BlackDragon

There are a number of ways to make this but like Bland said it depends on the current design. You can make one that has elastic bands on the bottom, a slip cover style, I replaced mine by taking the old one off and using it as a template for a new one.

I going to throw out a guess and say there is a backing, like what you see on the inside of a ball cap after it's been embroidered, and since this is just a patch it's not really going to have much strain put on it. It look pretty cool I would like to see it in white against the black leather. It would really pop and give it a heavy metal vibe.

I use Barge cement and I don't use the cement as a fastening agent. It's more to hold in place until I stitch it together type of thing. When I glue up larger projects I use the can brush. When I want to do more refined work on small projects I use a plastic spreader. They're made of plastic and easy to clean. Even if the contact cement has been on there a few days I can use a rubber eraser and it comes right off. When gluing I pull the brush from the can and use the spreader to pick up some glue. I then spread the glue by pulling towards the inside, away from the visible edge. If you pull towards the visible edge there's a good chance it'll be seen when finished. When starting out you can draw a line where to stop pulling your glue. After a while you'll get the hang of it. Let it set until it's tacky (about 10min) then put the two together. This is kind of a one shot deal. Once the two pieces touch it's going to be tough to get them apart cleanly. After putting them together I let the cement finish setting. How long it actually takes I'm not sure. I go to another project and work on that then come back. So maybe a couple hours. This would be a box stitch and if I was actually doing this I would have punched my holes and finished the visible edge before gluing.

I aquired this a couple years ago from an estate sale where I bought a few things. Honestly I've only used it a couple times. I'm not in a hurry and my knife works well enough. If I was cutting large amounts of thick leather I can see it being useful.

I was working on a prototype on Friday and did this three times in one row. Admittedly I was using thread thats to thick for the project. Just keep one keeping on.

This is what I do. I use 1/4" (6mm) double sided tape, if you don't have thin tape you can cut wider tape down the center long ways.

This is why I keep a pair of channel lock pliers on my bench.

There are a couple way to do this. 1. Resolene/water 1:1. Do a couple coats then put some type of wax over that. It'll soften the shine but it doesn't stay, they would have to wax it every so often. 2. Resolene/water 1:1. Do a couple coats let it cure 24 hours. Add a 3rd coat and lightly knock it down with either #0000 steel wool or a Magic Eraser. Again you have to do this lightly 3. Go with a different finish like Satin sheen.

The leather paste conforms better to the shape of the embossing.

I've seen leather dust mixed with cement to make a filler or packing for the back of 3D carvings.

Be very careful when repairing a saddle. If a shoe repair fails a person will walk funny for a little bit but if saddlery fails it can lead people to severe injuries. If a stirrup fails a rider can slip or completely fall out of the saddle, if a billet strap fails the rider can wind up under the horse. With that out of the way since you've done some repairs you know a little bit about it. What I've done is bought some cheap saddles. I bought 3 saddles for $150 at auction and I tore the worse of the three apart to learn how it went together and to experiment. I highly recommend Don Gonzales' videos, he gets really in depth with his breakdown and repair videos. TomE makes good recommendations. Also look at some of Springfield Leather Company's video on saddle reconstruction. There are a few videos out there that are horrible for saddle repair so be wary of those. One says she is a master class cobbler but the repairs she make on an English Saddle are really... bad.

I use NFO before dyeing, it helps carry the dye more evenly and makes it more pliable when it dries. I let the NFO sit for a least a few hours I have done NFO after dyeing and used Resolene/water 1:1 ratio and it comes out fine. One trick I do after the leather dries, in this case a belt, I work the belt into a coil in both directions and inside out to make it pliable before adding the Resolene mix.

Thanks! For the inlay I used a second piece of binder's board in the shape of the horse head. I formed the inlay leather to that shape. That second binder's board raised the leather up to be just a little higher than the outer leather otherwise it would have made the horse flat. When I made the inlay I extended the leather all the way to the left, right, and top so you don't notice a seam line. For the bottom I skived the edge to minimize the seam line. Thinking about it now I should have extended the leather all the way to the bottom to save me the headache. lol It looked something like this before covering it up. In this image the back board is .6mm but in the actual one I used 1.8mm board, just like the horse head.

For my sister's birthday I put together a notepad portfolio. She's a counselor for the VA and also involved in horse therapy so I figured inlaying a horse profile would be fitting. I used 3oz vegtan with 1.8mm binder's boards as a core, the pockets are 3oz English bridle, the inset is also 3oz vegtan and also has a binder's board core. If anyone knows of Veteran or 1st Responder that can use counseling they can reach out to her https://www.adonairanchcounseling.org/

When you say "saddle purse" what exactly are you looking for? A purse or a saddle bag? a purse that looks like a saddle or a purse made in the style of saddle bags? If you have a picture of what you want people can help you better. Doing a web search of "the vintage saddle purse pattern" brings a lot of different results.