DwightT

Great design, awesome execution, and I love the dragon skin concept. All in all well done.

Yes, you can apply the antique over the resist. That is the typical application. I usually use a spray-on lacquer such as Fiebing's Saddle-Lac. The problem that I've had with rub on or brush on top coats is that they do take the antique off. /dwight

I almost always apply an antique to my tooled items since it helps to hi-lite the tooling. After tooling I apply any dyes, then a coat of Resist (Fiebings Pro-Resist), the the antique, and finally a top coat finish. The Resist keeps the antique from discoloring the died areas. Since you only used the antique before on un-tooled leather, you were probably more after the staining effect, while for this it sounds like you are after the hi-lighting. When you apply the antique, work it over the entire area making sure that it gets into the recesses of the tooling. Then wipe it off using a damp cloth or paper towel that has been folded over multiple times to make it fairly stiff. You don't want to wipe very hard. The idea is to just get the antique off of the raised areas of the tooling and leave it in the recessed areas. /dwight

I saw somewhere that a guy had taken a scrap leather circle, folded it in half to make a taco, then filled it with pennies and stitched it shut. Seemed to make a pretty good weight and he claimed that for the weight the pennies where less expensive than ball bearings. Dunno how that would compare to the cost of sand. /dwight

I'll do the same, but sometimes if I can't find any line art that I like I'll look for a photo instead, load it into a graphics program that supports layers (such as GIMP) and then trace over it to create my own line art. /dwight

Looks great. I saw the one you posted a while back, and that was part of the incentive for me to do the one that I did for my grandson. I may have to take on the inlay process next time. /dwight

A0 refers to one of the paper sizes generally used by printers in Europe. A0 is the largest in the A series at 841x1189 mm (roughly 33x47 inches). A1 is half of A0, A2 is half of A1, and so on until A10 (26x37mm or 1x1.5 inches). Our standard "letter" size (8.5x11 inches) is roughly the same as A4 (210x297mm). There are also B and C sizes that start larger than the A series (1000x1414mm door B0 and 917x1297 for C0), but they follow the same half sheet per step idea as the A series. /dwight

I made the strap adjustable since he still has a few years of growth left. But I told him that if he sticks with it then when he turns 20 (and is hopefully finished growing) them I will make a new custom fitted strap for him. You may have to wait a while. Currently he thinks he is in to Ska music. I'm trying to convince him that he needs to look at the great bassists like Jaco Pastorius or Paul McCartney. His response was "Who?" I can understand him not knowing Pastorius, but McCartney? I'm really going to have to work on his education. Thanks. However we have 12 grandkids. The problem now is that I'll have to figure out what to make for the rest of them. /dwight

My grandson recently decided that he was going to learn to play the bass guitar, so while his other grandparents bought him a guitar, I took the opportunity to try my hand at making him a strap for it. I think it turned out pretty good. At least he is happy with it. /dwight

Ok, getting better penetration with diluted dye makes sense. As I mentioned I've done very few projects where I had to dye the whole thing. Usually I'm just doing small areas like backgrounds or other individual tooled elements. When I do those my brush will go from the bottle to a scrap piece of leather first for the initial discharge, then to the project. I do that to control the bleed-over into the surrounding areas, so I was probably leaving the "hot-spot" that was mentioned on the scrap piece. Diluting the dye won't mean that I won't have to do that intermediate step. If anything I would expect that I could have more problems with bleed-over, but I still think diluting it would be good for the general better penetration. As for Resolene, I haven't really used it much until just recently. Up until now I've either being using the spray-on SaddleLac, or my old NeatLac. Since I finally used up my NeatLac and everbody has been talking about Resolene, I thought I would give it a try. The instructions on the bottle didn't really say anything directly about diluting, but it does say to apply with a damp sponge. Regardless I'll start directly diluting it also. A question with diluting the dye: if you are mixing two or more dyes, are you diluting the individual colors first and then mixing or do you mix first and then dilute the results? Does it even matter? /dwight

Why the 50/50 dilution for the dye? Not looking to start an argument, but I've seen others mention that and I can't remember seeing the reasoning behind it. I typically use it straight from the bottle, but I'm using an artist's brush to apply it to a small area. Is the 50/50 limitation only applicable when you are dying the entire piece? And why the dilution for the Resolene? Since that is a sealant, wouldn't you want it full strength for the best effect? /dwight

Nice. And I like your stamping pattern. I have those leaf and rope stamps. I may have to go play with that on some bracelets for the grandkids. /dwight

Married for 28 years the first time. Single for a year before I even thought about dating, then found someone who has now been my best friend and bride for the last 11 years. We had both lost our spouses to cancer at about the same time, so we both knew about long-term commitment and working through the issues as they come up. When I was dating though I encountered a few divorcees. Man they were a bitter group. Nothing good to say about their ex's, and in some cases about men in general. Didn't go out on a second date with them. Can't say it was just women that were like that though. I knew a few men that complained about their ex's too. Some people probably shouldn't be in a relationship to begin with.

That's really beautiful. I just may have to add something like this to my list of future projects. /dwight

Thanks. Between this pattern and Jeff's I should be able to come up something that will give me an idea as to how to make a holster. Should keep me off the streets for a couple weeks now. /dwight

I had an uncle that used to raise Percherons and I remember that he had some bell straps for them that had felt like that. On the other hand he was 102 when he finally passed away, and that was 20 years ago. So I guess his straps could probably be considered antiques. /dwight

Idaho is Open Carry (Constitutional Carry?), so I could pretty much carry it anywhere I want whenever I want unless the store or whatever posts a "No Guns" sign (which would probably send me somewhere else regardless of if I'm carrying or not). However I doubt if I will actually carry this one much at all. Right now I mostly just want to get some experience with making a holster, partly because I've had family and friends ask me when I can make one for them. The Taurus (and it is a 5-shot) isn't really an appropriate gun for me (trigger is too damn heavy) so I'll probably eventually sell it and get something else. I just think it might be a good one to practice on for a starter holster. @chuck123wapati your holster looks like about exactly what I was thinking of, so if you have the pattern in a digital for would you mind sharing it? Or I'll just go get Jeff's. It looks like it will do the job for me also. /dwight

Not really an answer to your query, but FWIW when I'm working with some "tricky" material like that instead of pushing the awl into my hand I use a wine or Champaign cork to push against, Tends to leave much less blood on my project. /dwight

I just finished off a project (guitar strap for my grandson - a first for me), so for my next project I'm thinking of taking on a making a holster. I haven't really done much with guns (just haven't taken the time yet) but I have a Taurus 85 Ultralight that my sister gave me a while back that could use a holster, if only for the learning experience. Any suggestions for a holster pattern? I know next to nothing about the different styles of holsters, but I'm thinking of a simple belt clip type with some tooling (so not wet-molded). I'm looking at the Bullseye Holster Pattern Pack from Tandy, but again since I know nothing about holsters I can't really tell if any of those would be appropriate or not for this gun. TIA for any suggestions. /dwight

Our local Tandy (20 minutes away for me) has been like that. Unfortunately they just lost my favorite employee - he decided to move on to other things. They have a new guy in there that I just haven't warmed up to yet. I'm hoping it's just a matter of my going in more often to get to know him better. And I agree with Jonas - Thank you for supporting local. Online shopping has it's place, but we need to keep the local stores in business too. /dwight

Beautiful work. Nice tight stitching. /dwight

Looks great. I may have to build myself another one to add another shelf for the dyes and paints. Or maybe I'll just use some dowels to attach another shelf on top of the existing one. Looks like you have room for the thread rod above the tools. The problem with mine is that when the spools of thread are loaded, pulling some of the tools out of the shelf below it gets a little awkward. If I do a rebuild I'll plan on leaving more room between the shelf and the rod. And I used a piece of aluminum electrical conduit for my rod. Having a step-son who is an electrician with easy access to "scraps" was pretty much the deciding factor for me. /dwight

Looks great. Weren't those stars fun to paint? /dwight

Looks great Chuck. How did you do the lettering? Was that just freehand with a swivel knife? /dwight