Leather Dice Cup

Dice Cup

Leaving Tandy Leather factory I wanted to leave something behind. We had a leather cup for pens at one till and I thought it would be nice to create a second one. I'd been meaning to for some time. I started with the Tandy "Spring Flowers 2" Craftaid and an alphabet stamp set. I wanted to use the Tiger Lily but I mixed it up a bit.

 

www.TandyLeather.com

 

We have something of a little secret code between employees. It's just notation for who has completed certain tasks so we know what is ready for shipping. Hidden in these cryptic letters is simply everyone's initials that I worked with during the week. Sorry weekend crew, ran out of room! I wanted to give the tiger lily's a three dimensional effect and sink them into the leather. The leather is a soft 9oz vegetable tanned leather.

 

 

The coloring is my favorite part. It's the icing on the cake and as you work, the project suddenly pops and becomes real and complete and you can see if your ideas worked for sure. I planned this in three layers of color, a brown background and then progressive layers of tan on top. You can see the background done below. It makes the most dramatic change and there is a temptation to stop at this point. Sometimes you should but I think for this project, the final works.

 

 

Here is the second coat, tan on the flower. Unfortunately this diminishes the distinct layers. Using different colors would have made it pop more, but I wanted it to still look like leather. This is the risk every artists takes; Stop now and be satisfied or push ahead and try make something even better at the risk of destroying what you had.

 

 

Here is the third layer, which was tan colored Antique gel rubbed on the surface. It's what makes the letters really stand out. The difference in layers is much less distinct but it looks much more like leatherwork this way. Also it's wet so all the colors are a little darker.

 

 

Finally we have the assembled cup. I used a black edge cote around all the edges to give it a slightly more professional look than a raw edge. It's stitched together with leather lace. It's a really simple stitch. I've learned more advanced ones since but this will do for the project.

www.Charke.ca
 

Crocodile Print Bracers

Crocodile Print Bracers

by Mark Charke

 

www.Charke.ca

 

You can't get crocodile in Canada. Well, maybe you can, but I haven't seen it and it would probably cost a fortune. The crocodile you see is all cowhide. Take a good look at Rumpelstiltskin in Once Upon A Time. He's wearing some wonderful cowhide croc print. The trouble is that the stuff is all soft and dyed. So when Tandy got a hard, undyed vegetable-tanned croc-print in with a very deep embossing, well, it needed a project.

 

 Tandy Croc-Print (picture is linked)

 

Now, the Tandy stuff is really nice and it's about 4oz thick but appears thicker because of the embossing, but it's still not that stiff, especially if you want to use it for armor. I decided on a second layer of 9oz vegetable tanned leather. It keeps it from being too heavy but gives it enough weight to provide some real protection. In the first three models I did not harden the leather. If someone wants something more combat oriented, I could switch to Soul Bend, at 16oz and wax and/or water harden it into something with the best protective properties.

 

 Layers drying

 

Laminating layers of leather together has wonderful side effects. First, it holds it shape because of the mechanics of gluing something inside something else. (There probably a wonderful physics term for this.) This same properly makes the leather much more rigid, combined with the fact that you've got two layers of material now, running around 12oz. Also, I propose that it's harder to get, say a knife, to stab through multiple layers as they pull apart in gaps which allow the previous layer to resist the penetrating blade. Most leather armor is layered and I'm betting this is part of the reason why. Finally I decided to glue in a deerskin lining you can see there under the first two layers glued together.

 

 Close up on Coloring

 

For coloration, I've only used Tandy's Tan colored Antique. It turned practically orange on the very light colored vegetable tanned leather and it makes the details just explode. I used quite a bit of antique to get a dark color in all the grooves. Then it's just finished with Atom Wax.

 

 Final Product

 

In finishing the project I hid the rivets under the deerskin, choosing again the 9oz vegi-tan leather for the straps. Some people go with a 4oz or 6oz leather for straps because it lies down nice and flat. I think the straps should be as strong as possible. Now I've never tested the buckle, but it doesn't hold a lot of weight. I've used dozens of them over the years on all kinds of armor and never had one break yet. It has Rapid Rivets but it would be easy enough to switch to Chicago Screws or Copper Rivets for greater strength but again, they don't carry much weight. For the edge I considered edge coat or wax, but decided to go with the more complicated pig skin suede. It has a hidden stitch on the surface and then a visible stitch on the inside. If I were going to produce a lot of these, I'll either want a machine or I'd use a single visible stitch. It doesn't change the durability but each stitch adds another hour to craft time and that has to translate to cost.

 

 

 

Leaf Mask

The Leaf Mask

Finished Leaf Mask

Perhaps my most successful mask, this was created purely on a whim.

 I sketched it on the back of a 4oz chunk of vegetable tanned leather.

With leather so thin, I was not sure the wet molding would take,

but it did. I later wax hardened it to make it a little stiffer.

The Drawing

The only real requirements in the drawing stage for a mask are size limits;

How far apart are the inside of the eyes?

Do you want to cover the mouth and/or nose?

How high up the forehead and/or around the sides

do you want to go?

Most masks stop before the ears and below the hair line.

Wet Molding

This is easily the best part. While you are always nervous

that you will wreck it at this stage, you get the see the piece 

take shape here. Generally the flat piece looks wrong because

you've made the eyes a little wider than they need to be, and

everything has a little extra on it, which gets used up by the curling

and shaping, and it you've done it right, ends up looking proper

when you are finished.

 

Finished
 

Being done is almost a disappointment. The creative part is done.

This made will fade and darken slightly with time,

which will give it more character, and it should last for

many years, if oiled periodically. No special effort was

made in the dye coloring. The shape of the mask guides

dye application and encourages the dye to build up in

certain areas.