# How to (Poorly) Tool Leather with Floral Designs



## cabomhn (Jul 21, 2017)

In another thread I promised I would post up some pictures that shows the process of doing these carvings/toolings with leather and here are some photos I took a little while ago on a practice piece. The same ideas can be applied to knife sheaths, etc. Full disclaimer, I am not a very good tooler, and there are so many others who are better than I am, but these pics will at least give you a general idea of what goes into it!

Here's the finished product of what we're trying to get to....



 


1. Case the leather. There isn't a picture for this step because it basically entail fill up a pan with water, passing through your piece of leather for about 5-6 seconds completely submerged, then putting it in a plastic bag to seal it and throwing it in the fridge for about 24 hours. The method of "casing" the leather is highly debated and people all have their special methods but the basic idea is that the leather needs to be impregnated with moisture equally to tool proper and get a good burnish. You can technically just mist the surface and "tool" it, but the impressions won't last and you won't get that really dark burnish from the tool marks like you would if you properly cased the leather. As far as leather thickness goes, thick leather tools better, since you have a thicker piece allowing more depth to your final design. This piece was 9 oz leather for reference. Leather in the US is measured in "ounces", and like every other measurement we use doesn't make a lot of sense. Many leatherworkers just refer to thickness in mm just for ease of conversation with leatherworking counterparts in other countries around the world. 

2. In this picture a couple things have happened. The first thing that needs done is to transfer the pattern to the leather. I just print out my pattern on regular printer paper and tape it to the edge of the leather and use a modeling stylus to "draw" over the leather to leave impressions for your cut marks. You can see these in the image by the softer impressions. Then, after doing that for the entire pattern, you then want to use a swivel knife to go through and cut out your design. These are the darker lines in the image. The depth of your tooling is controlled by the depth of your swivel knife cuts so this step is the starting point for the rest of your piece. 


 

3. More swivel cutting, here with the leaves cut out as well. Getting around these smaller curves requires patience and a sharp knife. You'll need to strop the knife every minute or so to keep it gliding along. A well polished tool in leatherworking is critical for most everything, because as your knife or tool loses its polish the tool "catches" on the leather and starts leaving cuts that are not smooth. You can see my knife cutting is not very good, as I have to stop the motion during my cuts to stay on track. Pros can whip through these cuts like a ninja who just drank a quad shot of espresso, I definitely envy them!


 

4. Once the swivel knife cuts were finish I went ahead and started tooling. I always start with your most prominent pieces first, that way when you are doing your beveling, you don't mar the prominent designs when working on the finer details in the background areas. The shape of the flowers is set by using a small and smooth beveler. Then, I go in on all the petals and use a teardrop beveler to make the indentations. You can see how dark the leather gets at the ends, which is a sign your leather has been cased properly, and is sometimes known as burnishing when tooling. Then, I go back to the center and use a flower center stamp to make the center design, then a camoflauge tool to add the fine lines near the center.


 

5. Here's another shot after adding in the tooling for the smaller leaves. Here the first two steps are the same as the flowers, beveling and then teardrop shaping. Then, I use a small veiner tool to stamp in the squiggly lines you see in the leaves. 


 

6. Here, I have used some larger bevelers to go and bevel out the exterior trim of the pattern. You can see my inexperience here by seeing how the bevels have ridge marks. This is from inconsistent stamping accuracy and force, as well as different angles. Takes a lot of practice to get a buttery smooth bevel. 


 

7. Now, a LOT more beveling. I had to go into all the small little details and bevel out the lines. Here, you have to really pay attention to what is the design and what is background so you don't bevel the lines backwards. If you do the design won't have any definition and will look really bad. 


 

8. At this point, I've started stamp out the background using a backgrounding tool (original name, I know, lol). This is super tedious but as you can see, it really transforms it from a ton of jumbled lines into a real design. 


 

9. Phew, all the backgrounding complete. This step alone takes about 1.5-2 hours for me.


 

10. After step 9, I apply a generous coat of neatsfoot oil and let it dry for 24+ hours to make sure the moisture is gone. You need it to be really dry and the leather back to its natural color before backgrounding dying.


 


To be continued in the next post...

Reactions: Way Cool 6


----------



## cabomhn (Jul 21, 2017)

11. Here comes the most tedious step of the whole process (if you chose to do it). Here, I take fiebings pro oil dye and manually paint the background with it. I don't think I need to explain what makes this tedious! lol. Since the leather is really dry, it likes to suck up the moisture. If you didn't bevel properly there won't be steep enough of an edge and your dye will soak up into your design. This definitely happened some areas in this but that's just me being nit picky. Additionally, you can see I've gone in and done some shading and accents all accross the piece here. These little accents really help with bring the piece to life and are done with accent cuts with a swivel knife as well as a couple other small tools like the teardrop bevelers. 


 


12. And here's the finished piece again. Here is where I really tripped at the finish line with this piece. I was trying to do a resist finish where you essentially apply several coats of Eco Flo Super shene finish, then, go back and hit it with an antique gel paste to darken the lower areas and then with the resist finish, the paste will wipe off all of the high areas leaving a really nice contrast. What happened here is I rushed the super shene finish and didn't let it set up long enough so when I applied the antique, the whole thing pretty much went super dark, which sucks because I like the piece a lot up until this point. Anyways, I hope you guys found this interesting and it could at least unveil a little of the mystery behind leather tooling/carving!

Reactions: Way Cool 13


----------



## woodtickgreg (Jul 21, 2017)

Dude! That's awesome, thanks for sharing that, very cool

Reactions: Thank You! 1 | Agree 1


----------



## cabomhn (Jul 21, 2017)

woodtickgreg said:


> Dude! That's awesome, thanks for sharing that, very cool



Thank you! Tooling is definitely a challenge, especially for me since western style stuff isn't my main work.


----------



## Wilson's Woodworking (Jul 21, 2017)

Nice job on the tooling. I have done some leather tooling and you have some major time invested in these.
I like the dark finish myself. sure wouldn't scrap it.

Reactions: Thank You! 1


----------



## Tony (Jul 21, 2017)

Very cool Matt, thanks for posting! Tony

Reactions: Thank You! 1


----------



## cabomhn (Jul 21, 2017)

Wilson's Woodworking said:


> Nice job on the tooling. I have done some leather tooling and you have some major time invested in these.
> I like the dark finish myself. sure wouldn't scrap it.



Thank you! I would say this was probably like 5 hours total or so, probably in a 2 or 3 different sittings. In the end I really wasn't super pleased with it so I tossed it after a month or so, since it was just practice after all! 

So far, this little sheath for my round knife is the only tooling I've done that went anywhere but the trash

Reactions: Way Cool 8


----------



## ripjack13 (Jul 21, 2017)

Very cool....what do these tools look like?

Reactions: Thank You! 1


----------



## woodman6415 (Jul 21, 2017)

Very cool .. thanks for posting the process ... always been curious about tooling leather

Reactions: Thank You! 1


----------



## cabomhn (Jul 21, 2017)

ripjack13 said:


> Very cool....what do these tools look like?



That would have been good to include, wouldn't it? 

I'll snap some pics later tonight and post back here

Reactions: Thank You! 1


----------



## gman2431 (Jul 21, 2017)

Yea... I wouldnt be throwing no more away dude! 

Impressive to say the least for just starting out!

Reactions: Agree 2


----------



## DKMD (Jul 21, 2017)

Awesome work, Matt! In your wood and leather work, your attention to fine detail is really inspiring.

Reactions: Agree 2


----------



## cabomhn (Jul 21, 2017)

DKMD said:


> Awesome work, Matt! In your wood and leather work, your attention to fine detail is really inspiring.



Thanks a lot! 

I guess attention to detail is a good and a bad thing. It helps me get better at my work but also causes me to throw away half the stuff I make because I'm not happy with it!

Reactions: Like 2


----------



## NYWoodturner (Jul 21, 2017)

Matt - That was a fantastic tutorial. You make it look easy enough that I may try it on a sheath or two.

Reactions: Thank You! 1


----------



## cabomhn (Jul 21, 2017)

NYWoodturner said:


> Matt - That was a fantastic tutorial. You make it look easy enough that I may try it on a sheath or two.



When the time comes I'd be happy to mail you a set of tools and leather that you'd need to give it a try without having to invest anything in trying!

Reactions: +Karma 2


----------



## NYWoodturner (Jul 21, 2017)

cabomhn said:


> When the time comes I'd be happy to mail you a set of tools and leather that you'd need to give it a try without having to invest anything in trying!


Thats a very generous offer Matt. Thank You! I already have a decent leather stockpile and I have 8 or 10 punches that I got a great deal on from an old knife maker who was calling it quits... I just never knew the best way to apply them. Your tutorial cleared a lot of that up by explaining the casing process. When I get some time I'll send you pics of what punches I have and let you give me some advice from you on what I need to have a basic functional set.

Reactions: Like 4


----------

