Restoration Progress even Further

The coloring of the figure is done and the picture looks close to what it was when I finished it twenty years ago. Looking at the original photo shows that it must have been close to the same hue of brown that I used then as well.

On the next photo the background has also been given a light coat of tan to cover the white scars left by the thinners when I removed the Neatlac layers that covered the original.

The next step is rubbing on Dubbin to seal and waterproof the leather and help preserve it. You can see the rich lustre it gives to the leather and the spirit based dyes.

Restoration Progress

Slowly but surely the former image is emerging from the faded leather.

Restoration

This was the original work a few years after I finished it in 1982 - it is about fifty inches high and forty inches wide. Done on veg-tan African Buffalo leather - the hide was a gift from a friend and I had it tanned at a tannery near Johannesburg.

The artwork is a copy of a drawing by Hogarth, one of the original Tarzan artists - it is from his book "Dynamic Light and Shade."

This wall hanging has traveled extensively with me and when the glue-gun glue finally came off the back and let go of the leather frame, I decided it was also time to get the whole thing restored.

So I attacked it with thinners and a hefty scrubbing brush to get the four layers of Neat-Lac off - the dye had faded badly as you can see on the next photo.

With the leather clean again, I am now busy dyeing the figure first as close as I can to the original. On this second photo you can see the small piece that has been done so far. I am very pleased with the results.

From my Archive, a Cleaner

Found this in 'Henley's Twentieth Century Formulas, Recipes and Processes (1926):

CLEANING SKINS AND LEATHER:
To Clean Colored Leather. — Pour carbon bisulphide on non-vulcanized gutta-percha, and allow it to stand about 24 hours. After shaking actively add more gutta-percha gradually until the solution becomes of gelatinous consistency.

This mixture is applied in suitable quantity to oil-stained, colored leather and allowed to dry two or three hours. The subsequent operation consists merely in removing the coat of gutta-percha from the surface of the leather—that is, rubbing it with the fingers, and rolling it off the surface.

The color is not injured in the least by the sulphuret of carbon; only those leathers on which a dressing containing starch has been used look a little lighter in color, but the better class of leathers are not so dressed. The dry gutta-percha can be redissolved in sulphuret of carbon and used over again.

You can read more about gutta-percha at http://collections.ic.gc.ca/cable/gutta.htm

A Glue from my Archive

Found this in 'Henley's Twentieth Century Formulas, Recipes and Processes (1926):

Glue for Leather or Cardboard.—To attach leather to cardboard dissolve good glue (softened by swelling in water) with a little turpentine and enough water in an ordinary glue pot, and then having made a thick paste with starch in the proportin of 2 parts by weight, of starch powder for every 1 part, by weight, of dry glue, mix the compounds and allow the mixture to become cold before application to the cardboard.

A Very Unique Coin Purse

The Front of the coin purse.

This very special hard leather coin purse was shown to me by someone who had bought it in Germany. It is a Paulette Rollo Coin Purse


Its construction was a point of interest. It was made of two shaped halves of leather that was glued together, but there is no visible glue to be seen. The outside is so perfect, that we gathered it was molded inside a mold, maybe while it was filled with a hard wax, which could have been melted out of the inside.

However it was made, it is perfect - when it is closed, it is a very smooth hard nicely shaped heart.


The back of the purse - the quarter is there to show size. the feint line you see on this side is the seam where the purse opens. The sewn on strap acts as the hinge.


Here you see the 'lid' open - it is a perfect fit, obviously cut after the purse was shaped.


Here you can see the remarkable part of this unique piece - the seam where the top and bottom halves were joined - there is no sign of glue at all - the only thing you can see is clear on this photo: the seam was trimmed after it was glued.


See the very smooth inside of the purse - almost waxy. It made me think that it was probably formed around hard wax, which would then have been melted out. There is NO sign of any glue to be seen on the inside of the seam.

True Artistry

These amazing two knife sheaths were created by J Drewes, a knife maker from Minnesota and I had the priviledge to have both in my hand. The photos do no justice to this amazingly artistic work - it is not often that it is so pleasantly visible that a lot of thought and care had gone into the creation of a leather article.

The fins and Frog feet are thinned and sculpted to look very real and yet the leather looks very strong and durable indeed - here is indeed a leather artist who enjoys what he is doing....

A Face in Clay

Some explaining tex to follow...

Life casting

Leather Ralated? Yes, this is the first part that comes before the mask making you can also see on this blog - just about a month or two ago.

I attended the first of three classes by Alex Ortega in the making of your own mold on which to make a leather Commedia Del'Arte mask. The mold is of your own face! Freaky! But extremely interesting and a huge lot of fun!



The first part is to make a cardboard surround for your face so that the dentist's plastic do not drip on everything.



The subject lies ready to face the ordeal...!



The cold stuff hits your face and all goes dark - even through your closed eyelids. Two straws up the nose are your only breathing holes to the outside world and you have to lie with a totally still face for a few minutes while the plastics sets. You can hear all around you, but you cannot respond.

Alex was very good with a pre-arranged signal that would have the goo off your face in seconds if you felt uncomfortable!



While you lie there, motionless, a layer of plaster is applied over the dentist's plastic to support it - although it picks up the minutest detail of your skin, the plastic is not very tear resistant and is almost like very stif jello. From the time the first plastic hits your face to the time you can sit upright again, is probably only about 20 minutes. (The pink stuff smells very pleasantly of cinnamon and is not tooooo uncomfortable on your face.)



The first of the casts comes off and it is a negative copy of your face. This will be used to make a plaster copy of your face. Even the pores on your nose are shown on this material and on the plaster cast made of this.



This is the second casting - plaster into the flimsy pink negative - this will be the first copy of your face.



And this is what the copy of your face looks like!

Soon, more photos of myself suffering this indignancy and what my own mold looks like!

Lazy Dots

My son has to have belt for the Renaisance Fair - so I had to make one, not too fancy, so I decided on small gold dots.

This as achieved by simply doing the dots with a big round seeder, and then gilding them with Plaid Gold Leaf - quick and dirty....!

Here is some detail:

Braiding at the Lake

With the brief summers we get in Minnesota, it is almost a sin to sit inside, tied to the braiding hook on your workbench, so I decided to come up with a mobile braiding station - this also allows me to work anywhere in the house and at demo's.



First, of course, my disclaimer: I am not a perfectionist and I am not a woodworker. My only aim in building this contraption was functionality, I was not about to invest a lot of effort in a prototype that might not even work.



The upright is hinged on the floorboard so that the whole thing can collapse when the two diagonals are disengaged at the top.



The two diagonals are fixed to the floorboards with 'studs' that screw into the wood and then have a protruding bolt. The diagonals can move freely on these bolts so that they can fold down and lie flat on the floorboard - to enable this, their bottom ends are rounded so as not to get stuck against the floorboard.




At the top the diagonals are fixed to the upright with the same studs, but this time with wingnuts so that they can easily be detached. At both the bottom and top, they are purposefully not in line so that the studs do not screw into each other in the middle of the upright.




I might still make some modifications to the top of the upright - the 'working end'. The two hooks work fine to hook the braiding on, but to take up the already braided excess, I need a better plan... so look out for an update in a month or two...!




Happy braiding!

Renaissance Fair Hat

With Ouma and the old Singer to help, the hat making project got under way! (They did all the work between them!)


The hat is constructed of a thin cow suede with a cotton lining and some interface - the pattern was a Simplicity one, I think....



The Singer, equipped with a modern leather needle, had no difficulty with three layers of suede plus two of lining, but I had a tough time fitting the hat under the foot of the machine to do the sewing.



So here is the beginning of a very young German Leather Merchant, for the Minnesota Ren Fest - Oh yes, a plume still needs to be acquired...!

Knife Sheath - A Simple One

Now, I have to ask you not to look at the knife itself - it is a third rate actor I got very cheap just to stand in for the real thing - I wanted a cheap one to use for a range of sheaths I want to make and I did not want to worry about an expensive knife as part of the exercise. This one cost me less than a dollar.

This sheath is one of the simplest you can make, with the least amount of tools.


The leather is cut with enough excess to make sure there will be plenty to go round the knife.


The knife is wrapped in cling wrap to make sure it does not rust or put a black metal stain on the leather.



The leather is not stretched over the knife so that there is no tension on the sheath - there is therefor no reason to clamp down the sides of the sheath when it is drying out. After rubbing it into shape with my fingers, I simply let it sit overnight to dry.


When dry, the excess leather is trimmed off, the stitch line is marked and the sheath is stitched. A very dense sponge behind the leather helps to poke the holes with an awl - it supports the leather so that your fingers do not have to be behind the leather and dodge the very sharp awl.


The diamond shaped holes of the stitching awl causes the stitches to lie next to each other and appear very neat.


I was not satisfied with the staining on the edge so I redid it after I had finished the stitching.



Two very simple straps are installed on the back behind the knife handle - this will hold the handle against the leather or the leather against the knife. In this very simple sheath there is no provision for carying the sheath on your belt.


All that remains is a treatment with Dubbin and this sheath is done!

For an Old Car

Every now and then something different comes along - this time I was asked to make straps that would hold down the canopy of an old 1910 car - tension straps to make sure that canopy would be tight.

The request was easy enough, but the catch was that the snaps and buckles had to be sewn onto the straps (straps folded over and hand-sewn).



To meassure them, cut them, round the edges, thin them on the foldovers, stitch them by hand and dye the edges, took nine hours of straight non-stop work.

To make the other few pieces shown below, took another two hours....

Not too bad, except that I had less than 17 hours from the time I received the hardware until the time they had to be delivered - and I wanted to fit a night's sleep and some eating in there as well....

Mask Making Class #2

Last night we concluded the class, but the home work continues....

But let me start where I left off....



Here you can see just how much the leather has to stretch to fit around the mold.

With a lot of tapping and burnishing, allth detail comes to the fore - the mold is rough and full of character and the leather thin enough to shown almost all of it.



After the first mask had dried completely, I took it off and made a second one with a thicker leather. (To get technical: the mask on the left was made with 2-3oz leather and the one on the right with 5-6oz leather.)



With the leather in shape, we trimmed away the excess around the edges and the gathering under the nose, so that a small seam can be made.



It is the wet leather (under the noses) that make it appear so dark.

Next time, coloring the mask ......