Looking For People Who Started Rough But Found Their Craft Anyway

[Northmount]

When tooling, I have found that a good beveler makes a huge difference in being able to smooth out the beveled lines and avoid the choppiness. My best beveler is one I bought from Tandy back in 1961. It has the proper shape to the toe and the bottom. Many of the craftool stuff produced over the past several years do not have the correct shape. So getting a few (how do you stop at a few?) good tools can make a world of difference.

A good sharp swivel knife is requisite to making smooth cuts. The knife needs to fit your hand and be comfortable. A simple rolled "U" for your finger is not comfortable. The edges need to be rounded and the "U" shaped to fit around your finger. And you need to learn how to sharpen and strop the knife to keep it cutting smoothly and neatly.

The proper method of casing makes lots of difference to both the swivel knife cuts and and to stamp impressions. I learned by myself for the most part. The first efforts at tooling were pretty bad, mostly because the leather was too wet. Once I got past that, things began to improve substantially.

And as mentioned before, practice, practice, practice. Buy a bag of scrap vegtan leather and use it up, then go get a couple more bags and make some small useful projects. If you wreck something, it won't be a big loss; you can toss it, or keep it for reference for a while so you can look back and see what didn't work, and the improvements in the next projects.

Good luck with your endeavors.

Tom

[sharkeyfinn]

hi ;-) a few things i would recommend, decent leather, if you havent tried them,try theidentitystore.com i never have any trouble carving on their leather, i always had trouble with the standard swivel knife blade so i tried one of the angled ones which made a huge difference to my control of the blade,especially with tight bends and curves etc. and dont try anything too complex to start, keep them simple, this was the first carve i did that i new i had the hang of it

and this is what i juat finished this evening

and lastly yes.it is all to do with practice,one other thing, try using a pen instead of a stylus, you can see where your tracing amd what you might have missed before you remove the paper to look, most of all keep at it,you couldnt find a better way to waste time lolol ;-) good luck

[lydian8]

Thanks to everyone. I needed this and will hold on to it when I feel frustrated or hopeless. This is a pretty awesome bunch of people on this forum. Actually, I feel like leatherworkers in general are pretty awesome people.

Wild Bill 46, I wasn't sure if you meant leather or just talent in general, but talent comes in a lot of flavors. My husband is amazed by what I can do with my hands. He is not about artistic creation at all, not visually, musically, theatrically. He appreciates it, but has no interest in it. However, he writes computer code for a living. I know just enough to see the elegance in his coding. He works to write the most stable programming with the least amount of unnecessary commands. There is an art to it. In the house, he tinkers with automation, like having the TV in the 3rd floor bedroom pop up a message when the washer is done in the basement since it can't be heard. He is talented to me.

I think the people who have no way to channel the fire in them are the most unfortunate. They might not even know they have a spark inside. I'm not sure how people like that get up in the morning. But in a forum like this, where people have a passion and share with each other, those people don't make sense.

Not completely sure if that was what you were thinking about, but that's my 2 cents.

Thank you for all the encouragement. I may be getting older, but there are still parts that are green, like sticking to it when it doesn't just fall into place easy. You all have helped me today.

Lenore

[Wild Bill46]

Lenore, --------------------------

Im sorry if I hurt your feelings in any way, Was not intended at all !

Was not trying to take anything from your work, And yes, was trying to say Leather tallents,

I think you have a talent for wording as well, because your wording is eloquent and what I was trying to say !

Sorry ----------------------------------------- Wild Bill46

[lydian8]

Wild Bill46,

I didn't take offense, I was trying to figure out where you were going and added my philosophical thoughts. Now as far as leatherwork talents, you are actually right in my opinion. None of us are children, and if I picked up my swivel knife every day for the next year and posted my work every day without incredible change, I think it might be safe to say, carving is not for me and it may be time to put that energy to better use. None of us is great at everything. I just needed a push to say, keep going, try again. I'll never know if I don't put in the effort.

Lenore