Something A Little Different

[Bob Blea]

Bob that is beautiful. I'm going to look again and see how you carved your mouth areas. I have problems with that. I was told to lay my swivel knife flat and pull it toward me, and turn the leather, etc. But by the time I make the turn on the mouth areas I have knife marks to the chest. I am definitely doing something wrong. Cheryl

Hello Cheryl,

When making small fine cuts with a swivel knife I tilt the knife at an angle so only the tip of the blade is in contact with the leather. It makes it easier to make small details and sharp turns. Hope this helps,

Bob

[DoubleC]

Hello Cheryl,

When making small fine cuts with a swivel knife I tilt the knife at an angle so only the tip of the blade is in contact with the leather. It makes it easier to make small details and sharp turns. Hope this helps,

Bob

Hi Bob. I did that too, but someone posted to me here and said, PUT that swivel knife flat, if you want to cut at an angle get and angle knife, LOLOL.

I'm putting up the picture we were talking about at the time because oddly enough, I had this on a wall hanging 20 or so years ago and like your friend, I've wanted it again but never could find it. I did a search and found this at a tattoo shop, the original picture I mean. So I hand drew this, carved it, but you can see how my 'sharp' turns are. When I have time I'm going to do it again, and again until I have another wall hanging that looks like the original. Cheryl

[Bob Blea]

Well, I finished this up last week and delivered it to the customer, and he was thrilled. Here is the front cover.

It was all dyed black with Feibings USMC Black. The bar grounded areas only look lighter than the rest of it because of how the sunlight is reflecting off them. The dark area at the bottom is actually a shadow that I didn't notice in the picture until downloading onto the computer. Thanks for taking a look and let me know what you think.

Bob

[WinterBear]

That turned out really nice. I have to ask though-- How did you keep from going bonkers while doing this? Intricate doesn't begin to describe it.

[Bob Blea]

That turned out really nice. I have to ask though-- How did you keep from going bonkers while doing this? Intricate doesn't begin to describe it.

Thank you WinterBear. It did take a while to carve and bevel it. I just looked at it all as really good practice. When I look at some of the finger carving work I see here and how clean it looks. it didn't seem very intricate.

Bob