DwightT

My wife and I decided to make a tote bag for our daughter-in-law. She made the bag, lining, and pockets on her sewing machine, and I did the medallion and hand stitching of the top and attaching the straps. Never done a bag before, but I think it turned out pretty good. /dwight

Beautiful work. One of these days I'm going to have to learn how to mold leather like that. /dwight

I am far from any kind of expert at skiving, but currently I just use a round knife when I'm skiving. I only get a small amount on any given pass, but it gets the job done. /dwight

While I love the look of that (and the bag is gorgeous), my thought is how well does it hold up over time? My wife (quilter / seamstress extraordinaire) pointed out that cloth with that type of edge can curl up over time and generally look ratty unless it is glued down properly. Does a leather edge hold up better? /dwight

That is phenomenal! This young lady has some amazing talent and should be encouraged to explore it at every opportunity. Good for you for giving her that encouragement. /dwight

Thanks. It is something that I want to learn how to do, so I'll probably be digging through a lot of posts here and other places. A lot of it for me will be in just trying to figure out what type of holster would be most appropriate for that gun. Like I said, the style you show here looks like it would be a good fit. /dwight

I stopped wearing a wrist watch after I went through electronics school in the Coast Guard. They taught us that it wasn't exactly a good idea to be reaching into a cabinet full of electrical equipment with conductive material on your wrist or hands (no rings either). Instead I picked up a fairly inexpensive pocket watch and made a leather pouch for it to hang off my belt. When I got married a few years later, my new bride gave me a rather nicer watch that I carried in that same pouch for several years. I still have both the watch and the pouch, but they are showing their age. The pouch is missing the snap from the closing flap and the watch is in serious need of polishing and repair. I may have to resurrect them both one of these days. When I got married again, my second wife gave me a belt-clip watch on a leather fob. I had never seen one like this before and she told me that her first husband always wore this style of watch because wrist watches wouldn't work for him. As in they would just stop working. Apparently he claimed that it was because of his natural magnetism. I've never exactly been a watch enthusiast, but I will admit to a fascination with how they work, and an admiration for the watchmakers that can keep them working. Being able to work on those tiny components is an art that is way beyond my abilities. /dwight

No, I'll take a stab at making my own, and maybe try to copy your design. Now if you have some plans that you would be willing to share I would appreciate taking a look. /dwight

Beautiful tooling, and I like the holster design. I haven't made any holsters yet, but I have a Tarus 38 special snub nose that is on need of one. I think a holster like this one would work for it. /dwight

I can totally relate to that. We have a lot of of Canadian Geese that winter here. Back when I was bicycling to work there was one goose along my route that was particularly nasty, and it would often chase after me when I rode by. At some point somebody nabbed him and fitted him with a spiked collar. You haven't lived until you've been chase down the road by a goose with a spiked collar. /dwight

Yes, I would be very interested. My wife and I have 12 grandkids between us, with 8 of them being girls. I know that many of them would appreciate something like that. /dwight

Beautiful execution.

Nice work. I especially like the details on the scales and the hair. I may have to go find some tattoo designs just to practice my carving. /dwight

IMO - a speedy stitcher is fine in the appropriate place, but also IMO this is not the appropriate place. I use one when I'm attaching my leather to one of my wife's quilted bags to make one of our bottle totes. Since at that point I'm trying to stitch into a cloth tube, the saddle stitch just would not be appropriate since 1) it's difficult to see into the tube to find the hole, and 2) there isn't much of a hole anyway after poking the awl through the cloth. The speedy stitcher works here since now all I have to find inside the tube is the loop of thread coming out of the needle. When you are stitching leather to leather and/or you have good access to both sides of the project (such as the gun sling here) then I agree that the speedy stitcher is the wrong tool and the saddle stitch would be much better. /dwight

Yes you can, but it's been quit a while since I last did it. I think TomE has the general process using the fuzzy selector or select by color, plus there are several tutorials available out on the web for how to do it. I just did a quick google search for "gimp line art from photo" and it came back with a writeup along with a few video tutorials. Might not hurt me to sit down and go through the process again just to re-familiarize myself with it. /dwight

I'm one of those people who couldn't draw a crooked line if I had to. Remember the "Draw Me" ads that the American Art Institute used to put in magazines? Most people would get back a form letter letting them know that they had great potential as an artist and they should sign up for the Institute's art correspondence course right away. My letter wanted me to promise to never touch pencil to paper ever again. When computer drawing programs started to be developed, I was in heaven. I could at least now reliably draw a straight line and actually put out some engineering drawings at work. Since those early days the programs have gotten good enough that if I see something that I think might make a good leather pattern I can load an image into the drawing program (I currently use GIMP), then trace over it to create a line-art template. I can then scale that line-art to whatever size I need and print it out to have a tracing template. Probably most of you have enough talent to be able to free-hand draw a pattern directly and by-pass the computer part, but I know that won't happen for me. I think just about any computer drawing program would let you do the job. But regardless of the program it will involve spending some time with it to discover what it is capable of and what you can do with it. /dwight

They all seem to have their problems at one time or another. I had one from FedEx a while back that I'm still trying to figure out. Ordered a cat door from Amazon, and on the anticipated delivery date I got the email notice that it had been delivered. Great. Even included a photo of the package sitting on my front porch. But when I went out to get it, the package wasn't there. Crap. Figured a porch pirate must have walked off with it. Called Amazon to report it, and they said that they will send out a new one. I don't remember the reason but the replacement was going to take a few days to get here. Two days later though there is a package on the front step with our cat door. Ok, the replacement got here faster than expected. Go in to Amazon tracking, and they say they haven't shipped it yet. Went ahead and cancelled that order (certainly didn't need two cat doors), but I'm still trying to figure out what happened.

Beautiful. I may have to look at making myself a set one of these days. And your stitching looks pretty awesome also. /dwight

Nice. Gives me some ideas for some of the cigar smokers in the family. /dwight

I finished a dice cup today using your technique (mostly) for the base. I'll need some more practice, but I have to say that I like the process and the results much more than the flush base that I was doing. I started by cutting a circle that had a radius that was about 3/8" longer than the circle that I would have used for a flush fit. After skiving and wetting, I did some initial shaping over the Campbell soup can that I was using as a mandrel. I then inserted it into the tube, smoothed the fit and stitched it in. Next I cut off the excess (about 1/8"), and finished the edge as normal. As I said, I think it looks a lot better than what I was getting before. /dwight

Thanks. Seems so simple that now I feel like an idiot for asking (but the only foolish question is the one that isn't asked). I was thinking that you would have to have cut a dart in the inner rim to get it to fit properly. I didn't even think about wet molding. Haven't done any yet, so it just didn't come to mind. I'll be trying that in the next day or two on the next cup that I do. Thanks again. /dwight

Beautiful work. Especially with the lifter. I have got to get more practice with that tool. /dwight

I also did the "social" media thing for a while. Originally it was a convenient way to keep in touch with my daughter when she moved to the other side of the country. But with the way it has devolved over the last few years and as Chuck mentions the total narcissism that it seems to breed, I've pretty much given up on it. This forum and one motorcycle related forum are about the only types of online discussion areas that I'm involved with any more. /dwight

Small workspaces almost require some level of neatness. Otherwise there wouldn't be any room to get any work done. There is actually only one can of NeatLac. The other can is NeatLac Thinner. Basically acetone. I bought both of them way back when I was in high school, long before the digital age. There is about a third of the can of the NeatLac left, and it is actually still good. I don't use it too often though. It doesn't seem to work well with the gel stains that I use. /dwight

Hi Joel - I'm looking at the recessed base disk in this photo: In the dice cups and bottle totes that I've been doing I've been using a flush box joint: It works, but I think that having a recessed bottom like yours would be better, plus I would be able to do a better job of finishing the edges. Thanks /dwight