Another First Attempt At Sheridan Style...

[tatehunt]

So this is carved and treated with some EVOO. It isn't a great first try, but critiques are welcome. My pattern wound up being too small, and I made the vine work too spindly. Also may have started carving a bit too soon for proper casing. Should have left well enough alone with the centers, but I got silly with the seeder. Ah well, next time I hope to post something a bit better. Practice, practice, practice.

[Randy Cornelius]

This is where we would say you made a nice attempt. There are some problems that you need to deal with. I would suggest that you get one of the videos on Sheridan style, Chan Geer has a good one that is not too expensive. Sheridan sytle requires some special tools to make it look good. Steep beverlers, undershot beverlers and thumbprints just to name a few. Your flower centers are way too big for the flowers, there should be a thumbprint at the leaves where they come into the flower. Seeder is too big and you really need to work on your swivel knife cuts. I hope I have not discouraged you but with time and practice you will see a lot of improvement. Just keep at it and invest in some new tools that are specific to Sheridan style. The swivel knife is the most importaint to work on. With out good carving cuts to start you will not have a good final product.

Keep up the work, we all had to start just like you.

Randy

[tatehunt]

This is where we would say you made a nice attempt. There are some problems that you need to deal with. I would suggest that you get one of the videos on Sheridan style, Chan Geer has a good one that is not too expensive. Sheridan sytle requires some special tools to make it look good. Steep beverlers, undershot beverlers and thumbprints just to name a few. Your flower centers are way too big for the flowers, there should be a thumbprint at the leaves where they come into the flower. Seeder is too big and you really need to work on your swivel knife cuts. I hope I have not discouraged you but with time and practice you will see a lot of improvement. Just keep at it and invest in some new tools that are specific to Sheridan style. The swivel knife is the most importaint to work on. With out good carving cuts to start you will not have a good final product.

Keep up the work, we all had to start just like you.

Randy

Yes, I agree with your assessment. My pattern was too small to start with, which made the tools I do have, not able to work in the grand scheme of things (flower center too big, thumbprint too big for the petals and stems, etc). This also made the cuts more difficult in the tight areas. I have been working on swivel knife practice, and will continue to do so. Started this summer with a Tandy kit, and have slowly been making the change to better tools. Next on the list (should have been sooner), is a new swivel knife and blade. One that fits my grip better and holds an edge. Nothing replaces the need to practice, however. It has been inspiring to see so many quality examples of work on this site, and I can't wait to post an example without disclaimers.

[Randy Cornelius]

I always tell my students that if they want to spend some money that they should buy the very best swivel knife they can afford. A good swivel knife is one of the best investments you can make. High end stamping tools really don't make that much difference, (I know some will argue) but you can take a craft tool and grind and modify it to whatever you want. A good quality Swivel knife with a good blade will help most people a lot. Keep up the work. Lets see the next one.

Randy

[Bob Blea]

Hello tatehunt,

Your off to a good start, and all the points that Randy made are very good ones. It is hard to do Sheridan style without the smaller tools that the fine detail calls for. However, keep at it. Try doing this same pattern again keeping in mind what you've learned from your first try. You might be surprised how much it improves just from this first experience. You might also try scaling the pattern up so it's better suited to the tools you have. If you keep trying to improve you are going to improve. Just keep it up.

Bob

[tatehunt]

Thanks Bob. I am one stubborn S.O.B. I won't quit until I have it dialed in, don't care how much time it takes for me to get there. The more I repeat and practice, the better the results. Thanks for your encouragement.

[ouchmyfinger]

Thanks Bob. I am one stubborn S.O.B. I won't quit until I have it dialed in, don't care how much time it takes for me to get there. The more I repeat and practice, the better the results. Thanks for your encouragement.

lol, your the same as me.

my pointers would be, depending on the size of the beveler (which may be too lg for this project) if it wasn't then you were too rushed or the leather was too mushy to get smooth curves around smaller curves(like on your petals) because your other lines don't seem to have this problem. either the beveler was too lg or you were impatient like i was and did the flower first and once you got to the other parts of the pattern the leather dried out a lil. the other thing that led me to this was the bargrounder impressions, try letting your leather dry out more, i struggled with this and asked plenty of very accomplished leather workers. all this will come with practice of each of these tools.

your flower center is up to you. try just carving a small circle and using your seeder to make the seeds around the center, you won't always have every tool for every job.

the special tool list for me was like this, steeper beveler, lifter, and thumbprints

you can make do with the craftools by using a vertically lined pear shader instead of paying 30 bucks for a center shader, they do make thinner veiners or you can always grind yours down. everything else is pretty much treating yourself but unfortunately craftool doesn't make the bevelers and thumbprints you will need. and they do make a lifter but it isn't nearly as nice, everything else you can make do with until you take the plunge into the custom tool market

barry king has about 1k of my money lol but some of my favorite tools are craftools, if we all had the same custom tools all our patterns would look very similar, so use what you find that you like

and just like everyone else has said, get a good swivel knife and blade, keep it sharp and polished and case your leather properly. the good thing about sheridan is that the order that you use the tools in complements way the leather dries out during a project, usually (once again depending on temp and size of project)

message me if you have any questions anytime

good luck

[King's X]

It looks much better than my first attempt back in the day. Take a gander at some of the resources available for 'Sheridan' style to learn how to manipulate your tools to towards this style. the Sheridan Carving Book would be probably the best resource in print.

Keep at it, you will see improvements as you get going. Don't forget to keep photographs or mark your projects with attempt numbers and dates, so you can look back and see your improvements for encouragement.

Good luck