New to tooling

[Janice]

Hi all! I love this forum!

I recently decided to try my hand at some carving and tooling. It worked out pretty good for my first kick at the can! I made a cover for one of my head knives.

I also am learning to sharpen, but that is another thread.

I would like some ideas for small projects to tool for practice. Not small as in tiny tooling, but just some simple patterns to develope my skill level.

I have pretty much every tool a person could think of, and am slowly trying to learn how to use them all. For the past number of years I have been concentrating on repairs, and sewing. I have made some chinks, pillows, halters etc, but I have not done any tooling.

Does anyone have any ideas on good practice items, (besides wallets)

Here is my first piece of the head knife case.

[hidepounder]

Hi Janice,

My recomendation would be to just practice tooling on any scrap leather you have laying around. I would do a search and find simple pieces where the tooling appeals to you...copy the pattern and tool it...then compare your tooling to the piece you copied. Try to find something to improve on, on each new piece. And save them....you'll amaze yourself at your progress in no time. This way you don't have to worry about messing up a project. Hope this helps,

Bob

Edited May 6, 2009 by hidepounder

[budd4766]

I bought a large pack of round pieces from Tandy, and a large pack of book marks. My wife does a lot of these, and she was getting better at carving than I was...couldn't have that, so now, I keep a few on hand these days to practice carving on my lunch break.

They're good practice, and when you get a few you like, you've got coasters and bookmarks already made to use yourself, or to give to friends to "show off" with.

[Janice]

Thanks for the input guys!