My Adventures in Leatherworking

As some of you know, I pay the bills around here by being an IT guy during the day. Sometimes, this requires me to take things apart, like laptops. Laptop manufacturers don’t always want you to be able to take them apart, however, so they use some oddball screws or very tiny screws to keep out the amateurs.

I recently decided to invest in some better miniature screwdrivers, and found a set with a single handle and interchangeable blades that takes up a very small amount of room in my backpack kit. The case, however, is an uninspiring plastic jobbie with a blown-plastic insert. The lid is kinda thin, and I get the feeling it will get cracked before long.

I smell a new project! Read more »

Because sometimes, red velvet just doesn’t say it right.

Real simple project, just cut out two shapes and stitch them together. The only tricky part was to keep breathing while trimming down the bunny fur for the cuff – cut bunny fur floats, and that shit gets everywhere.

The cuff is two 5″ tall strips of rabbit fur cut from two different hides to get a good quality section with no blemishes. Sew them at the sides so it forms a circle, then stuff the circle into the stocking until the top edges line up. (Fur should be touching the inside of the leather). For best results, tack the fur in place in about 4 places to make sure you’ve got it centered and not bunched up.

Now stitch the tops together (I used a simple running loop stitch), then turn the fur out and down, and viola: fur-cuffed stocking.

Remember what I said about how to dye it? Well, I again decided on an oil-based dye, and the first step with that is to wipe it down with oil and let it set for a day before dying. What that got me was this:

Finished scabbard

…and I decided it was just too pretty to dye, so I gave it a coat of sealant and called it good.

I think I’m actually getting good at this…

The last event we went to, we brought out the fire pit and I ended up using the Gulach BFK9000 to split kindling. It worked, but it really isn’t designed for the task and it’s actually too sharp now for this sort of thing.

With that in mind, J went out and bought us a new camp hatchet, and sure enough, i decided it had to have a scabbard for safe transport.

I’m not sure if J and Illyana intended for me to be making a scabbard for it, but they sure didn’t complain when I offered. They’re no dummies.

Anywho, here’s what it looks like before the dye. I made it ambidextrous, so it’s pretty on both sides.

Those rivets are called double-caps, and designed just for projects like these where you can’t hide the ugly side.

In this design, the top and bottom rivet are there to keep the scabbard from pivoting off the blade (the tips of the blade are almost right at the points of the trefoil) and the two middle rivets are there to keep the blade from cutting the stitches.

Now to figure out how I want to dye it…

You remember that scabbard I made for the huge knife? Well, a problem developed after a time with the finish. It seems to have tarnished to a greenish sheen reminiscent of that found on old copper. The scabbard’s owner thought it was an effect I had aimed for and rather liked it, but it’s been eating at me since I saw the green the first time. Here’s a pic:

Obviously, this just won’t do. The problem is, how to fix it?

Well, I took the piece down to the good folks at Oregon Leather, and they showed me how to use Carnauba Cream to remove the tarnish. Rub the product on, let it dry, and then buff it out with some sheepskin. Here’s what you get afterwards:

Not too bad. It may take another coat before I’m completely happy with it though.

So, if any of you dig through the RPTools forums, you may have noticed my promise to put up a custom dice bag as the prize of a betting pool. As per usual, I needed to start with a prototype, and this one turned out well enough that I’m giving it to Greyduck as a sort of belated birthday gift. Besides, I dragged him into tabletop RPG games, so I might as well feed his habit. (And neither one of us drinks Crown Royal, the usual source of geek dice bags.)

Here’s the finished prototype:

simple dice bag

Now those of you in the forums may know that the purpose of the betting pool is to guess the final build number of MapTool 1.3, and here I’ve gone and carved the symbol for DiceTool, which has been in released status for quite some time now. Truth is, the MT symbol substitutes a surveyor’s sextant for the die shown above, and it doesn’t carve well at that scale. It’s ok I guess, but I didn’t like the three tests I did of the sextant, so I’m putting the DT emblem on the dice bag – which makes sense anyway.

If the winner complains, he can always send it back :)

It’s taken me a while to get around to posting the final pictures, I apologize for the delay. Here you are -

The Phoenix:

…and the Dragon:

Not bad, if I do say so meself :)

Now that Xmas has passed, I can tell you about two of the gifts I gave away this year – Phoenix and Dragon bracers. Here’s a couple of pics:

Dragon…

…and the Phoenix

Notice these will have laces instead of buckle straps. I did not have wrist measurements for the recipients, and lacing them gives much better adjustment. For colors, the Phoenix is going to be dyed black and then the bird will be painted red, possibly with some orange and yellow highlights if I’m feeling daring. The Dragon gets a medium brown background with the dragon itself dyed black.

For that, I’m using the brush dye method, and here’s what it looks like at phase 1:

Astute observers may note that the dyed version doesn’t have grommets yet – that’s because I screwed up the dye process on the first attempt. I dyed the dragon and the background with the brush method the first time, but the brown dye just does not cover evenly, and I could not find a way to smooth it out for the life of me. This time, after I have soaked all the black I can into that dragon, I will apply a few coats of resist and then use a wool dauber to spread the brown dye right over the top.

And if that doesn’t work out, the next one gets dyed brown first and then I’ll paint the damn dragon on.

My friend Illyana found a nice little belt knife at the last event we went to, but the sheath was just atrocious – looks like it was one they had just lying around and it fit well enough, so they packaged it. I couldn’t stand to see the knife in that ugly thing, and Illyana had a birthday coming up, so for the second time now she gets a new scabbard.

Now most of you should be familiar with the sheaths sold today – they only encase the blade of the knife, and then have a snap-strap to secure it in place. While this is a useful configuration, the more period method is the pouch sheath, which leaves only the last inch or so of the handle exposed. This is actually a more secure arrangement than the snap method, since you won’t ever accidentally unsnap it and risk the knife falling out on your foot, and with proper design the sheath will hold the knife securely through much bumping and jumping around.

To give full credit, I stole the design from Bruce Evans and the tutorial you will find at that link. I left the points sharper on mine than he did, but I followed his tutorial with the exception of using a drill bit instead of a nail to punch the holes for sewing, and I used a heavy thread instead of sinew. The sinew would have been more period, but I didn’t have any on hand.

I skipped the wax bath, mainly because I don’t really like the texture of wax-treated leather. Illyana is mildly into leatherwork herself, so she knows how to care for it properly. I also decided to forego any carving on this one, since I was going to dye it black, and the decoration gets lost in a black dye unless you paint it afterward. Knife sheaths get bumped around a lot so that paint would get abused pretty badly.

Here it is basically complete and waiting for the oil to dry before I dye it (with the original sheath for comparison.)

And with the knife sheathed:

Unfortunately, I forgot to snap a pic after I dyed it, so you’ll just have to use your imagination.

Here’s the latest finished project, a pair of fancy-decorated cuffs:

These are the 5″ cuffs with buckles. They cover about half of your forearm (as seen in the last post). For the buckles and straps, I went with a slot-mount this time instead of the surface-mount method of the bracers seen previously. This allowed me to minimize the surface area required for them, as well as simplifying the construction process. I did, however have to re-create my construction template for the buckles from scratch, so once again one side fits better then the other. One of these days I’ll get it right.

For the finish, I used a Fiebing’s oil dye, followed by Angelus leather paint and topped off with Fiebing’s Tan-Kote. This design would probably look good in a nice brown, and leaving the carved design un-dyed like I did in the last pouch project should work out pretty well. I was making this pair for myself, though, and my current wardrobe is all black.

One truly nice point of this build was using leather from a full side instead of a belly cut. Bellies are great for prototypes and one-off designs, but for your best work use the best leather. Even then, I skimped a bit and used a “tannery run” grade here instead of an “A” grade leather. The main difference you will find between the two from what I could see at the leather supply store is that TR-grade doesn’t have as even of a surface color as A-grade. If you plan on dying or painting the finished product, however, the leather itself is the same quality.