edwardmorris

Sorry for the double post but I've made some progress, pix here

Not sure if we're allowed to say this anymore but I replaced all stones with genuine Swarovski crystals Couple variations of the same belt as it changed over the years.

Thank you both Here are the others I've done as well. These things largely needed beveling and beading to be done right but what I learnt is that I will need to work with a heavier leather (and more practice) if I'm to go after perfect results.

I need to figure out a better angle to get the whole length into the frame properly

One bad tap of the hammer very visible

Thanks! Resized ones don't seem to have lost much detail, here is my first attempt using a (relatively) light/8oz tandy leather. Satisfactory with room for improvement, perhaps time to look into thicker leather and longer studded snaps etc.

Made some belts as well! Added a backing to all of these by the way, then ended up just making the layers blend with a burnishing wheel followed by a slicker both mounted on a drill press. Probably the worst thing to do to leather but hey, I like the end result Of course, Made in USA stamps for some pride :D

Above two are gaming, next two are wrestling Not very good at detail painting, most certainly need a LOT of work with the swivel knife on circles/tight curves

Thanks! Trying with resized pix. Made some coasters/place mats to get some practice with beading and basic tooling (backgrounding is terrible but not needed for the title belts ;)). Have to do these one at a time

I've been away for a while but I've been busy practicing :). I have a bunch of pix to share but the camera on the new phone takes images in large size, how do I post pix that are more than 1.46M?

Goal with learning how to use the double beveler is to eventually be able to do this Couple more pix

Thanks Rahere! I will try another piece with the spacing recommended and incisions using a xacto. Thanks JayEhl! I had read this somewhere and have been using shelf paper (almost 0 stretch) and getting some good results, but still not quite the best with the backgrounders, I have more details on my getting started thread (I really need to move all this to a proper project thread). It took some practice and for the look I'm after, BK tools are working out better. Tandy was great for practice and I still use it for smaller generic projects, so thankfully I'm past buyers remorse on both :D

Thank you Pastor, for the encouragement :) For my day job I feel the same way, years of experience and I still make the silliest of mistakes. I have been making time to get more practice in and I'm starting to get comfortable with BK bevelers and beaders. Someone on my other thread had suggested using tape on the back to prevent stretching, and that helped quite a bit especially with the edge beading! I still need more practice with the backgrounders, even with the tape (shelf paper to be exact) on the back, towards the end the leather did stretch and warp a little. I am also getting much better with casing for the leather I'm working with. I believe I need to practice backgrounding some more with the leather less wet to prevent the stretch. I also rigged up a makeshift press using a toggle clamp I had (not my original idea, pretty sure I saw someone else do it a while ago). This is working out great for logo stamps, as well as cutting out holes for snaps. Another lesson learnt was that eventhough I didn't cut the holes until after the backgrounding, they still don't line up even after correcting the original plan lines. Next piece I shall experiment using a template that I can use the cut the holes once all the tooling is finished and the leather has had time to warp (I know 0 warp is unlikely) and settle. I also took a stab at using the double beveler from Tandy for another part of the project. The tool has too sharp an edge at the rear and as hard as I tried I couldn't avoid it leaving teeth marks. I need to check with BK if they make a steep version of it, knowing their quality the end result will likely be better than this. I have more pictures but restricted on how many I can share at a time, so I will add some more later. As always, feedback is much appreciated.

One more question related to what tools I may need. I need to do this kinda lettering with the leather around the text pressed back. I had seen a post from someone around here that had logo stand out crisp with a nice background but I can't find it again no matter how much I search. I made this with BK XX Steep Beveler and tandy pear checkered backgrounder I had purchased for the belt stuff, but it doesn't seem to be the right tool. While it seems to press the leather down enough, the lettering doesn't seem to stand out as much. How can I do this better? The other piece is just me trying a bunch of things. The B294 was right on the money!