My First Tooled Belt

[HorseHerder]

I spent about a week on this project for a friend at work, my first attempt at tooling. I tried to make the pictures look professional, but I'm no photographer. I'll gladly take criticism on this, I know I really need help with the tooling. And practice!

[biker55]

I'm new at this also, but it looks good to me.

[MonicaJacobson]

Wow, so much better than my first project. Your edges aren't even too bad! I would suggest you watch a few tooling videos on youtube. There are tons and tons of them, and they give you good information on casing leather, and using a beveling tool around your design to make it stand out from the rest of the leather, etc. Cool photography, too!

[Colt W Knight]

I recently started tooling, and I can see some things I have picked up that will help you.

1. Use an edge guide to mark an edge on the perimeter. Then use your swivel knife to cut that line. You can then take a beveler to make that edge really stand out.

2. Bevel around your swivel knife cuts. Looks like you just used your back grounder. Then use your backgrounder.

3. Work on beveling and shading your tooled design.

4. Something I still struggle with is getting a good non-choppy background. Ideally, you don't want to see the shape of the tool in your impression, but you still need to hit it hard enough that the background sits lower than the tooling to make everything pop.

[HorseHerder]

Thank you all! Believe it or not, I did use a beveler. Unfortunately I wasn't sure what I was doing and I either did it wrong or I completely went over it with the backgrounder. I even thought this as I was working on it.

Monica I'll definately be doing some more research on tooling, I see a lot of Tandy videos out there but I'm sure there's much more. Youtube is like opening a can of worms every time.

Colt I agree that getting the pressure right is not easy especially when my arm is getting tired and I just need a break. I will try the edge/swivel/bevel technique next time.

And with that, goodnight folks!

God bless

[Colt W Knight]

Perhaps your swivel knife cuts weren't deep enough.

[HorseHerder]

Too true Colt! I was just practicing and realized that not only were my knife cuts a tad shallow, but I beveled the background - not the design. *facepalm* So when I came in with the backgrounder it was as though I never beveled at all. Lessons learned I guess. Glad the belt was a gift : )

Thanks again!

God bless

[billybopp]

There are a number of good videos on youtube for carving and tooling. Search for Bruce Cheaney and Keith Valley - Cowboy Saddlery .. And there are others as well.

Hope that helps

Bill