Getting back into leatherwork

Well this had been a long time on the cards, I've finally bit the bullet and decided to get back involved with leather working.

It is something i dabbled with many moons ago and enjoyed it a lot but life caused the leather working projects to be put on a sideline.

Digging out the leather working tools

One of the hardest things to do was to remember where i left all of the tools i had bough originally to do the projects. Just to find those bits has taken nearly two weeks of rummaging around to find the odd bit here and there.

I'd bought one of those cheap sets a long time ago that was meant to have everything in you needed to give it a go and like many things, a cheap leather working starter kit turned out to be a false economy.

I had to quite quickly replace a lot of tools with more expensive ones as they just weren't fit for use or broke quite quickly.

If its something your interested in trying it could be cheaper to do a bit of research and see what you need and spending a little more cash to get the better bits.

Making a stitching pony for leather working

One thing i found quite tough previously was to stitch leather together without having a means to hold it in place. I had a look online and these can be bought cheap but after a quick look around i found enough bits to make my own and the money saved could be put towards getting some decent veg tanned leather.

making a leather working stitching pony

An off cut of leather trimmed square to cover the ends of the stitching pony to protect the work piece.

One side stapled on ready to be stretched in to place.

making a stitching pony from scrap

Then the other side was stapled in to place.

leather working stitching pony part

This should work well to protect the bits i'm working on while stitching, its basically just 3 bits of wood and a couple of clamps.

A base board i can clamp to a table with one of these covered boards screwed into it, then another can be clamped to it holding the work piece between.

leather working stitching test

A quick test to dust off the cobwebs and its working great much easier and quicker when stitching with a leather working pony. ill probably end up making a bigger one if i start working on bigger pieces but for now this is fab.

Tell you what those skill fade has hit hard and i'm going to have to do a fair bit of work to get back to what i feel is an acceptable standard 😂 The first attempt had some interesting wavy lines. But then who ever said leather working is easy..

On a side note i've got a couple of templates cut out ready for the first project and with a 4 day weekend coming up i'm excited to share them with you soon!!!

Well that's it for this post!

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