Mushroomed Straight Chisel

[Timd]

Looks good from where I'm sittin'

[broncobuster]

get yourself a cutting board at walmart they are like some of the poly boards. the white cutting boards. hope that helps some.

[hivemind]

I hit my rivet setters with an 8oz ball peen hammer, and I'm fully aware that it ruins them, but I really like the positive heavy hit when setting rivets. A new rivet setter's like three bucks, if I have to replace it every year I'm fine with that. Nothing else though.

[rdragons]

Thanks Timd. The lines work for me. And I am not really partial to tracing with a stylus, seems kind of messy, wet paper, yuck. Just the same, anyone with ideas on how to make lighter lines, give an input.

Thanks broncobuster. Its a good idea and I will check it out.

The mallet saga continues. Tandy had two of the big polymers. The handles wiggled in both the heads, neither seems to weight the 16 oz as catalog advertised, and of course I walked in the day after the sale was over. Concluded the quality wasn't there even at the sale price and left them on the shelf. I have some 100 year old oak flooring scraps in the shop and am contemplating making my own mallet.

In the meantime the little wood mallet I have does tooling just fine and I have a belt blank here just screaming for a design. It doesn't need lacing holes. I need a tooling design, not a geometric pattern, not cowboy. It will be vinageroon black, lines will not show. A man's dress belt.

[Timd]

Instead of wet paper, try this:Tracing Film It's waterproof, and it'll last forever( so far) I bought 10 yards 5 years ago, and I haven't put a dent in it. Use the stylus and see the difference.

Edited February 5, 2010 by Timd

[Brumbie]

I have a hard rubber dead blow hammer that I picked up at a hardware store. It is not plastic as you generally find. I think the hard plastic is too slick and doesn't give a good "bite" to the tool you're hitting.

The rubber seems to bite better and is hard enough that it is not showing signs of damage from the tools being hit.

It is pretty heavy too which means I don't have to hit as hard with it. Which is nice, unlike a rawhide mallet that you have to swing pretty firmly at times.

I use a poundo board as a backer and have no tool damage.

I too use the white plastic cutting boards from the kitchen area in Wal-mart. They are inexpensive and work well to cut/trim leather on.

[DaveD]

I'm not sure this is really realted, but I've had three tools bend on me as I'm using them. Right up front, I've had it happen using the poly as well as the rawhide mallets, and I am casing the leather. I've had a stopper, a cam, and a beveler all do it (all Tandy products). The store was great about swapping out the first one, but I've had the other two happen over t past week....not so sure they are going to be so happy about it this time. Not sure if it's something I'm doing or bad batch of tools. Any one else ever have something like this happen? ideas?

[rdragons]

Winter is almost over, but I managed to make an oak mallet.

I also bought a 27 oz dead blow hammer and a Walmart cutting board.

Found some of that Tracing Film in a kit I already owned, bought from Tandy. I didn't know what it was as the directions didn't mention it.

As for breaking Tandy tools. The set on the left came from Hobby Lobby. The set on the right came in a kit from

Tandy. The set from Hobby Lobby is much better quality and the working end is attached with twice as much metal. Notice the Tandy swivel knife got short changed too.

[rdragons]

First project since mushrooming. Punching holes with same 4 prong 1/8 inch straight lace punch. Had to use the 27 oz dead blow hammer. Worked great and did not mushroom the tool. Does it always take such a tremendous force to drive a lace punch through dry leather? Still doesn't seem right.