Hello From Illinois!

[Cozee]

New here. Long story short, I am looking for another avenue for artwork/creative release. I have been airbrushing in one way, shape, or form for nearly 40 years. I am a bodyman by trade and also do a lot of metal fabrication. greatly enjoy building and riding motorcycles. I also turn pens too. Most of my family and many friends have been encouraging me to start tattooing but don't want the issues of dealing with the health department. I recently had a custom leather wallet made and after looking it over after receiving it, the process it took to make intrigues me so I started checking out resources on the web which led me here. I am excited to start, not only tooling leather but also in fabricating my own tools and stamps. Thinking of picking up a Tandy deluxe starter set as they have them at my local Hobby Lobby for $70.00. I understand the tools are not the best but I am a firm believer that even a bad tool and do decent work in the right hands. Looking forward to learning as much as I can from the members here.

[shotgunwilllie]

Greetings! From one bodyman to another I think you will find Leather work a excellent creative release with so many ideas that can carry over to your motorcycles.

[benlilly1]

Welcome Cozee! Sounds like you're a jack of all trades and not a bad thing!! Good luck in starting up in leather work. We'll be waiting to see some project photos.

[immiketoo]

Cozee, Welcome! Where in Illinois are you? I live in the chicago burbs myself. Let me know if there's anything I can help you with. I started with the same kit, and there's nothing wrong with it, but yo may decide it's not up to your standards if you are already a craftsman. Good luck!

Mike

[Cozee]

Thanks for the warm welcomes. I live 12 miles SW of of Champaign-Urbana, about 2 hours south of the Windy. I will definitely be leaning towards motorcycle based projects as I already have a "want" list for a couple of my bikes.

[REDTAILHAWK]

Howdy, Cozee, from North of Peoria,

I would think about what sort of designs you had in mind first. I started out with a beginners kit back in the early 1970's. It got my feet wet into western floral carving, but that wasn't the carving style I had in mind to get into at the time. It might have been better for me to pick up the few tools I needed at first and build from there. But that is just me. A friend of mine who helped to get me interested in carving leather started off with some vegetable tanned leather, a pocket knife, a hammer, and some filed down nails, and he did descent work for beginning. Welcome to the group.