MarshalWill

Thanks for the account of your Granny, Bruce. The real compliment to us is that what we make gets used. In your case, how, as well. I love how leather ages. Then a coat of Skidmore's or saddle soap can breathe new life into it.

Thanks, all. She was dealing with a lot of discomfort. That's behind her now, though. The original colors are now almost obscured. Natural on the border/flower, black on the top and bottom beads and in the background, light brown tint on the rest. The black was Lincoln black dye, before I knew about vinegaroon so a lot of it has worn off. The whole thing would look better if I just did it solid black now but then all that acquired character would be gone. It would be nice to see the cup you made, if you have a photo. That stitch is just like putting a toe plug in a holster. Only with quite a few more stitches.

Have you ever wondered what your leather work will look like after years of use? I just got to find out. Over 35 years ago I made a pencil holder for my wife's mother. My MIL died the other day and the pencil holder came back to me. All this time it has been sitting on the back corner of the kitchen counter, not that far from the stove. No before photo is available but here is what it looks like today. It has had open pens pitched in it point down, been splattered by stove grease, been handled with dirty hands and who knows what else. There was a thick layer of pencil dust and paper clips in the bottom. All it did was pick up character.

Those are quite attractive, especially the alligator one. Looking good.

That's a mighty decent holder. The design is clean and effective. The spring clip is a nice touch. Good work.

Those are some nice additions. Congrats. I'll remember Bruce if I need any new stuff. That one on the left is a burnisher. It's used for flat surfaces like belts and whatnot. Some make them from old ceramic door knobs.

Very nice knife and sheath combos.

That came out great. Nice job.

Very good tooling. The contrast between the floral and the circular backgrounding is superb. Looking forward to seeing it finished.

Thanks for the link, Ornyal. Yeah, that was when I first signed up on the forum. It's been a while.

Thanks but I don't recall posting anything that's tooled. Maybe I did it a number of years ago when I first signed up. I haven't figured out how to see what I posted to back then.

Very fine work. Good choices all around. I agree on the purses. They're beautiful. Thanks for sharing your work with us. And welcome to the forum.

Looks great. Lacing the top for possible future removal is good but it also looks really nice. There's that, too. Nothing beats naturally darkened leather.

Lookin' good, there. Celtic knots can be a bugger if you aren't paying attention. Sierra Nevada never had it better. It's good idea to line it with neoprene. Looking forward to seeing more of your stuff. Welcome to the forum. This is a good place to get great tips. The forum members here are very knowledgeable.

Those patches look quite good. I can't say I would have thought of that. Good idea.

Looks great! I like the way you thematically tied the knife to the sheath. Very good.

Those are all good looking. Is that a Craftool F989 stamp you use to get that igneous rock look?

Both are mighty nice. Good work on the knives and the leather. I like BW on knife sheaths. Much more so than on holsters.

Lookin' good! Got the important stuff covered. That fly wallet is a fine one. Nice work.

That snakeskin one is outstanding. Very good work on both.

Beautiful work! Thanks for sharing.

Obviously I mis-read what you wrote. You said "I'll need to get 'creative' to figure out how to hold the removable punches in my Tandy punches" I think you mean you don't have a way to hold them to sharpen them once they're removed. That's what I used the 3003-00 set handle for. If you don't have one and can't or don't want to get one, try drilling and tapping the end of a rod or bolt so you can screw them into that. Does that answer apply to your statement?

Thanks for the additional input, Bruce. That might help some who don't have a Cratex wheel. My Dremel set came with some Cratex tips in it but I don't know if one would have the control to run that against a punch tip spinning in a drill press. You'd sure have to have a good solid rest to prop against. Fred, the tips on one of my rotary punches have a hole through the base of them. My other one has two opposing flats on the base of them which can be done with an open end wrench. The tips on my Tandy hand punch set have hexagonal bases so a box end wrench works good on a rotary punch with that type. They all seemed to be put on with some kind of thread locker so I had to take the ones with the holes off the first time with vice grips. After that, I used a thin needle awl in the hole. There might be a spanner available to fit them but I don't have one. It didn't occur to me at the time but I could have used a short piece of piano wire that would just fit through them to lever against. I'd venture to say that if your punches aren't like any of these, they are not removable and you're out of luck. I have several pairs that are like that and getting dull so they'll get tossed one of these days.

All of us want our tools to be as sharp as possible so we can do our best work. One of my pet peeves is dull punches, especially rotary ones. 40 years ago, we could get new tips or a new rotary punch and even the cheapest ones would cut well by today’s standards. These days it seems to be a different story. I would buy a new one but if they were crap 30 years ago so they’re not going to be better now. I decided to sharpen the tips in the ones I have. To use as a holder to sharpen the tips, the handle from my Tandy 3003-00 Mini Punch Set worked great. The thread size is the same as the rotary punch tips so I got to work. To hold the tips, I chucked the handle in my hand drill. While running the drill, I lightly touched the tips against my grey-green extra-fine grit CRATEX wheel at an oblique angle, being careful to not heat them. Also I didn’t want to take too much material off. Then I did the same with the leather polishing wheel on my knife grinder using red jeweler’s rouge. Note that the grinder is turned around so the polishing wheel rotates upward. The tip is not digging into it. You can tell when you have the tip sharp enough when it will not slip off your thumbnail when held at a very low angle. I did this for all 6 tips on both of my good quality punches and when done, they all cut effortlessly, as good as any punches I’ve ever used. If you don’t have a grinder with a CRATEX wheel and a low RPM knife grinder, get creative but don’t use a normal grinding wheel or you may wind up with tips that are too short or ground lopsided and still won’t cut right. You might be able to do the same thing by dragging the tip across a stone while turning in the drill. Then following that with a piece of leather with your polishing compound on it. I hope this gives some direction to others with the same dull rotary punches.

I'll bet your son is happy with that! Nice even squares, letters and numbers in perfect alignment. Nice work.