Am I Totally Inept

[ScoobyNewbie]

I had never heard of this, thank you for bringing it up. Good video.

[rustyj58]

Hang in there buddy. Practice makes "BETTER".

I have the strange feeling that you may be holding the stamping tools too high up on the shaft. Every suggestion I read here is spot on and valid. However, It all comes down as to what works for you. Try choking down on the stamp. Use MILLIONS and Millions of pieces of scrap and beat them hamburger wrappers to a pulp! It takes PRACTICE to develop the repeat actions needed for consistency. 

The number ONE thing to keep in mind is to NEVER QUIT! None of us will ever be the accomplished craftsman we see in the magazines and videos but we ALL become the BEST we can be with practice and dedication. And for the BEST book I have ever used (And still refer to)  is "How to Carve Leather" by Al Stohlman!!! Hands down the "BIBLE" for leather crafting. I am self taught from his books and lots of practice.

Happy tooling,

Rusty

[chrisash]

7 hours ago, JLSleather said:

Yup, that works in teh states too

And PUH LEEZE .. no more "cool to the touch"   If my thermostat is set at 64, the leather is ALWAYS "cool to the touch", no matter wet or dry.  If you're toolin' in San Antonio, I doubt there's much "cool to the touch".

As the water put on it evaporates it reduces the tempratiure on the surface a natural occurance just like the reason your fridge works or people put a wet cloth over there head to keep cool. It's the evaporation that is the coolant 

 

 

[Samalan]

On 11/12/2018 at 1:53 PM, Ed in Tx said:

A couple of things I noticed that weren't mentioned or I missed them...

Just "casing" the leather isn't all you need to do before attempting to stamp a piece. Using a glass burnisher to compress the fibers in the leather before starting to stamp is an important step. Also you should use

something on the back side of the piece such as blue painters tape to keep the leather from spreading when you stamp. I am no expert by any stretch but the two items I mentioned are what I was taught when I first tried my hand at tooling.

You know Chan Geer uses a glass slicker be four stamping , his stamping is world class.must be something to it.