Leather working Apprenticeship

Hey KR,

As the title says, I am now officially a leather shop apprentice- got back from my first day with a new deerskin pouch I made for myself that I will undoubtedly be using at KR; it looks and feels so cool. That being said, they are teaching me how to make everything from sheep skin coats to leather worked book covers. So if anyone has any requests for personal items I can get the guys in the shop to teach me how to make it. Send me a pm if you are interested.

Two things people would probably want (Not me personally, as I have them already, but you might make some money selling):

* Leather three-ring binders, for holding rules & spellbooks.  Bonus if you can tool them to have cool images / text on the cover.

* Spell Packet Pouches - something that a caster can store a handful of spell packets in, and can also get them out of quickly w/o fumbling with a latch or opening in the middle of combat.

While elaborate tooling may be outside my scope of ability atm, if anyone has any really elaborate orders and would be serious about getting something, I can pass on your message to the master Leather workers I'm working with- I watched one bang out an amazing civil war sword scabbard in a couple of hours for a client- because sadly, they need the business; starving artists unite!

That being said, things like spell packet pouches, I can do that in no time at all, just give me size dimensions or other pertinent details and its as good as done.

My one request is that if you do order something, please be serious about it. If you are concerned about quality, I'll be glad to show you, via photographs, the stuff that we make.

something simple and everyone needs.

Snap closing sword frogs.

Not to steel a quote from 'a chorus line' but....That I can do!

s297.photobucket.com/albums/mm233/mc1csmo/Sword%20Frog/

Sorry to jack the thread Mal

(Oh, and they can easily reverse to lefty, see the 2nd and 4th pic on the top row.)

Its all good. On an artistic note, the tooling on yours is a nice touch. What type of leather did you use?

I'd be happy to talk leather to you anytime. Sounds you are working with pros, likely people with more skill than I, but open door if you ever have questions :)

For the frogs, I used 5-6oz leather, sometimes 4-5oz (here's a link for ya: www.tandyleatherfactory.com/?sectionpath=1&pageid=4656). This is typical topside tooling leather than can be carved into nicely. I use it alot for smaller items or as a cover on top of metal sheet I rivet to thicker stuff, as high as 15oz for armor. I often cut out diagrams to reveal the metal underneath. It works real well as the basis for the sword frogs. A little bit flexible but the strapping and other layers help with rigidity due to the layout.

I've numerous patterns that I can apply to the surface leather and cut out, then tool on top of them. I like the look of antique brown and brass for my own stuff.

Best,

MC

The frogs look really cool, I must say.  My only concern would be the possibility of the brass peices damaging the latex coating of a sword as it is moved in and out of the sheath, and that possibility has always kept me from getting anything of that type.  What have you found in regards to that issue?

The inside of the frog only exposes the top of the flat portion of the rivets, and those are banged well into the leather so that it would be near impossible to scrape or do any damage. Its very smooth on the underside. If its an especially poor rivet job, where its loose and the edge of a cap can come up, I can see that becoming a problem, but that would be a real horror story of a rivet job :)  Otherwise it will slide in with no issues. I made the snaps one shown in my photobucket last month and wore it to a practice with some old larp buddies (who game in New England) and used my latex sword. It was absotely fine. There's always the possibility of a rivet popping down the road, but I rivet them in pretty well, and a sword frog isn't going to stress the rivets like it might on armor joint for example. Two very different scenarios.

Now for anyone who's especially interested in a frog and really worried about this happening, I could always line the interior with a smooth ultra-thin layer of leather, and sew it/cement it on. The liner would eliminate the problem altogether but it would also increase the cost :) I don't think its worth doing that but I can also see having the piece of mind and not worrying about doing damage to an expensive latex weapon.

I'll be at the July event on Saturday and I plan to NPC mostly, but will at some point wear my warbelt with the snaps frog added. I'll be happy to show it to anyone who wants to inspect it.

I can also send a close-up pic of the smooth side of the frog if anyone wishes. Now I feel I've hijacked Mal's thread enough (sorry!) so if anyone has any more questions, please PM or email me. lol

Cheers,

MC