Small Tricks For The Leatherworker

[Schpacko]

Use a kitchen fork to mark the spacing in your stitching line....easier to keep in a gouged line than a wheel

Haha, i like that one

[KandB]

Here we go - hopefully these are useful to someone - excuse the random order, it's as they come.

• Use scraps of veg tan and paint a small piece with each of your dyes, then stamp a hole in the scrap and tie it to the neck of the corresponding dye bottle - just in case you can't remember the difference between saddle tan, canyon tan, and all the zillion other types of tan. Same goes for finishes (tan kote, saddle lac, etc - they all come out differently, this makes it easier to check before you start dying
  
• Get all your templates cut out of acrylic. We used to have them in hardboard but found we'd be taking chunks of the board off (thus changing the template shape) whenever we weren't careful enough with the knife - so we took the templates to an acrylic manufacturer and they cut all our templates in clear acrylic - making it easier to see the leather underneath for placement, as well as a lot harder to slice pieces off.
  
• Use the black knife exacto knife blades - not the silver ones. Home Depot has them, as does all hardware stores, and once you try them you'll notice the incredible difference - they slide through leather like butter.
  
• attach rubber or cork to the bottom of your rules to keep them from sliding.
  
• After hammering letters into leather (specifically oil tanned), fill the letters in with an inky pen (roller ball gel ink style), then go back and lightly hammer the letter in the same place again. It makes a huge difference and adds dimension without the risk of painting with leather dye and having it spill out of the edges
  
• Don't have a walking foot sewing machine and having trouble getting your leather to slide through easily? place a strip of masking tape where you are sewing and sew over that - then peel it off (carefully, or you'll have to spend some more time removing the little pieces that broke).
  
• Stick labels with colour coding on your rivet press dies so you know which set goes together easily - my line 24 male pair are highlighted in orange, with the words "LINE 24" and the female are in purple - quick to find them.
  
• Burning threads and cleaning up edges is a lot faster with a little blowtorch (the kind for making creme brulee) than a lighter, plus you don't have to hold the ignition down with your thumb the whole time - which leads to no cramping. Hold it just beside the thread, not directly on it, to melt the edges. Then, instead of rubbing it down with your fingers (ouch!) use your bone creaser or wooden burnisher.
  
• The best glue I've found for leather onto leather (specifically suede-side to suede-side, since gluing the flesh side of oil tanned leather is pretty darn hard) is the E6000. Buy the larger cannisters that load into caulking guns and use the gun to place your glue where you want it - then smooth down with a popscicle stick. Much less mess.
  
• The dollar store sells hardware clips that have rubber tips on them - they are invaluable for holding leather together when sewing, gluing, patterning, what have you. I wouldn't function without those things.
  
• The adjustable C clamps you can get at a hardware store are amazing for holding glued things in place - you squeeze them to as tight as they'll go and they stay in place. But the absolute best way I've found to glue things and make sure it's even is to apply the glue, then sandwich the two pieces of leather with two pieces of wood or hardboard, and then clamp that down - it means evenly distributed pressure, not just on the spaces where the C clamps are in contact with the leather.
  

[WScott]

Wow, that was awesome!!!!

[AfroCrafter]

excellent tips, thank you

[cardinal leather]

I worked on the road for many years. The first thing that I did after getting to my motel room was set up the ironing board. Set the computer and printer up on one end and files on the other. In the leather shop I found a vintage wood one at a local auction for 12 bucks, added a few new bolts and screws, works great if you are working in restricted space and is a great stand to layout straps for dying and finishing. Cut a piece of heavy cardboard for the protection. It can stick out both ends and a little over on the sides giving a portable workspace of about 16 x 66-72 depending on size of iron board. Plus it is at can adjust to counter top level or your chair level. Also folds up and can be stored out of the way when not in use freeing up the space again.

[WScott]

For old eyes like mine in a less than perfect garage shop, I wear a LED headlamp especially when stitching. It puts bright light right where you need it

[JDTagish]

As a relative newbie (Definitely to this forum for sure, about a year into leathercrafting) I've discovered how expensive a hobby this is. I'm on a budget, like most people, and there are things that I've found in the cheap to free category that work well for me.

Leather Storage:

The triangular Fed-Ex shipping containers cut into sections and formed into an octagon, makes great storage for smaller rolled leather. Those fit into the kneehole of the cheap desk I found at the re-use it store where they're accessible, but also out of the way until I need them.

Stamp Organization:

I have a habit of picking up the foam inserts (or saving the ones I get with cases) that are inside iPad or laptop cases. They come in handy for multiple projects. On this one, I used a black foam insert (about 1/4 of an inch) and marked out all the holes, then punched the holes with my leather punches. Then, I stacked up a slightly larger (1/2 inch) piece of the same foam and punched the holes through the larger piece, using the holes I had already done on the first piece as the template. Then I did it one more time with a third piece the same size as the second piece. Some double sided tape through the solid areas and black duct tape on the outside edges keep everything together. Then, I fit it into a tin I already had on hand. All the stamps can be removed from the upright positions and laid on top of the foam and the lid put on top if I'm traveling anywhere that I would take along the stamps.

***I posted some photos of some vintage stamps that I'd like help to get more info on in the Leather History section - please check that out if you know anything about vintage stamps.***

Pounding Surfaces:

I found some older floring tiles of the "peel and stick" variety that are vinyl. Those work fairly well with more firm foam on the sticky side as a softer yet firm (like poundo board, but a bit gentler) for crystal rivets and the like. The black is the foam, the "brick" is the vinyl floor tile. The middle is a hard vintage floor file, like a 50's industrial style. It makes a good surface when I'm tracing. I got those before I had gotten big quartz & granite pieces that cover nearly the whole desk surface.

Leather Sources:

Being new to leatherworking, leather is the single most expensive part of the hobby. And, I screw up more things than I'm happy with. It made me afraid to even try some things because I was afraid to waste the leather I have been able to buy. So, I decided to call nearly every upholstery place in a 25 mile radius (fortunately for me, there are a few around me) and asked if they would be willing to sell their scrap leather. Not many would, but a few were willing. I spent about $70 total, and wound up with about 75 pounds of decent sized pieces. Black and grey were the most common, especially from the auto places, but a couple of the furniture places had some nice colors. (All the rolls in my Fed-Ex boxes came from this "mission.")

It's not like using veg tan, but it's letting me work on some wallets and other pieces that I was afriad to try before. I even made my wife a purse out of some purple leather I picked up.

General:

Other more general things, I got multiple sized dowels and cut them into smaller pieces, then sharpened them in a pencil sharpener. They work great for burnishing or widening holes punched into leather. I also rounded some down and use those to burnish larger areas of flat leather. I also use black wire mesh pencil cups from the dollar store with more of the foam in the bottom of them to hold awls and other pointy things. Or, the cups without the foam for edge bevelers and other larger items.

And, my favorite tip - I used pens or pencils to do all my marking on leather until recently. But often, I'd wind up needing to change a line, and sometimes that pen or pencil mark wound up visible in a place I didn't want it to be. So now I only mark on leather with white chalk. You can get it at any office store or Walmart for under $1, and I sharpen it to a point in a hand held pencil sharpener made for those big crayons. Now, if I made a mistake with a line, I can just brush off the chalk and start over again.

[jl60280]

Hi,

This is my first post.

I do not think that it had been mentioned before...

For every sharp tool I use a piece of cork wine.....

[Chief31794]

Great tips, I didn't see it anywhere but one of my things is I buy large rolls of 24" wide butcher paper (brown craft) from the home improvement stores, I roll out enough to cover the width of my dye bench, then I dye on it on both sides front and back by turning it over and spinning it around. 1 piece normally lasts over a week and I'm pretty busy in the shop, then dyes, glues, etc get on the paper and not on the bench itself and when I get too much dye or glue on both sides, I simply fold it up, put it in the trash and roll out a new piece. Keeps the dye table much less messy.

Chief

[humperdingle]

I keep tiny shards of veg tan in a tin for smearing glue into those little nooks and crannies... Then just chuck the sticky bits.

Guaranteed I won't have cleaned the applicator :D