New At This!

[Rookey]

Hi all,

I thought I'd put up a post here as I'm making a venture into the world of leather working, and will probably be here often from now on :-)

I ride motorcycles and am building a bike from scratch, with the idea of doing as much of the work myself as possible. One big focal point for me, is hopefully going to be the saddle, so I went and bought a bunch of gear to start working with leather and have been reading a lot of threads here about seat making, so that will start in a week or two!

I bought a kit from Tandy and decided to cut my teeth on some of the projects that came with it before I jump straight into the saddle. The aim is to complete all these little projects (about 5 of them) then get cracking!

So, in short, I'm creating a wallet for my fiance... and at the same time getting loads of brownie points! B-)

Started to come up with a design... (The L is for Lindsey)

Got my cased leather prepped and glue to cardboard to stop the edges curling or the leather stretching.

Started the tracing onto tracing paper

Copied the outline to the leather using a stylus that came with the kit

Used the carving knife to start cutting some of the lines - god I was nervous!

Started with the tooling, shading and stamping

Then moved to a mahogony tan

And finally finished it with a nice shine/sealant.

I'll lace it up tomorrow and get cracking on the next project... Just thought I'd throw up some pictures to document my first ever time working with leather :-)

What do you all think? Any pointers?

Dave

[FlHobbyist]

I think it looks pretty good.

[DoubleC]

You did a good job. Cheryl

[Harag]

Very nice for a first go... I'll say it before someone else does - you need to practice "walking" the bevel tool. Place tool, tap it, then move it about 1/2 the width and tap again. If you have a modelling spoon as well you can use that to smooth out the edges. Keep it up!

[Rookey]

Thanks Harag! That is something I found very difficult... I don't think I have good finger muscles where that comes in!haha It's all in the practise though... like anything else.

Thanks Harag! That is something I found very difficult... I don't think I have good finger muscles where that comes in!haha It's all in the practise though... like anything else.

[dragonspit]

I agree with Harag, and yes practice practice practice will help get ya there. I like the layout of the design. if I were to say one thing, it would be to use an elipse or circle template for things like your oval. dont try to cut using them, but use them for your layout, you will get a cleaner look ,,but the overall layout looks very nice.

[Mactechbri]

Fine job!

[cst]

Looks better than everything I've carved.