Bill Fold Critique Needed

[jamos1978]

Hello all. To begin I now have 6 days of leather tooling experience under my belt. Critiques will be greatly appreciated. After getting a feel for the tools that came with a kit I recently purchased, I tooled the bill fold pictured below. I began by trying to follow; the pattern's instructions and quickly became frustrated with trying to match the picture so; I put it to the side and went with my gut. From what I see areas needing improvement are as follows:

• Track marks in beveling: Learn to walk the beveller
  
• Jagged knife cuts: Practice making smoother cuts
  
• Stamping outside of the lines: Practice and be more attentive
  

What do y'all think about areas needing improvement?

Thanks,

Jeff

[ReneeCanady]

I am no pro but one good tip I can give is that when you use the swivel knife don't let your cuts touch each other, if that makes sense. When coming to any edge like a corner, cut the line to the tip and then bring your knife up to just shy of that cut. I hope that helped a bit, I am pretty bad at describing things. When I learned this trick it worked wonders for my tooling.

[Northmount]

Pretty good for 6 days! You already know what you need to work on, so the next step is more practise. And when you think you have practised enough, do more practise.

Tom

[Havamal]

Welcome aboard Jeff... I'm at about the same stage of learning as you are... Looks good, All I can give is the same advice I have been given...Practice!

[JLSleather]

I gotta give you some credit -- my first project went in the trash before anyone got to see it (and the second).

But, that leather looks pretty rough, and probably accounts for some of the 'drag' with the knife. A good firm piece of cow will likely cure that in a hurry. Ordinarily, I'd say it looks like it was tooled too wet, but with that chunk it's hard to say.

That said, here's a couple simple things that will likely git ya runin in a hurry.

Red arrows, ya wanna lose the 'ridge'. You can either lean your beveler out a bit, or bevel vertically and then smooth it out.

Blue arrows, I think you'll find this design looks more natural if you bevel these the other side of the line.

Blue oval ... combination of the two. Once the line is beveled the other way, you'll have that ridge right there. Knockin this ridge down will create a "pocket" on the short stem which wil add considerable depth to your carving with almost no effort, giving the illusin that the pod is "inside" the folds, like this ...

[lightningad]

you'll find the sharper your swivel knife, the easier it is to cut curves. So keep on honing that blade! Also, making sure the leather is cased properly will also help with the cuts.

I guess its a Tandy kit, as my starter kit had the exact same pattern! I found a whole world of improvement just from working on leather i bought rather than the stuff in the kit

[Cyberthrasher]

I guess its a Tandy kit, as my starter kit had the exact same pattern! I found a whole world of improvement just from working on leather i bought rather than the stuff in the kit

Yep, I bought some scrap after my very first item in the kit and thought "Oh, so that's what it's supposed to feel like." Turned out the kit leather was about 80% of my problem. Pretty sad when you consider the scrap bags are stuff that "someone" has deemed not fit for production.

[jamos1978]

Renee -- Your description was very intelligible and appreciated.

Northmount -- It has been raining here in Mississippi for seven days now and is not forecasted to let up until Thursday so all I have for now is time. I was shocked that I produced something that resembled a flower and not a cave drawing that could be this or could be that but do not real know for sure.

Havalmal -- Thank you!

JLSleather -- Thank you for pointing out specifics (it will help a lot) and the tip on the wet leather, I suppose I should read up on knowing when the leather has the proper moisture content.

lightningad -- Yes a kit. I actually went into Tandy to purchase some leather to make some moccasins and left with the kit as well.

Thank you all for your time.

P.S. Yes, I specifically made it to open left to right rather thank right to left like a book. I wanted a left handed wallet.

Edited January 15, 2013 by jamos1978