BlackDragon

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.

Now you're just showing off. Oh wait, this IS the Show Off section. Looks amazing!

This is your first time tooling? Fantastic work!

I have a green sling made out of nylon but want to make a nice leather sling. That may be my next project. And to keep on topic: I'll burnish the edges

There are a few different braiding techniques so it would depend on how you want the finished product to look. There are round braids, double loop, diamond, Mexican, on and on. Are you butting the two pieces together or are you laying them back to back and lacing over the seam?

I have an M1 Garand, I used to shoot in competitions many years ago and fell in love with the borrowed Garand I was using. After that I bought one of my own through the CMP. I tend to only burnish. On the flesh side I buy my leather already finished so I rarely do any slicking. My first post was tongue in cheek because the 9mm vs .45 debate gets heated sometimes. I threw in a the clip comment as it riles some people up. lol

Great topic!! Next can we discuss which is better in my clips, 9mm or .45?

Ok because I didn't see it here either I thought it wasn't showing up.

I made a post about rebinding a Bible in Books, Journals and Photo Albums but it didn't show up when I clicked on New Posts(mobile). I was wondering if that section doesn't show up for new posts. It does show up if I click on Activity when I'm on my laptop.

I looked at SLC but they listed them as "all Metal" but when you call them they are aluminum, only the sleeve is stainless. I actually asked the customer if they wanted a quick change buckle and they said no. So I was limited to finding 2" buckles to match their old one. I looked at their site but I needed 2" buckles and they don't have the brass ones in that size. Also they didn't state in their website what type of metal their other ones were. I reached out to them but they never got back to me.

In a rebinding thread I made a post about starting a rebinding project on a Bible. This is the before and after of that. I had an old Bible laying around. It's actually the first Bible I ever owned, bought back in the 80's. It's got a few loose pages and the last page is torn near the spine. I carefully tore off the cover and was able to save the end pages which I'll reuse. I had to remove quite a bit of glue off the spine. I'll take the title page and use it to repair the torn last page. I gave the text block speckled edges with a maroon base to hide the browning of the page edges and added some bookmark ribbons. I remade the title page using vellum, had some soft 3/4 oz brown leather I acquired some time ago. 3/4oz is a bit thick for rebinding but since it's a soft cover it'll work. I just have to skive the edges so I can fold them over. I used heat transfer vinyl for the lettering. I have a Silhouette Cameo 4 for cutting the vinyl.

I looked for stainless but I couldn't source them. The websites would say all metal but when I inquired they would tell me they were aluminum.

I got a saddle in the shop a few weeks back for cleaning and some repair. The biggest issue I found were the Blevins buckles. Since they are made from aluminun they oxidized quite badly. Have yall ever seen them this bad?

It took me a bit to find them https://a.co/d/91CJigZ

I'm currently doing some book rebinds. My plan is to rebind and sell a few books from time to time. Generally books are rebound in 2oz leather and good quality binders boards for hardcover books. Going thicker than that makes it difficult to fold over the edges, going thinner means the leather will wear out faster. On my bench at the moment I'm rebinding a soft cover Bible. I'm going to use poster board and 2oz veg tan. You can probably do 5oz you'll just have to mitigate the curling of the leather after tooling.

Nice work!

Welcome to the forum! These are neat designs. They would sell fast at local fairs.