My Adventures in Leatherworking

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 :)

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.

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.

No, not those kind of cuffs – these are just wide bands of leather that wrap around your arm at the wrist like a super-size watchband.

A friend of mine wants a pair of bracers or cuffs, he isn’t sure which. So, this post is to get some pictures out where he can see them to make up his mind. (Note: the bracer pictured here is an early prototype made from tannery-dyed leather that I will not be using again. It is, however, the only finished one I have at the moment.)

Here’s a cuff:

And a bracer:

Options:

Tied or Buckles?

Like I said, that bracer is a prototype – the straps for the buckles have been re-designed and look much better in version 2.

There have been a couple of comments recently asking about where I get my design ideas and whether or not I will be publishing patterns. Honestly, whatever I didn’t pull out of my own head was more than likely either copied off of something I had seen at an SCA event or something I found on the Internet.

I’ve seen some cool ideas for carving on tattoo websites, but I always make sure that the images I base my designs on are not copyrighted in any way. In this day and age, you gotta be real careful about what you copy, even if you don’t plan on selling it. The last thing I want is for some jackass lawyer to come ’round with a stack of paper in his hand because my design looks like his client’s.

Now, as for whether I will publish or give away my patterns and designs, allow me to put on my Asshole Hat for a second here. The entire point of doing this sort of thing is to be creative and enjoy yourself. I will never publish complete designs with instructions and measurements and such, because I want you to use the grey matter between your ears. If all you are looking for is instructions on pounding out some crap to sell or give away or whatever, go somewhere else. The world is full of knock-offs, and I would much prefer you take enough pride in your work to screw around with it until you think it looks good and would be happy to give it to a friend and have them show it off ’round the campfire.

There has been more than one occasion where I have taken a half-hour to carefully replace a screwed up rivet because i couldn’t bear to look at it. Would you?

As an example of this, I was at an event last year and discovered I had left my hat at home in July, and needed to get some shade on my head quick. I wandered over to a haberdasher’s and selected a wide-brimmed number with one side folded up. Now, it was all leather, but the guy had slammed it out on a commercial-grade machine, had run over his own seams partway instead of matching them up, and the hat generally had this “half-assed” feeling to it, like the maker was just trying to push out some stock for his booth.

Unfortunately, the guy got me talking and I forgot to ask how much it was until he was halfway through sizing it for me. He wanted $125 for this thing. The leather itself cost maybe $15, and the skull pinning the side up another $3, so he basically wanted $112 for the _maybe_ two hours he spent building and fitting it. If he hadn’t sized it for me I would have turned and left – as it was, I bought the damn thing and felt like an idiot for it.

So. The point here is that if this is the kind of work you plan on doing, get the hell off my website.

If, however, you plan on taking pride in your work, giving attention to the details and making things for friends and family that you will be proud to have them fuss over, well, you my friend are welcome here. But I still want you to think! Be creative! Use my work as an example of what can be done, but don’t blindly copy it for yourself. (Unless, of course, I have managed to perfect something beyond any hope of improvement. Then you may copy. snerk)

In the end, it all comes down to what you want other people to think of your work. Are you just goofing around in the garage, or do you want to make something to remember? Do you want your projects to get tossed aside after a year or two, or do you want your grandkids to ooh and ahh when you tell ‘em you made it?

Me? I want the grandkids to ooh and ahh.

Just a quick little teaser of the Camera Case project to show off a technique I just figured out – here’s the side panel of the case all carved up:

The new technique is the gridwork in the middle of the design. I purchased a couple of new shaders a while back, and this is the first chance I’ve had to play with them on a real design. I like the way it turned out.

The trick to using tools like this is all in the alignment – if you overlap them just a touch, it looks good. If you try to line the impressions right next to each other, you may end up with a thin line of material that isn’t stamped. As always, you gotta practice with it.

Actually a double post: tools to have, and how to carry them around!

We’ll start off with a picture:

Here we can see some of my most-used tools in the roll-up pouch I made for them. From left to right, we have:

• a slot punch for belt buckles,
• my stitch groover,
• a belt-tip punch,
• a couple of bevelers,
• my #2 edge tool,
• a 4-way hole punch,
• my folding razor knife,
• my swivel knife,
• a selection of hole punches.

I also have a rotary punch, which is an excellent tool, but it’s only good for punching holes less than an inch away from an edge. For holes farther into a piece of work, you need a simple punch like these above.

The swivel knife is of course used for carving leather, and that razor knife makes cutting out the pices so much easier than using shears on heavy leather.

The 4-way punch doesn’t get a lot of use. I don’t do much in the way of lacing leather, and that is the main use of it. The #2 edge beveler next to it, however, gets used on every project to round off the square edges left by my razor knife.

The beveling tools next to that are used on leather carvings after the swivel knife to add dimension to the artwork. The stitch groover has gotten a lot of use lately, what with all the sewing projects I have attempted. The remaining tools are just for making straps – one puts a nice clean end on the strap, the other punches the slot for the tongue of a buckle or the key slot for a Sam Browne closure.

The tool roll was one of the first few things I made after my girlfriend gave me a starter set of tools for Xmas. I like having pockets and hooks for my tools, and this seemed like a good way to keep them stored and organized in my tool bag so I wasn’t always digging through a pile of stuff for them.

I started with a chunk of scrap leather, and only trimmed a little of it off to get the shape you see here. Then I just laid out my tools, folded the bottom over them and drew lines in between for a seam guide. i started on the right, and you can see how I mis-judged how the leather would gather – I thought that pocket would only hold one punch. The one next to it went a little small – that’s the only punch that will fit there. Luckily enough, I had it figured by then and the rest went pretty smoothly.

To finish the project, I whipped up a couple of buckled straps and riveted them to the left side. Here’s what it looks like all rolled up:

With the top flap rolled down over the tools and then the whole thing rolled up and buckled, it keeps everything tucked away inside, and the bundle fits neatly into my tool bag.

There is a selection of other tools in my bag, but the bag itself has many pockets that does the trick quite well. My stamping tools, however, will likely get a new case in the near future since they are currently stacked up in my parts box and I invariably have to dig all of them out to get the one tool I want. (Which is why the bevelers got moved to the tool roll.) It’s getting late though, so I’ll leave those for another post.

The project has been finished, and I thought I’d show you a few of the stages involved. Here we can see that I have completely cut the final design and beveled the edges. I’m quite happy with the result, although I have once again forgotten to purchase tracing paper and got one of the trefoil arms slightly off-center at the join. It doesn’t stick out too terribly bad. It gives it character, dammit!

Once I had that done, I glued together all of the welts and then carved them back down to the proper slope. That was tricky, almost ended up throwing the first attempt away. Once I had it all laid out though, I knew it would work. So, on to some glue and garage bondage:

Bulldog clips are your friends.

Once that was dry, I gouged the stitching groove and used my overstitch wheel to mark off the stitches. Then I took a long look at myself in the mirror and forgave myself for what I was about to do…

I cheated.

The ghost of Al Stohlman may haunt me for it, but I knew there was no way I was ever going to push an awl through all of that leather – Hell, I stabbed myself in the finger on a test piece and damn near severed a nerve!

While I could have possibly driven the awl through with a hammer, my stitching awl is a two-piece model that can change blades and I figured I would probably just break the darn thing. Instead, I put a 1/16th inch drill bit in my Dremmel and drilled about 95% of the way through everything from the cut side down. That took about 75% of the work out of pushing the awl through it to stretch the holes and the last layer of leather – this way the stitch is held more firmly by the leather trying to seal up around it. It also allowed me to make sure the hole on the far side was in the groove.

The next day it was time to break in my new stitching pony and get sewin’. Of course, I broke a needle on the third stitch – crappy needle selection on my part. For leather this heavy (8/9 ounce) get a #000 Harness needle and you should be ok. Those “general purpose” Tandy needles are too thin at the eye and will snap if you wiggle them in an effort to stretch the hole.

Note the extra chunks of leather glued to the pony to protect the work as I stab it.

Now, if you read Al’s book on hand sewing, he tells you to make your threads a double-arm length, or about twelve feet. Here’s why: math. Each of the smallest stitches in this piece took up about 1/2″ of thread on each needle, and the full 26″ seam (24″ inches linear, with an inch of back-stitch on each end) took 18 feet of thread.

Eighteen feet!

The first 5 feet got me just around the first bend, starting from the skinny side. The second 5 feet got me even with the hilt of the sword in the artwork. The third 5 foot thread got all the way to the last linear inch, and then I had to grab another three-foot length to go that inch and the back-stitch.

For your first few stitching projects, your fingers won’t have any protective calluses, and they are going to hurt when you are done. I suggest you get some good leather gloves, which will add protection without ruining your grip or traction. And when you are done, don’t pick up anything hot or you’ll drop it on your foot when you yank your hand back. I almost lost a dinner plate that way.

In this picture, you get to see the finished product: (Thanks to my buddy for the much better pic.)

Now, you may be wondering how I got that interesting finish out of it. Here’s how:

Be a dumbass and try an un-tested Fiebing’s Walnut Oil Dye on a finished project, watch it dye unevenly and panic. Add a second coat of dye before the first has really dried, then rub with a cloth. Watch this one dry until a weird patina forms, then leave it be for 15 minutes. Freak out a little more, then use a Deglazer to remove the patina. Let this dry for about 2 minutes.

After the two minutes, notice that the dye is still uneven and apply a third and fourth coat. Let it sit for ten minutes this time and get that patina going, then hit it one more time with the Deglazer. Now give up forever on getting the color you wanted and rub vigorously with Neatsfoot Oil to try and repair what damage you can.

Voila! You know have a mildly distressed finish to the project that you worked so hard on! The closure tab is the only thing that came out the right color, and there is a small chance that the leather had something to do with it – that bit is from a different hide. It was probably all user error though.

Next project: something a little smaller – a needle case, and possibly a travel case for all my carving tools. Something like a leather pencil box. We’ll see.

*UPDATE* The new owner loves it, and wants to wear it around. If I had thought she might, I would have built it with belt loops…

Do not, I repeat DO NOT let your bracing finger slip whilst punching a hole through leather and stab yourself on the inside of the first knuckle joint.

DAMN that hurt like a bitch until the nerve settled down. Or in this case, went numb. I can’t feel the outside of that finger now. I’m sure it will be fine in a couple of days, but nnggyahh!