TIPS: EVERGREEN ADVICE

From a flyer of the Headwaters Leather Guild - 2006:

(I will add my own personal notes in green)

TIP 1 

Always treat your newly bought veg tan leather surface with respect - even air exposure, no moisture, no oil, no fat. Wash your hands before you handle the leather - sweaty fingerprints may only become visible when you add dye or the final finish.

 

TIP 2

Roll leather up with the grain side on the inside - the other way round will cause the grain side to stretch (slightly) and when you straighten the leather, it might wrinkle.

 

TIP 3

Rolls of leather can easily be stored in PVC pipe lengths with a diameter of 8" / 20cm or more.  Another reason or rolling the leather with grain side in - the nice grain side will not scrape on the pipe edges.

 

TIP 4

When you start wetting leather for tracing and swivel knife cuts and tooling, make sure to always wet the full surface of the leather. If you do not, the water will rinse chemicals to the edge of the wet part and as it dries, that will show as the edge of a waterstain. (These stains can be treated with excessive washing with a lot of water.)

If I work on a very large piece, I wet the part I am working on with a sponge and then now and again just keep the rest damp with water from a spray bottle.

 

TIP 5

OIL and WATER do NOT mix.

During the following steps in your project, no oily of fatty substances or containers with finishes in or hands with all of the above on, should be allowed close to your workbench: Cutting, Tracing, Swivel Knife Work, Tooling, Dyeing.

After doing these, you treat the leather with a conditioner / sealer / finish and now you cannot use water on the leather again easily - the leather finish you use should protect the leather against water and against the rougher treatment of construction.

 

TIP 6

Wet leather and Ferrous Metals Do Not Mix

 

These metals will stain leather black when it touches even just damp leather. That means that you .......

 

a) cannot weigh down leather with metal weights, without first covering them in leather or plastic.

b) cannot have metal filings on your workbench - so be careful after you have sharpened knives where you will later work with damp leather (it takes seconds for the stains to be caused).   The stains of fine metal dust will appear to look like mold spots on the leather.  So also wash your hands after sharpening knives and before you work with wet veg tan leather.

c) cannot casually let metal tools lie on damp leather.

d) cannot use metal clamps to hold leather in position while drying - glue some small pieces of leather on the inside of clamps you want to use on leather.

 

TIP 7 

When you spill coffee or Coke on a project, immediately take it to a basin and empty the rest of the offending liquid over the the project to cover it completely (and therefor stain it completely and seamlessly and uniformly).  Then rinse it off with clean running water.

[Do not follow this tip when you spill blood on your project    -     😀 ]

 

TIP 8

Always use the cut off pieces of leather to test water absorption, tooling softness, color effect of dyes and the effect of finishes you want to use. Also test out stamping patterns you might consider or any new tools you buy.

I wrote more about it here:

ALWAYS TEST

Remember that tools with a large footprint, will take a lot of force from your mallet to make an impression, while a small surfaced tool like a seeder, will only require a light tap.

 

TIP 9

To test the effect of a certain finish you want to put on leather, use it on a little cut off piece that was stamped/carved and dyed the same as your project and then carry it with you all the time in your pocket (with your keys).   Ladies can do the same in a bag or wherever it will receive rough treatment.

This will give you a good idea of how the leather will keep, and how the finish will protect it.

I hope this helped!

Oil before Dye

I often see the question "Does it matter if you oil before you dye?" 

And then follows a barrage of opinions and answers like "I have been using neatsfoot oil before I dye for decades.....". 

This concept originated decades ago when: 

• the leather was tanned with different recipes, 
• only alcohol based dyes were available and had very different recipes from the alcohol based dyes of today
• they applied the oil VERY sparingly and let it sit at least overnight to completely even out in the leather

 There are a few warnings here: 

• All the liquids and their formulas have changed numerous times just in the last 10 years. 

• What is seldom mentioned in the answers is the time frame of the applications, the type of dyes used, the specific leather they work with, the quantities they work with, etc.. All of these makes a drastic difference in dying leather. 

• A beginner leathercrafter might have horrible results results with a method an old saddle maker has been using for 40 years. 

So, first use your common sense. Read the labels of the liquids you use. 

TEST every procedure on the SAME leather before doing it on your project. And your test should go all the way to testing that piece of leather for the dye coming off on your clothes (I often carry a piece of leather in my pocket with my keys to see how a dye or finish will hold up).

One of the best pair of books you can read on dying was written by Tony and Kay Laier, one was about Fiebings products and the other about Eco-Flo products. 

 Search for "Fiebing's Fantastic Finishes Book" by Tony & Kay Laier. 

 They have been discontinued due to the changes in colors and ever changing liquids, but they are still the best way to get a fast education about different methods of dying. 

The book about Eco-Flo dyes are available in digital form at 

https://tandyleather.com/blogs/leathercraft-library/coloring-with-eco-flo-by-tony-and-kay-laier

Leatherwork and your Perception

Have you ever finished a project and thought to yourself :  "This is not too well done - shoot!     So many mistakes...."? 

Don't beat yourself up! Your work is beautiful! Even if you are a beginner!

It is just a fact that before you start a project, you have an idea and image in your mind as to how it will turn out, a VERY idealistic idea.   

Then you see the finished project and it differs from that image in your mind - your mind turns that into mistakes / short-falls.

YES, there is ALWAYS room to learn and improve - after 42 years I still learn to do things better / different / in new ways.   

Don't be phased by criticism by leatherworking veterans - they are probably only trying to help.   

More important is that you do not get phased by your own criticism!

Almost all leatherwork looks good to non-leatherworkers.  Keep that in mind.

Many years ago, when I was still a beginner, I made my cousin a handbag  -  I thought the work was mediocre.  

After about four years I saw the bag again for the first time, and my words were:  "Wow!  who made that for you - it is beautiful!"

She looked at me funny and said "You did!"   Then I realized, your work is better than you think.

While you work on your project, you notice every small little imperfection in your work.   In your mind these grow very big, because you are busy with the project close-up.

Teach yourself to put the project down at the end of the day and clear your brain.  Then the next morning, look at it as if someone else did it.   You will slowly develop the ability to look at your work more subjectively.

I hope that helps!

[Updated October 2020]

Dyeing Leather Grey

GREY????

I have always said:  "White is not a leather color - and that goes for all the colors that contain white (grey, pink, sky blue).

One nice way to get a grey color on leather is very old, or very newly made, vinagroon (ferrous metal dissolved in vinegar). 

 I have a separate Blog Entry all about that.

Here is a video where I play with vinagroon that is more than ten months old and three day old vinagroon:

After the leather dried and I applied NeatLac to each piece:

You will notice not all the pieces ended up deep black even after the new vinagroon was applied. This is due to two factors: 1. The leather can have different levels of tannins that react with the vinagroon. 2. I simply needed to get more vinagroon onto the leather to give a more completer reaction.

Warning again: DO NOT NEUTRALIZE the vinagroon - the leather has to stay acidic (about pH of 4).

Cable Organizers

I have been having a lot of fun making these cable organizers - they are used to keep your earphone or charger cables tied together and untangled. 

 They allowed me to play with tools I have not used in a long time and coloring techniques I want to test on something small.   And they make great gifts!  

 This video describes how to make a few rows of hearts with the meander tool:

 

 Then there are basketweave squares:  

 And spiraling basketweave:

 

 A simple woodgrain effect:  

 And coloring the wood: [To see how this one eventually turned out,  it is the bottom left-most one on the second photo above.]  

 Have Fun!!!!

CenterLine Border Fun

The main idea here is to have a center raised/beveled line and then stamp some pattern on one or both sides. 

It starts with drawing the two parallel lines with a compass, cutting them with a swivel knife and then choosing between a smooth, textured or figure carving beveler. 

 Here is the video (in two parts):     

 And here are still photos of the samples that were made or shown in the video:

        In the following small journal cover, the border stamp was also used against a beveled edge, but it was not a center line design.  (The design was drawn on a phone using the Sketcher App by Valentin Myamsin)    

Frogskin Background

I updated this blog post from long ago to include a new video and some photos.

Tommy McLintic of South Africa first showed me this very effective background. He is also author of the "Let's Make a Gadget" postings on this blog.

This method might look very laborious and tedious, but a surprisingly large area can be covered without too much effort if you enjoy the craft and want something special. I use it mainly for small projects.

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1. I first draw a feint guide line about 5mm from the edge of the surface I want to decorate - this line will later be the guide for a border stamp I will use around the background effect.
2. Next I start with the cased leather and the largest smooth seed stamp I have - a Craftool #S864. It must have a round a dome as possible. In the example below you will see little dimples in the 'mounds' - my leather is fairly thin and I do not want to punch them in too hard or deep.


3. I follow no rule when I place these first dots - as soon as you think a pattern might evolve, break away. I like to group some of the largest dots together as you see above, and then when those are all done, I look for any large open spaces and either place a few smaller groups or single dots.
4. With the following size of seeder down (Craftool #S631), I surround all the large 'mounds' with smaller ones. You could also just work randomly and that would give a different effect.


5. Be careful as you use smaller seeders - they need considerably less striking force on your mallet to make an impression and you will be used to a harder tap with the larger punch. Remember also that it takes many small dots to fill even a small area, so you do not want to leave too much space open for the smallest seeder.


6. The smallest seeder, a Craftool #S931, is then used to fill in the gaps.
If you want to, you can take the largest seeder again and just 'redo' one or two of the larger dots that have lost its shape.

7. An example of the coloring done with an airbrush - difficult to stay within the border tool used around the background.

  I recently did a Facebook Live video to show this technique.   That means that it is quite long winded (I did edit some spots out), so if you want to you can skip ahead. I tried to keep most of my talking in the video to preserve most of the tips I was passing along - forgive the many "Hhhmmmm ...... Eeeehhh" in the video when my mind is on the action of my hands and not of what I am talking about:
 Here are some examples where I have used this on projects.  First my wife's handbag:
 The rest of the bag was airbrushed - you can see it was spirit based dye - it did not penetrate all that well.   Now, after more than twenty years,  it looks antique, but I would have liked it to be more solid in color.  Waterbased dye penetrate better when used in an airbrush.
  A very simple example of the frog skin pattern being used for a covered buckle:
 This is a bag I made about ten years ago and I use it to carry tools and what-not to leather shows and guild meetings.  It also shows some other arrangements of the seeder tools:
  Here is a video that shows some ideas about backgrounds:

First published June 2017