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Just got back from a trip to Korea. On a day outing in Seoul, we managed to find the neighborhood in the city where leatherwork supplies can be found. It's located on the Western edge of the city, in the neighborhood of Sinseol-dong. Go east of downtown to the Great East Gate (Dongdaemun), where there is a subway stop by the same name. The subway line (line 1) going East from there stops at Dongmyo, and then the stop you want is Sinseol-dong. You can also take a spur of line 2 (the Green line) which terminates at Sinseol-dong. From Sinseol-dong station you need to go up to street level and east to the large intersection, where Choui-ro (east-west) meets Nangye-ro (running north-south). Look at the map below -- follow Nangye-ro SOUTH from the intersection, on the WEST side of the street until you see the smaller road Nangye-ro 27-gil crossing the main street east to west. (You could also get a taxi-driver to drive you to that intersection; as of September 2017 I estimate the taxi fare from the center of Seoul (Seoul station or the downtown palaces) to get here as 4,000 to 10,000 won depending on traffic.) Now you need to turn right and go to the WEST, following Nangye-ro 27-gil. it's not much of a road, more like a wide alley, but don't be fooled. Look at the Google maps road view below -- this is looking NORTH WEST from the intersection of Nangye-ro and Nangye-ro 27-gil. See that blue street sign in the center of the picture? That's what you are looking for. After maybe 50-100 meters you should find the store fronts that sell the stuff you want. Here is a picture of the first one along the line, looking back towards the intersection you just left. It's the small store to the center right, with the silver car in front of it. This first store you see here is full of rivets, decorative and functional. Some map applications in Korea (for smart phones or computers) can use the phone number to locate the store on a map, and the phone number of this shop is 031-528-1626. The other stores start west of this one. Google Maps streetview won't go down there, however. In my 15 minutes of looking I saw at least 3 stores FULL of rivets, grommets, etc. (HUGE bags of them, as well as small ones). One store had nothing but thread, thread, thread and more thread. Leather, buckles, tools, oh my! One store had paint, more sizes of hole punches than I knew existed, needles, thread, templates, and 3 different kinds of stitching ponies (I bought one for 20,000 won). I didn't go very far down the row, but I believe that skivers (big and small) and hides (including tooling) and elec I saw very few stamping and tooling supplies. Lots of leather and hardware, thread and coloring, for bags, clothing, and the like. (skivers, head knives, needles, strap end templates and punches, stitching chisels, etc.

I'm working on a leather covered box. This is the front panel (about 6 inches by 4 inches). It's a design taken from wood carvings on Buddhist temples in Korea, and the fierce face is meant to scare evil away. I'm still thinking about the other three panels of the box. Here are the dyes used: Angelus green Angelus yellow Angelus wine-tone+ yellow (to make the orange) Angelus burgundy (the mouth) Angelus rose (the tongue) Fiebing USMC black white acrylic The pale green is an attempt to use Fiebing's problematic white to make a pastel green. I put the white on first, and then did another coat with the green. I'm not pleased with the results, so I won't try that again. The white seemed very gritty or gummy, and not liquid like the other dyes are.