Newbie From Africa

[Willem]

Hello Everyone,

As my username shows, my name is Willem and I live in the Great Karoo region of South Africa. I am a knife maker by trade and as such I have to make the odd sheath/slip. As part of a continuous and constant striving to improve my product, I want to make more of the sheaths and slips myself and in order to do that I need to up the quality of my leather work substantially. As far as leatherwork is concerned, I am a babe in the woods but very keen to learn.

I found this site while looking for tutorials and it looks like a very nice community, so I joined. I hope in time to be able to contribute something worth while in turn.

In the meantime, a few pictures of where I live.

[Willem]

A few more:

[King's X]

Welcome to the forum Willem. Thanks for sharing photos of your beautiful country!

[benlilly1]

Welcome Willem! You live in a beautiful area. We'll be waiting for photos of your work.

[David8386]

Willem welcome to the forum, nice pictures thanks for posting them.

David

[Willem]

Thank you all, I am sure I will be here quite often with some really noob questions! :D My leather work is very basic at the moment, so there is nothing really worth while to do pictures of, but I am very keen to learn, so hopefully in a few months time there will be some stuff to show and share.

[Havamal]

Welcome aboard! Look forward to seeing some of your work.

Thanks for posting the pics from your neck of the woods. I have always wanted to travel there, maybe someday I'll make it

[electrathon]

Welcome and pretty area. I am in fovor of you posting pics of your knife work. Also, it looks like you live a few miles from the leather store (or wood store or grocery store). What do you have available for leather? Any exotics available? It may make some awsome looking sheaths.

Aaron

[Willem]

Hi Matt,

Thanks for the welcome - you really must try to make it but you need to have some time - it is a wide open country and very diverse - from rain forests to deserts, some of the most beautiful coastlines in the world and plenty of space to travel. And lots of friendly people - especially out in the countryside.

Aaron, thanks for the welcome and the kind words. Yep, we are out of town a ways, so everything has to be shipped in. We are fortunate in that we have some really good tanneries with plenty of variety. Big game hunting is also a major industry, so exotics are available - at a price of course. But not nearly what you guys pay. I have a friend over that side who does leather work for a living and he comes hunting over here every two years or so and according to him the leather, especially the exotics, is much cheaper over here than what you pay over there. I am quite close to a major ostrich farming area, but the industry is having major problems with bird flu, so skins are scarce and expensive at the moment, but once they get going again, that would be one to look out for. Stuff like veg tan, calf skin, upholstery leathers etc are freely available and relatively affordable. My main thing at the moment is to learn how to work it properly and to learn which leather to use for what application.

I'd love to show some of my knives but don't want to break any forum rules or such so I am not too sure which forum to use for that?

[Willem]

I forgot - up to now I have been using a small fixed blade with a sheep's foot type blade as well as a hobby/carpet knife for most of the cutting, so you can see how rudimentary my knowledge is - but I will obviously, and shortly, be making some custom utility, trimming and round knives for myself... :D

[rickybobby]

Welcome Willem,

We have some knife makers here on the forum that have picked up the leather bug (trade) as well. They said it helped with sales of their knives to offer the sheath as well and they made some additional money too!

There are so many styles of sheathes that can be made. Use the "Search" function and type in "knife sheath" or anything related and something should pop up. I have made a few and posted them a couple years ago but there are many others (and most are better!).

I work with veg-tan leather most of the time, its properties allow for tooling and/or molding the leather to the project. All the steps are here in the forum for working with the leather, it is a matter of reading and searching then post some questions and you will be on your way to making your own sheathes!

Beautiful country in your photos!

[Havamal]

Willem,

I love the wilderness and open spaces, I grew up on a small island off the coast of British Columbia, Canada and have spent a great deal of time traveling in past years. I have been to almost every state in the US, all of the Canadian provinces, even the Arctic Circle. My next step is to get off this continent! I have an artist friend that travel to Africa almost every year and do volunteer wildlife conservation projects and they have invited my wife & I to go with them next time. However, my wife wants to go to Scotland as well... I guess we will see which trip prevails!!

Really look forward to seeing some of your work!

[Willem]

Thank you all again for the warm welcome. Now I need to study! I have been sampling here and there, looking at tools, their maintenance, kinds of leathers etc - and of course the work of some of the members here - and it is awesome! There is some really, really stunning stuff here!

Rick, I think your approach is the right one - I need to start of with one item and research that fully - and the skills I pick up there can then be applied to the next item/step. It has been dormant in my system for a long time but I think the bug is waking up and going to bite hard..:D

Matt, from what I have seen Scotland is a beautiful place too, but you have to convince her to experience Africa. I still deal with foreign visitors fairly regularly in the hunting industry (used to do a lot more of it before I got too busy with the knives) as a free lance professional hunter and they all say the same thing - there is a kind of primal feeling to Africa that they have not experienced anywhere else - and it stays with you - most I know have been back at least 3 times.

[ReneeCanady]

Welcome Willem! The pics are beautiful. My step daughter has been to Africa twice in the last two years. First trip she was more so staying around the Tunis area and the second time she was all over South Africa. She currently is in Egypt taking corses and workshops with famous belly dancers. My daughter just graduated this past summer with a archeology major/arabic studies minor. She is our little nomadic child lol.

[Willem]

Thanks Renee! Wow - archaeology, Arabic and belly dancing - sounds like the script for an Idiana Jones sequal Anyway, thanks again for the welcome - I am looking forward to learning a lot here. So far that has mainly consisted of finding out how very little I do know. I am going to have to take it one step at a time - there is so much beautiful work here that I would like to try my hand at that it can become overwhelming - you don't know where to start!