Leather Jewelry With Stone Inlay

[Harixheshke]

Hello! I'm fairly new to leather working. I've only made a few dog collars but I'm interested in branching out. I also apprentice with a silver smith so I'm hoping to combine both skills. 

I've been really wanting to make some leather cuffs and rings with varied sizes of cabochons within the stamped design. What would be the most effective way to do this? Also, if anyone has done this before, what weight leather do you recommend?

 

I included a photo of an artist that does exactly what I'm trying to learn. 

[Bob Blea]

Hello and welcome to the forum!  These look like conchos, particularly the second one.  A concho would be either riveted or attached with a screw to the leather.  Whenever I see a metal bezel on the stone it means it's probably mechanically attached with a screw or rivet.  For the first one, the three stones may be attached to a metal plate that is being held in place by the four round silver knobs between the stones. 

[Harixheshke]

 

Hello and welcome to the forum!  These look like conchos, particularly the second one.  A concho would be either riveted or attached with a screw to the leather.  Whenever I see a metal bezel on the stone it means it's probably mechanically attached with a screw or rivet.  For the first one, the three stones may be attached to a metal plate that is being held in place by the four round silver knobs between the stones. 

Awesome!! Good to know. Thank you so much!

[Bonecross]

I used to work with silver and gold, and find that setting the stones in a leather is quite fun. More importantly, a metal setting is not absolutely required. I basically set them in a leather bezel. After cutting a hole slightly smaller than the stone, the leather is wet-formed around the stone by pressing with polished wood tools. The stones can be epoxied and then the bezel is contact cemented and stitched. This can be done with almost any leather thickness, but I generally use 5oz vegetable tanned leather (tooling leather) or greater for bezels.

So far I have been only doing it with cabochon stones though... But just so you know, even cut gemstones can technically be set in leather using the same wet-forming to smush the leather around them!

You could also use specific properties of leather such as how it sort of shrinks as it dries

One issue to consider is that leather is pliable, so stones set too gingerly could potentially pop out when the item is flexed - lol!

The images you showed appear to be silver jewelry which is most probably riveted to the leather items, or it could be fastened in a few different ways such as with screws or bent prongs.

Edited April 27, 2017 by Bonecross

[RobertRussell]

On 4/26/2017 at 10:14 AM, Harixheshke said:

Hello! I'm fairly new to leather working. I've only made a few dog collars but I'm interested in branching out. I also apprentice with a silver smith so I'm hoping to combine both skills. 

I've been really wanting to make some leather cuffs and rings with varied sizes of cabochons within the stamped design. What would be the most effective way to do this? Also, if anyone has done this before, what weight leather do you recommend?

 

I included a photo of an artist that does exactly what I'm trying to learn. 

Who is the artist and where can I.find other items. Thanks

[Rahere]

As you say, @Bonecross, they could pop out. Given leather is organic and matures, I'd suggest that, in the long term, "will" is a more likely option.

That being said, turquoise and cabuchons aren't the hardest stones, and could probably be edge-slotted using a Dremel diamond disk mounted in their table router, perhaps using rouge as a grinding paste. That would then offer the possibility of inlaying a thinner chrome leather force-fitted into the slot, before gluing. Again, it might be worth checking if epoxy is the best option compared with my current, expensive go-to, Renia colle de cologne, which seems to hold on to anything unusually well. At the same time, epoxy will soak into the leather in the slot, turning it into an o-ring. Horses for courses.