Leather working Apprenticeship

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