Here Is My First Piece Of Leather Work...a Seat For My Motorcycle.

[Old Joe]

Here is my first project. It's pretty close to what I wanted but I hope it gets better when I antique and buff it. I am thinking of doing tan for everything except the flames which will be saddle tan (which really seems a bit more orange).

I learned a lot while tooling this.

For all my fellow beginners:

1. Be patient. I had to keep going over spots that didn't look right. It took hours.

2. Have a plan. I printed the image from my computer and traced it on the leather. No mistakes that way.

3. Use the right tools. I bought a set of 30 stamping tools off ebay and tried to follow the tutorials as best I could.

4. Don't be shy. Hit that stamping tool hard enough to make your mark.

5. Make sure your leather is in good condition...a couple of times I tried to tool it while it was too dry and the work I did disappeared when I dampened the leather again.

Edited May 31, 2015 by Old Joe

[Windrider30]

That is very cool and yeah make sure you hammer down on the stamp, oh a little bit of advice that I just learned by doing it, you can actually cut thin (2 to 3oz leather) all the way through with a beveller if you hit it to hard lol, Interesting way to do filigree though!!

[DS STRAPS]

Very Nice!

[shadowryder]

looks cool!!!!

[eglideride]

very cool! First effort? Wow!

BTW- hope you aren't hitting your tools with the Estwing hammer in the pic?

[Jon P]

Great job!!

[Toney]

Very nice

[BarryT5970]

Looks like you have a very good handle on it.  I just started the leather stuff this spring.  Made a motorcycle tool bag (first project), then designed and made an oversized sissybar bag to fit 2 full-face helmets with stamping to match the saddle bags on the bike when I bought it.  Most recently, an arrow quiver with ideas from designs off the internet.  Looking at re-doing the bike seat over the winter.  Anyway, I found that taking a couple leather work lessons at the local Tandy store, and also, their website has some very good how-to videos.  Also, I googled the shit I was looking for in particular.  Found a couple small suggestions that seemed to make a big difference in what I was doing.

[Horseshoe]

That looks good so far. One thing I do if I have a design that I'm not sure how I'm going to tool it. I'll do a couple of practice pieces. I usually just do the part of the design that I'm concerned about not the entire design.