beginner

[Redgold]

hi - hoping someone is able to help me.  I am a complete beginner to this wonderful craft.  I have skills in other areas like tole painting, altered art, sewing etc.  I did a set of 4 beginner classes at Tandy Leather in Surrey, BC Canada.  I bought a kit from the store to tool a large knife sheath.  It comes with everything I need, but I am literally paralyzed in knowing where to start.  It came with a pattern etc., but I am used to instructions that say what to do in what order.  I did  decent job of my beginners class piece (flower), far from the worst in the class, but I have no idea about the order in which to do things.  The pattern is a standard one available from tandy leather - large knife sheath. it has either a leaf/acorn design or a basketweave.   I would like to do the leaf acorn.  I know I wet the leather, transfer the image and cut all the lines, but am unsure of what to do after that and don't want to mess it up.  Can some kind soul, take a look at the item I am trying to do and let me know what I do in what order?  I literally just sit and stare at it and get upset because I don't seem to be able to begin.

[Albob]

First, just start. Like you said you know about wetting (casing) the leather, how to transfer the art work you want, and using the swivel knife.

The order I use is

*Case the leather CORRECTLY and that includes being able to wait for it to be ready to carve and tool.

*Transfer the art to your correctly cased leather

*strop your swivel knife, you need your knife to be sharp for easy flow and clean lines.

*cut the art work out.

*add a backing tape to the back of the leather

* start the tooling, now stop and make sure your leather isn't too wet or possibly too dry. If you're getting a nice burnish on the tooling you're moister is about right.

*dye your work let dry, over night is good

*seal the flesh side and let dry, over night is good

*seal the outside (I use mop and glo @ 1 to 1 with water) let dry, over night is good.

*stitch it up enjoy your sheath.

 

[MisterSmith]

Redgold,

Since the pattern is already pre-fabricated with established stitch lines; you'll first want to start with burnishing your edges esecially the ones that will not be bonded to any other piece of leather.

Next I would "case" the leather that you'll be tooling. I'm assuming the classes at your Tandy store had you wet the leather, transfer your pattern and start tooling once you started to see some natural color re-appear. Thats is fine for small patterns, but once you start tooling larger projects you'll want your leather to maintain even saturation. I recommend this article from Rick Jorgenson (http://jorgensonleather.com/?p=199) I would also read the forum here, and look up some youtube videos.

After you've done your tooling and allowed your leather to dry, you may dye your leather. (In the future if you decide to wet form a piece of leather in a project I would save color application for the end)

Finally install your hardware, bond & stitch your pieces together, and then give all your finished edges a final burnishing. You can apply leather sheen or Acrylic Resolene to the project for a nice hi gloss finish. 

The leather in the tandy kits are great for learning and practice, so manage that expectation of your final product. In working with leather, expect to make mistakes, lots of them. Chalk those up to learning, and use them to help refine a process that you feel works best; everyone have their own process. 

[Red Bear Haraldsson]

Redgold,

If it is tool order that you are looking for, check the carving section of the forum, there is a section on floral and Sheridan carving. There is a step-by-step post pinned there, should be loads of help:

http://leatherworker.net/forum/topic/41-floral-carving-step-by-step/

Couple of carvers here have youtube channels, look for Ian Atkinson (Leodis Leather) and Nigel Armitage (Armitage Leather). Both have great video channels and each has numerous posts here on the forum.

Searching... searching on this forum is best done through an outside search engine. Go to whichever site you like best and put in your search parameters and add 'site:leatherworker.net' to the end and it will search the forum  much faster and easier than the forum's search engine.

As MisterSmith said, expect to make mistakes, lots of them. I have yet to make anything that didn't start as 'Prototype' 

 

[Bob Blea]

Welcome to the forum!

Good advice above, especially Red's about the step by step carving post.  Also, I'd encourage you to post your work here for critique and advice.  The people here are very good about providing kind critiques to help you improve.

Bob