Still trying to learn carving.

[gregintenn]

I'm still not there, but I feel like there's a little bit of improvement. I sure am in awe of those of you who can successfully tool leather.

[dikman]

You're improving, Greg, keep at it! Unfortunately there are no shortcuts to learning to carve. My first carved holster is, in my opinion, pretty mediocre, particularly when compared to the carving efforts seen here but I've found people who aren't leatherworkers are gob-smacked by it.

As for casing, I started off getting it damp under a tap and then sealing it overnight in a plastic bag until the colour was almost normal and that worked well, I've soaked it a bit and left it under glass to dry out a bit and that worked, I've dampened it using a sponge, wait a few minutes and repeat a couple of times and that worked ok but the one thing I haven't done is use soap, only water. I'm going to be applying dyes, oil, wax etc and I'm just not happy about having soap residue in the leather. I've no doubt the soap will reduce friction on the knife when cutting, but it does concern me.

I've studied many youtube vids on carving leather and it's definitely not as easy as they show it! I am also struggling at getting smooth curves and I've found an angled edge blade (i.e. not straight) makes it easier otherwise I keep tilting the knife too much. Getting smooth scrolls isn't easy.

Just keep at it, mate.

[gregintenn]

Thank you, sir.

[Burkhardt]

8 hours ago, gregintenn said:

I'm still not there, but I feel like there's a little bit of improvement. I sure am in awe of those of you who can successfully tool leather.

Are you free styling it or are you tracing a pattern?

[gregintenn]

I’ve been drawing patterns on paper and tracing them on scrap leather.

[gregintenn]

I printed this one off the web and traced it. Dang! This is tough!!!

[sparctek]

You are making progress for sure. Question for you: are you beveling your cut lines before you use the background tool? Or maybe beveling too lightly?

[gregintenn]

27 minutes ago, sparctek said:

You are making progress for sure. Question for you: are you beveling your cut lines before you use the background tool? Or maybe beveling too lightly?

Beveled first and did it in pretty lightly.

[Tim Schroeder]

Here's a tracing pattern and a picture to look at. Tool it as many times as it takes to get where you want. Use the same pattern every time. Eventually you will make those tools do what you want. A picture of what it should look like after beveling.

[gregintenn]

10 minutes ago, Tim Schroeder said:

Here's a tracing pattern and a picture to look at. Tool it as many times as it takes to get where you want. Use the same pattern every time. Eventually you will make those tools do what you want. A picture of what it should look like after beveling.

Many thanks! I’ll give it a whirl.