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I guess it is just a matter of what we were taught in school. Like 'among' and amongst' or 'smelled' and 'smelt' Anyway, do describe your experience here if you do wax some leather for a punching mat.

Your wallet looks fine to me. It is leather, after all and once was on a living creature. It cannot possibly look like factory manufactured smooth plastic. 🙂 Therein lies the charm of leather though.

3-4 mm at least. I got 2 huge sides of splits during a Black Friday sale but they are of different thicknesses. I just cut them up from one side, and make usable pieces. The current one is one of the thinner pieces, because the split has a very variable thickness all through. Without the wax, they gradually get floppy. Let's see what happens with the waxed one.

I only use wax on pieces of splits that I use as pounding boards. I do not stain or dye those pieces. But when using wax to harden leather, certainly. As @fredk has explained in another thread, 'This was one of the ways that leather armour was made, from the early Roman times up to the 19th century. see cuir bouilli' So a new use for an old technique. New to me, anyway. Isn't that nice? 🙂 😄Certainly more illustrative of the result than boring old 'smoothen'.

Oh! Nice. New use for old techniques. I have a little, flavoured with pumpkin and carrots, asafoetida and turmeric, and garlic. So I cannot use it. I forgot and added all the ingredients to the chicken when cooking it. Next time, I'll try to remember.

I'm sorry for the delayed response. I just made a batch of dog food and I do not have sufficient fat to 'sparge' it. I'll probably put it off until winter. It is hot here so I do not want to keep it indoors. Outdoors, in the heat, it will really stink. On an aside, I discovered that wax really darkens leather, even more than any of the oils. In another thread, I have explained how I dipped a piece of split that I normally use as a pounding board, into melted wax and dried it. I use this as a pounding board now - hard enough but does not damage the tips of my tools and the wax constantly lubricates it. The leather is hard and so much darker, it is now a dark medium brown. it started off the light color of veg tanned leathers.

There are brass stamping sets on Amazon. Amazon.com: WUTA Brass Stamping Tools Flexible Letters Numbers Alphabets Symbols Characters Molds Leather Jewelry Metal Stamping Tools for Hot Foil Stamping Machine (Copper Mold Set 83pcs) Can be used on cased leather. Expensive though!

😄 What word do you use in its place?

Others have probably tried this already but since I discovered it new for myself, I thought of putting it up here. I use thick leather splits as punching mats. I often also use a block of wax. I sometimes place the split piece on the wax block so that even if the punch goes through, it just gets lubricated with wax. When I was last melting the wax block to smoothen it, I dipped the leather split piece in the melted wax. I let it absorb for a minute or two on both sides and then kept it aside to dry. It dried hard, harder than the original split and it works well as a punching mat. For the wax, I used a mix of paraffin wax and beeswax. Plain paraffin is too brittle and pure beeswax is too sticky. Together, they work well for me, both in block form as well as in the punching mat.

Okay. I'll try that. Thank you.

Yes, that is what I am looking for. Yes. You could start a new thread. With other people adding their knowledge to it, the thread could become informative enough for the moderator to pin it. Otherwise search terms do not always give what one needs. This information might be present in the forum elsewhere but it did not come up with my searches. For some reason, no matter what I do, the searches only show results pertaining to each word, not phrases. And I know how to do searches online but this forum gives me a whole lot of trouble there.

Oh! Then everything I have is sharp enough. I have things going half way through my fingers all the time! Planning to buy share in a band aid company.😄 Seriously, That means really sharp. I will work on my awls.

Just checked and noticed that my pliers are all grooved! Another stop in my shopping today. @zuludogthat is a lot of very good, detailed information. I do many of the things there, other things, not. I have not sharpened my awl. I will need to do that, a least a little. Now that I think of it, it feels a little blunt and needs to be forced. About having the needles etc. all absolutely straight, I just discovered that recently when I realised that a needle was bent and going somewhere else from where I was directing it. Changed it in a hurry. About piercing the thread, I'm going to try that. I keep the thread long anyway and do not try to have one long thread for the entire side. So I can change the thread more frequently. I work with a stitching pony too, a clam actually. But when the leather is very thick, it has been difficult. I'm hoping with the right needles, thread, sharpened awl and pliers, it will become easier. I plan to get all the items mentioned here that I could use, including the smooth jawed pliers. @zuludogMaybe you could put this information up in a different thread so that other newbies can benefit from it.

I don't have that. Will need to order them. I do have thin gloves that I made for stitching to prevent 'blood sacrifices' as I stitch. Maybe I can attach something on the palms as well. No idea about the makes. Those that I ordered are John James; some I bought from Tandy. Others from Amazon Vine which are actually fine for ordinary leatherwork - bags and other sundry items. I plan to check what Tandy has in stock today, else order John James online. I need to ensure that the needles that I purchase do not widen at the eye. I checked, and all mine do. So adding the thickness of the thread, it is not surprising that the needles break, I guess. About attaching the thread, I do the S-knot. Sometimes I just pierce the thread with the needle and pull it through to lock it in position.

Yes, I will be punching the stitching holes. But I have had trouble earlier where the needles have broken, even with punched stitching holes. I was probably using the wrong sized needles. I do have needles with bigger eyes but then the problem that arises is pushing them through the stitching holes. With the thread, the eye area thickens and can stick and then break, pliers notwithstanding. I will enquire with the Tandy folk. All that armour that they seem to be making all the time is made of pretty thick leather, so they will know about hand-stitching thick leather. I will keep that in mind for the current and all future projects. A trip to Tandy is evidently in the cards today. They have a sale going on serendipitously! Thank you @fredk and @zuludog for your guidance.