#leather tooling

[leatherbutchblues]

I created this banner as a love letter to leatherdykes 🖤⛓️🩸

Handcrafted from a solid piece of leather, metal O-rings and chain, the banner is designed to embody the leather armour worn by these fierce guardians who strengthen and protect our communities.

If you’re interested in seeing more of my work please check out my IG @leatherbutch

[armory-rasa]

WIP pic of my current project -- the walls at our new (much larger) place are extremely bare, so I took one of my favorite pieces by Vitor Gonzales and adapted it for carving in leather. 18" diameter, out of 10-oz veg-tan. The tooling took about nine hours all told; haven't decided yet how I'm going to dye it to best bring out the design.

Not for sale -- this was done entirely for my own enjoyment, though I may find some royalty-free designs to make similar pieces available in my shop.

[celestial-sphere-press]

tooling time from last night. got a few more things to do. definitely more confident in blind tooling than in using foil with the tools.

[searincosplay]

Here's a few WIP pics from TotK Champion Link that I never shared! I decided to do the leather armor patterns with plastic wrap and masking tape to ensure that it fit properly over all of the layers. The layers threw off the fit of the belts as well, I had to make a new set 😅

Leather is roughly 8oz veg-tan leather that I tooled, wet molded, and dyed. Also there's a pic of my Archaic tunic before I hand dyed it, it looks so wrong 😂

[memetrash-coyote]

Now that it's daytime (and not raining), I can show off the colors of the jaguar tube! Like I said before, this was a fun challenge, and there are plenty of parts I'm proud of. The whole thing is inspired by my own d&d character Zora, a warlock of an old sun deity, a recent werejaguar, and a leathersmith. The design is inspired by a Maya stelae of a jaguar, and I did the markings more akin to actual jaguar pelts. The border stamping on the top is the same border stamp I used for her dice pouch ages ago, and the decorative double cross stitch is a fun flair I feel Zora would add to such a piece.

[zhalfirin]

Box with neck for my binding of Winnie-the-Pooh

Materials used:

binders board felt wibalin paper (plain and laser printed) leather (coated/ vegetable tanned) see WIP pictures on my sideblog @zhalfirin-binds

[thepaintedredstart]

One of my favorite customs I’ve done recently! A brown trout for someone’s dad for Christmas

[pidraws]

first ever attempt at leather tooling, made a moth for my wife. I learned a lot! Including that the beveler that came with my stamp set is WAY too big for a piece this size and I really need to buy some new Xacto blades

[zhalfirin-binds]

WIP Winnie-the-pooh box

Part VII hot tooling the box

This was my set up for the hot tooling. Following the idea of the honey pot design I went for a hot tooled inscription. First I moistened the leather lightly again and did the outlines with a small bone folder before working them over with heated brass tools. I use cook plates for heating the tools, a bowl with a wet sponge to cool them again (they should just stop hissing before putting them to the leather) and a cloth to re-moisten the leather as needed (that’s why some of the pictures the leather looks darker and a bit mottled in some areas). I also filled the inside of the box with clean paper and board cut offs in order to have a sturdy surface to apply pressure too.

My first approach was a round tipped tool, which dragged too much on the leather for my taste though, so I switched to the small line tool which worked much better. I still had a part

Once the outlines were done I stamped the letters with different sizes of flat tipped dot tools. The look is a bit patchy, but I do like the slight gloss a lot and I think it fits the content.

I was not sure how to fill the letters or if I wanted to fill them at all. The outlines alone were not well enough to see though. At some point In considered leather onlays. Naturally I did not have a nice honey yellow leather...  only this rather sulfurous yellow, which I did not like.

Another idea was to go for blue instead, but this was not my first choice either.

[steorransaluki]

lil wip that will be available in a new thing I'm gonna try offering 👀 but how should I paint it?

[sosnastudios]

it’s a tooling day

[armory-rasa]

Much easier than expected! I tried it two different ways, once where I carved all the leaf detail with the swivel knife first, and once where I just stamped it -- and seeing as they came out nearly indistinguishable, and one was a lot less work, I'll be going with the latter.

So, trace your leaves with the stylus, and carve the longer lines with your swivel knife:

Take the A99 Craftool stamp (or something similar) and tap lightly with the pointy end into all the crenellations in the leaves:

(You have to angle the stamp very sharply towards you in order to make the gradient fade out, instead of making a clear outline of the whole teardrop shape.)

Use a narrow beveler and finish outlining the points on the leaf:

Give the leaf some depth with a smooth pear shader:

(I'm not great at using the pear shader, but fortunately it's a pretty forgiving stamp.)

Lastly, add some decorative cuts with your swivel knife. (And you do have to do this last, otherwise the pear shader smushes them.)

le voila! spiky leaves.

[brandnewcountrystar]

I've been learning leathercraft so I made my husband a car holder! I'm still pretty new to the whole thing, but I'm pleased with how this turned out

[newvegasorbust]

Making a leather bracer featuring an image from the Cornaro Chapel in Italy.

[memetrash-coyote]

Finally finished a personal project I started at the beginning of the year! It was a fun challenge. I don't normally do tooling, but I'm very pleased with it. The piece feels very Zora, and that's the point.

[trai-all]

Making a last minute Christmas gift - a hand tooled, painted & stained coaster set. I’ll finish the wallet (it’s the largest thing with four painted tips) that holds them tomorrow & try to remember to take a pic of the finished set in the wallet. Having fun with it so far.

(The first pic above contains a pic of an old coaster set that I made with the wallet folded around it.)