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…

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 a quick pic of the finished pouch:

I ended up doing a selective dye method – I used a brush instead of a wool dauber to apply the dye, and I like the effect. This is the first finished piece after talking with a guy who swears by the oil dyes. His advice was to rub the piece with Neatsfoot Oil and let it sit for a day, then use an oil dye. Not too shabby.

One of the things I have been trying to do since I started all of this is to replace all of my current leather gear with something more elaborate and decorative. A mug frog is fairly simple, but my pouch is sorely in need of an upgrade.

It was purchased at an event, and cost was a major factor at the time, so it is very plain, the leather is a little sub-par, and I’m not 100% pleased with the design. So, I’ve made a lot of pouches in an effort to come up with the perfect replacement.

My first attempt was a success as far as construction went, but it was still plain and a little small for the amount of junk that normally gets tossed in there at an event. (Smokes, lighter, mints, flashlight, about half of my wallet – you get the picture.) So, off I went again. And again. And again…

The latest version is yet another change to the overall design – just two pieces instead of three or four in an effort to reduce the amount of sewing. The design works, but again this one is a tad small. I do need to pile up some stuff to auction off for our pavilion fund, however, so I thought I would dress this one up with some tooling.

The leather in the construction won’t tool, so I will be sewing or riveting something on to the flap. I’m leaning toward rivets – I like the visual better sometimes, but mostly I just don’t like sewing. (I really need a deeper jaw on the stitching pony for most of my work.) I was playing around with my drafting tools, and came up with a nice Celtic Trefoil design:

The rivets will go in the center of the three foils and also on either side of each tip, so it will be pretty secure. The closure, of course, is always my biggest headache of the design process because there are so many ways to do it, and what will work best? I really only get one shot at each pouch.

I thought I would give that Walnut oil dye one more chance, and used it on another design that I had screwed up, and I am once again thoroughly unimpressed with the results. There will be a trip to the store on my schedule for this weekend.

This last weekend, however, put another two projects on my list, as J bought a new sword and needs a good frog to hang it off his belt and K got herself a new knife with a lousy scabbard. Maybe I should just buy a hide this weekend while I’m at the store…

These little things are designed to help a lady keep her skirts out of the mud – or perhaps show off her petticoats, if she’s of a mind :) It’s just a simple length of leather folded over to pinch another fold with some D-rings in their grip.

To use them, hang them on your belt and pull a section of fabric up through both rings, then run it back through only one of them and pull it tight. (Just like you would for a motorcycle helmet strap.)

I like to use an offset color for the smaller piece. Use a stiff leather for the long piece and a softer leather to hold the rings so they move freely. It helps to skive down the tips of the stiff leather if your rivets aren’t long enough. You can also groove the leather at the fold, but you can usually just give it a couple whacks with a mallet and pound it into submission ;)