Quick history: F.A. Meana bought out the E.L. Gallatin saddle shop in Cheyenne around the mid 1870s. The E.L. Gallatin name was retained until the early 1880s, when they began marketing under the F.A. Meana name. The F.A. Meana company pioneered the saddle catalog, a marketing technique picked up and used by just about everyone. BTW, did you know that Sears and Roebuck used to sell saddles in their famous catalogs? Your saddle could be one of many models. It's a loop seat (You can see the stirrup leathers through the seat) and has basic bead border. It also appears to have some basket stamping on it. The skirts are missing or folded under, so I can't begin to guess the model. The model number is usually stamped on the front of the skirts, under the front jockey. From the angle of the photo I can't tell if the tree has swells or is a slick fork. Meana made both styles. I doubt you could use this for anything other than display, but it might clean up nice enough for that. You'd have to clean it up pretty good, soak and flatten the skirts, and oil it liberally to bring it back some, but it might be worth the work for a nice conversation or collector piece. I have no idea if it has any value to a collector, and in the current condition it's pretty rough. Hope this helps. Dave T.

I looked at your gallery pics and from those it looks like you've got a pretty good batch of shoe/boot maker tools. Lots of lasts, some shoe stretchers, etc. The sewing machine is commonly called a "Patcher" as in sewing on patches on boots. Value... That depends on the makers, but this stuff comes up often enough that it's not real valuable except to a tool collector or another boot maker. Check ebay, and ask over at thcc.com. There are some really savvy bootmakers over there. Dave T.

Also ask the customer to bring in the tools he wants to put into the toolbag. If he's going to use it for tools. It's real embarrassing to build a beautiful bag only to have it way too big or too small for the stuff it's going to carry. I've also seen tool "rolls" built like these bags. Those have individual pockets for each tool carried, straps to secure the roll tightly and straps to attach to the bike. Those are real specialized though. You really need more info from your customer on what he needs/wants. Also ask him to bring in catalogs or pics of the style of bag he's looking for. Dave T.

What you make your pattern out of depends on how long you intend to use it. For one off patterns I use manila folders, poster board, even construction paper (Watch out, the color bleeds when wet!). For patterns I want to keep, I glue two or three layers of poster board together. I get larger sheets from a friend who works at a printing plant. They are the samples and extras that get run off on an order. You can also purchase partial rolls of very heavy paper/poster board from printers, then cut off what you need. These come in all widths from 24" to 72". If you have a pattern that you use a lot, plastic is the way to go. Thin Polyethylene is available from plastic suppliers in large sheets. This is the same stuff as the flexible cutting boards. Plexiglass works too, but spring for the poly carbonate (i.e. Lexan) type. The regular acrylic plexi is pretty fragile and will crack and break when cutting or drilling. Dave T.

FA Meana was a saddle shop in Cheyenne, Wyoming. I'm on the road for the next month or so, but I have a book at home that tells a great deal about the FA Meana company, and the Cheyenne style of saddle in particular. Sorry, I don't remember the author, or the title other than ...Cheyenne Saddle... It's a pretty good book and has a lot of reproduction catalog pages and photos. Basically the Meana company made saddles and tack and sold them all over the west via saddle catalogs. I'm pretty sure they would have sent saddles into Canada if requested. The number 181 is probably the saddle model/style number. When I get home I'll try to dig out the book I have and post some more info on it. Dave T.