Getting into carving

[shock]

I am wanting to get into carving and tooling to spice up my holsters. I did a spruce tree today at our leather working breakfast and decided to go ahead and buy a few swivel knives and some stamping tools and what not. What are some good tooling sets to buy? Craft tool? Or is there something better? Please don’t ask to see my tree...

[Stetson912]

Can I see your tree? Hehe

Joking aside, Barry King, clay Miller, Bob beard are all great tool makers. King and Miller are more accessible. 

It really depends on what kind of carving you want to do. You can certainly start with craft tool to see how you like carving. 

Just as important, if not more so, than the tools you use is the leather. Don't skimp on lower quality cheaper leather. Often it isn't much more to get a good quality leather and it will dramatically help. Wickett and Craig and Herman oak are safe bets. Springfield leather sells Hermann oak and makers leather supply sells wickett and Craig. 

You want to get tools that fit your work too. So eventually you will want a few sizes of different tools. 

If I were to say a basic tool set for floral style carving I would recommend

-At least 2 bevelers of different sizes, one larger one for long straight paths and one smaller one for finer curves and areas

-a pear shader or thumb print sized to fit the majority of your work size. They both taper but a thumbprint is longer and with some finangling you can use the skinny end as a smaller shader

-a veiner. These have a few shapes. Lined, scalloped, scalloped and lined, Wigglers etc. I'd recommend a scalloped one to start.

-a camoflage tool. Again one you'll like several sizes of. And again again, more pattern types. I like the simpler ones myself. 

-backgrounder(s). If you can get a larger and smaller one. These look like little triangles and are meant to give a texture to the background to make the carving stand out and give dimension. Bar grounders are used for this too, but that's more sheridan and harder to master. Small seeders can be used too.

-seeders. These are usually used in flower centers and buds to, well, add seeds haha. Serge Volken uses them for backgrounding and it does have an interesting effect. 

These should be a good start. These tools are the bare bones basics but used a lot. Learning how to use them will be invaluable. 

There are a multitude of other tools. Too many to get into. Barry King does sell a few sets. If you have the money for them. They have everything in them for different sized work. Once you get established a bit in your style carving, you figure out more what you need to suit your work. 

Finally, there is a stohlman book I've heard good things about. "Leather crafter tools and how to use them" I think is what it's called, I don't own this book but many have spoken well of it. 

Hopefully more will chime in with thier suggestions. Hope this helps.

[shock]

Yes! Thank you. 

[Stetson912]

If you ever see videos or what not of people like Don Gonzalez, Chan Geer, Britt Nantz, Adam Tanner, or Jim Linnell just study it. Take what you like and copy it and use it. You'll come up with a fusion style all your own. Jim Linnell has a wallet tooling series on YouTube actually. It's under tandys channel I think but should be easy to find if you are interested 

[Gabriel Rasa]

In addition to using quality leather, it's also very important to make sure your leather is properly cased before you tool -- it will come out much, MUCH better. Trying to carve & tool on leather that is too dry or too wet will give you shoddy results, regardless of your skill level. Another secret I've found is to rub it down with a leather conditioner (I use Lexol, you can find it in the automotive department of Walmart, etc) right before you carve -- it makes the swivel knife just glide through the leather beautifully.