Imperial Lace Rocks!

I finished this handle for a modeling tool Jason R made for me a few years ago.

I know this blog is about leather and this lace is not leather, but wow!  this lace blows your mind away - it works like a dream, it lays itself down snug, it comes in a pure white (and three other colors), it is super strong and it is any day as good as kangaroo lace to braid with.

The knot is a six bight knot with a gaucho interweave.

HiFi cover

Early in the 1980's a blind friend asked me to make a cover for her Hifi to protect it from dust.  And here is what I came up with.

The next photo shows details of the design I used.  It has a few interesting facts behind it.

It was the very early days of PC's and the bank where I worked had two Apples to do their graphic work with.  I spent my lunch times playing there and making slides for the IT Director's presentations.  This design was one of the few cliparts that were available (not on the web - this was held on a 100 Kbyte floppy).

I immediately liked the design - Amanda had told me that for her, her whole world were inside her, because she could not see the world around her that we experience as a shell around us.  And see, the design is a globe inside the outlines of a head!

Horse Brasses

Long ago in a land far away, a very British sounding lady asked me to make a strap for her horse brasses (pre Google / internet days).   I had no idea what these should look like and she did not really know either.   So I completely dreamed these up.  But she liked them...!

More detail:

Original Human Figure Project

In October 2005, in this blog, I showed the restoration of the big human figure carving I had done.  (You can see it HERE)   Now I have uncovered the photos showing how I did the project in the first place.   Unfortunately it was before free digital photography, so I only have these few photos.

First is the start of the tooling:

The project was tooled on vegtan Blue Wildebeest leather.

And this was with the figure dyed completely:

...and then mounted and framed with a thin strip of leather - at the time I did not want any framing to take away from the carving itself.

This piece traveled 8,000 miles and underwent a lot of 'abuse', which was why I had to restore it in 2005.  So this again, is what it looked like after the restoration:

 

Menu Covers

I made these in about 1981 for the National Parks Service in Tsitsikama - The flowers are all indigenous to the area.

I later heard that these were stolen a few months after I left the National Park (I had worked there for six months to wait for my final semester at University.)

A few projects from long ago

I unearthed some old photo albums and found these pictures of some of the projects I did about thirty years ago!

This is a hand guard for ten pin bowling.  I think the cutting design was from an old Leathercrafter magazine, but it was my own first rather successfulness attempt at a tooling design.

I was in the Voortrekkers, the South African equivalent of the Scouts, and in 1981 I made these quivers that carried messages all over South Africa to a celebratory conference for the organization's 50th year.

Skull on a Book

I am binding some magazines for the local guild and decided to have fun with the carving of the covers.  the topmost magazine in this volume had a picture of a skull covered in leather so I turned it into a picture that I could carve.

After all the carving was done, I covered the design with two layers of Super Sheen and the back ground with two layers of Block-out.

After it had dried, you cannot see where the Super Sheen and Block-out had been applied.

Then I covered the whole picture with Eco-Flo High-Liter and quickly wiped the excess off with a damp cloth.  Now the difference between the parts resisted with Super Sheen and with Block-out became very prominent.  It turned out exactly as I wanted, so I was well pleased.

I followed the instructions in Tony Lair's book about getting a Sheridan style finish to a carving after being inspired by Mike Pederson.  I will see if I can get a photo of the check book Mike had done in the same way.

A Doodle

I had to teach someone a masterclass in tooling and this was the piece I demonstrated techniques with.  I don't know what to do with it now....

New Hatband done

Here is the completed hatband - now to find a buyer!

A new Hatband!

The Potjie hatband sold - with the hat. Now I have to make a new hatband for the slightly smaller hat I made - for sale!

This is the hatband in progress ... aimed at the biker community.