WIP: Chess board

[TomSwede]

Looking really good so far Kate!!!

Can't wait to see it finished.

Tom

[howardb]

Beauty Kate! What can you get for one of those? If it's not rude to ask... I imagine quite a nice price. So far this one is gorgeous.

[CitizenKate]

What can you get for one of those? If it's not rude to ask... I imagine quite a nice price.

Not rude at all... for my regular (non-custom) items, the prices are openly advertised on my web site. (See the link in my sig line.) This one I charged 20% more for, plus additional materials and labor because it's a custom size (although no custom design work was involved). I know a few of you will say I don't charge enough. If that is the case, feel free to show me what you do, and we'll talk.

Here's another photo of the progress...

I'm about half-way through all the tooling. To give you an idea how small the basket stamping is, the area that has it is only 1/2-inch wide. I'm trying to give the impression of a fabric inlay. I have a tiny basket stamp made by Bob Beard that I use for this. I don't use a border stamp with this, just "tuck it in" with beveling.

Kate

[Sasquatch]

[freak]

Wowww...... That's just super nice Kate! I love seeing you work and so does my wife. I always call her in the room to look at your work. She always says the same thing i do when i first look, "wow, that's really nice".

[DaCodaBuchan]

These are the LV of chess boards. I am adding one to my wish list.

[David]

Beautiful work Kate,

I really love your work.

Dave

[ETW Grumpy]

Beautiful work as always Kate. Since you're answering questions, do you knock out all the tooling at one time? If not, do you re-wet the leather each time or have a secret for keeping it workable?

[CitizenKate]

...do you knock out all the tooling at one time? If not, do you re-wet the leather each time or have a secret for keeping it workable?

I try to avoid re-wetting as much as possible, because I have noticed that re-wetting does seem to "soften" existing tooling impressions. But on a piece this size, there is no way you can do the whole thing with a single wetting. I've tried using plastic to keep the unworked portions of the leather from drying out, and that works okay, but on a piece this size, it's sometimes a bit of a hassle to keep the plastic in place while I'm working.

So what I do now is re-wet, but only at certain points. The entire piece is prepared prior to cutting the lines. I do all the cutting for the entire board at once. Then, for all the stamp work, I go back and re-wet just the area I'm working in only once, and do all the stamp work for that area. Swivel knife cuts get re-wetted, but no stamping work gets re-wetted. And I keep the whole thing under plastic between work sessions, until the whole thing is done.

I know some of you might be concerned about water lines forming from re-wetting just parts of the leather. Maybe that's a problem in places where the water is hard, but I haven't had any problems with it.

Kate

[CitizenKate]

Got all the tooling done, finally...

Tomorrow I start dye work.

Kate