Hello!

[lomfs24]

Good Morning to all and thank you for allowing me to join the leatherworker.net forums. I am new to the leather working and have a million questions. I will peruse the forum first to see if my questions have already been answered. I will also post a couple pictures of things I have already created, ask for input and how to make them better. 

I may also post examples of what I would like my work to look like and how to get from where I am to where I want to be. 

But none of that will happen right now as I have to head off to work. 

A bit about me. I work at a small Class C school in Montana. Sheridan, Montana to be exact. I am also a firefighter and my passion for leather stems from the fire service. I saw all these really cool leather things in the fire service and wanted some of them. When checking the price tag I thought, I need to learn leather craft. So here I am learning and struggling along. I would love to take advice from some of the people who I am familiar with in the fire leather world. However, I am a little apprehensive about asking them for help. I feel the conversation would go something like this, "Hey I'd really like to buy that product, how much would it cost to have you make me one?"  "Well, that particular item costs about $250"  "Ouch, that is a lot of money, could you just tell me how to make it instead and then I wouldn't have to pay you?"  "Shove off!" 

I may be wrong but that's kinda how I feel it would go. 

Anyway, thanks again! Look forward to me asking a ton of questions. 

Rahn

 

Sorry, I didn't see that you had to select "Notify me of replies" and I don't know how to change it now other than make a second post. 

[Halitech]

hello and welcome to the asylum lol there are a few firefighters or makers of fire fighter things that will probably help you out some but we probably won't give you exact measurements and steps (especially if we sell said items) but you can get help designing your own items which believe me, is even more rewarding then making one someone else did all the work on

[billybopp]

Welcome.   Yeah.   Many of us looked at a leather item and thought... Damn.  That's expensive!  I could save money and make it for far less.   And many hundreds of dollars later would have done far better financially to have just bought the item to begin with.   But it also would have been far far less fun to buy it.   Welcome to the addiction.

Bill

[Sceaden]

LOL, right on. I started out because I wanted to make about $50 worth of flintlock accessories... a few grand later... 

[Halitech]

8 minutes ago, Sceaden said:

LOL, right on. I started out because I wanted to make about $50 worth of flintlock accessories... a few grand later... 

with me it was because I needed a belt and couldn't find one big enough in the stores lol

[BDAZ]

Same here! Needed a carved belt to replace the 40 year old belt that came with a Zuni silver buckle. I checked with my Tandy store to see if they could recommend a maker.  When they told me it may cost a few hundred dollars I thought  I could do it myself! It was an odd size so $7,000 later I have the world's most expensive belt. 

Of course I also have a thriving leather business exporting to 25+ countries.

 

Bob

[eglideride]

I wanted a simple knife sheath. Saw a Tandy Leather store and walked in, discovered a magazine called "Muzzle Blasts" and got totally side tracked for 20 years! During that time I decide I wanted to "carve" a muzzleloading gun stock...another whole hobby out of that one too....so I carve leather and wood.... awesome hobbies!

[lomfs24]

Thanks for all the replies. And yes, I agree, it is far more satisfying to know you've done it yourself. I have a set of leather suspenders that I made first. I need to rebuild a couple parts of the suspenders. I have also made a shield for my helmet and one for my sons helmet. I am not looking for specific measurements but more about how to properly color them. How to get the tooling to look sharp etc... I know some of the sharpness of my tooling is simply my skill level, some of it is not casing the leather properly. I did read the article on casing. And a few questions about dye vs. paint. Like I said, I will peruse the discussion already here so I don't ask  a newbie question that has been answered a million times already. 

Thanks again for all the replies.