Woodcraft Tanto Kit

[BrokenolMarine]

Okay, out in the shop this morning for the waxing and buffing. I love this part... it's the final step, and I LOVE the smell of this British Beeswax.
Unlike many of the products I use in the shop, this stuff smells great, even Miss T likes it. It's not like the quizzes our teachers passed out in middle and high school with the purple ink fresh off the memograph machine where everyone in the class immediately huffed the smell of the ink... and got a quick spin around the classroom. (Think Fast Times at Ridgemont High) Anyone else remember this? Anyone?

23 the beeswax.jpg

I got the cleanup done first, then got the first coat rubbed on both knives and let it dry to a haze. Buffed it off with a cloth and put on a second coat. I piddled around the shop, picking up and putting away other items and touching up things waiting for the next coat to dry, and setting up the grinder. It has a WAX ONLY stitched buffing wheel, used only to buff out waxed finishes. I love waxing these things. A couple coats gives you a soft sheen.

24 waxing both.jpg

Build up five or six coats, and really buff them up and you can work up a high gloss. The best part of the Watco Oil and Wax Finish... ?
If you get a ding, or a scuff, rub the spot with oil, let it dry. Wax it, and buff it out and your ding is blended back in.
Finish gets dull, wax and buff and you are back where you were.

The Tanto is done, hardware in place. I can braid in a lanyard later.

25 tanto done.jpg

Kitchen Knife done as well. Ready to go back in it's rack. Curly Cherry Scales showing their beauty.

26 kitchen knife done.jpg

I will knock out sheaths for the knives when I finish the other two that are up next. I will start a different thread for those, and a different thread for the leather work, IF anyone is interested. Hope you enjoyed the ride.

[MuddyWaters62]

Please DO NOT leave us hanging! Just love your work.

Muddy Waters 67

[CT_Shooter]

I will knock out sheaths for the knives when I finish the other two that are up next. I will start a different thread for those, and a different thread for the leather work, IF anyone is interested. Hope you enjoyed the ride.

Those knives are simply beautiful!

Your workshop threads are at the top of my forum favorites, Marine. Thanks for taking the time to share your work with us.

[markiver54]

Yet another example of beautiful, professional work by our friend BOM!

[daytime dave]

Beautiful work!

[JEBar]

nicely done indeed .... instant family heirlooms

[BrokenolMarine]

I am setting up the leather working bench now. I ordered the head knife from Amazon this morning about 4am, should be here tomorrow. Gonna make a sheath before I start the next two knifes, just a bit of a break on the knife work, to get my hand back in playing at the leather work. More sitting, less standing. LOL.

[BrokenolMarine]

STARTING ON THE LEATHER STATION!

First I cleared one of my Home Depot Tables, I'll use this as my leather station. The two drawers will store most of the tools. The knife kits and blanks, and the sanding belts WERE stored in the drawers, but I moved them for now. I have ordered a 4' table for the grinder, sander and those two drawers will hold the belts and knife related kits. Will be the dedicated knife working table.

I started by putting all the tools that would fit in the drawer, in the top drawer.

01 tools drawer.jpg

In the bottom drawer I put some stuff like the backlit tracing pad and a few other things. My dyes and other related things, such as lacing, waxes, and other chemicals went into a tote to be stored on the shelf for now.

02 dyes and such.jpg

This is my lacing pony. They are VERY handy. It's not an original design, although I made a couple improvements of MY design. I added a magnet to either side so that when I need to release the needles to reposition my work, I just place the two needles on the magnets. This makes life SO much easier. I padded my jaws with leather for a non marring tight grip, and I didn't have a knob, so I made a t-knob from maple, by shaping it and gluing in a nut.

03 lacing pony.jpg

It rotates on the base, which slips under my thighs wherever I decide to sit to do my lacing/sewing. I doubt I'll ever buy a leather capable sewing machine. Miss T has one, but I dare not get near it. It was $7,000 and does more things than I can count. This, of course, is just a start. I have a lot of things in mind, including making tool stands and WAY more organizing.

Stick with me. Now I need to practice, since I haven't been working with leather for more than a year.

[BrokenolMarine]

Using a scrap piece of leather, I'll start by cutting a lacing or stitch groove with a groover. It rides along the edge of the leather and makes a groove in the piece so the stitches are below the leather surface and protected. It's pleasing to the eye, but keeps wear from damaging the piece. With all measured techniques, the most important factor is constant contact in two points. The work surface (table, cutting board, etc.) and the leather's edge. Like woodworking, shooting, reloading.... speed is not always good. Slow and steady yields the best result.

04 stitch groove.jpg

Now I try to stamp a Running W border. This is also called a Carlos and is a favorite of Saddlemakers for Skirting and Stirrup Trim. First step is to measure a reference line off the Stitching groove. I come out 1/8 inch. then a second line about 3/8 from that. Using the calipers, I mark both those lines, following the two contact rule above.

04 calipers.jpg

We begin to tool the leather by "Casing" or wetting the leather with the spritz from the spray bottle. Not wet enough, you don't get a good impression. Too wet, the leather is mush. You dampen the leather and begin to work just as it starts to turn light again. You can spritz again anytime needed during the tooling.

We start the Running W using a stamp and placing the base along the line. Always careful to watch the spacing. The base of the next stamp should be almost touching the previous stamp. If there is a curve in the line, you need to be mindful of the outside curve. You want a bit more space or the inside curve stamps will end up crowded. This is why we practice, to get the feel for the spacing on the curves.

06 punch for running w.jpg

Once the first side is done, we spin 'er and start the second side. Here we have to watch two points. We want the base square with the reference, and we want the point centered between the opposing side points. Especially critical inside curves. Carefully place, check, stamp. Repeat.

07 runner pt 2.jpg

Here is the practice piece for the sheath. The running W came out okay, not great. The carving beside it is far from my best, but for not carving in over a year...

More practice.

[BrokenolMarine]

Out the next day, after Miss T picked up a cedar 4x4 at home despot while visiting the Garden Center for landscaping for the farmhouse. Thanks Miss T.
I had been planning the tool caddy for some time, so I knew what I wanted to do. I pulled the tools bound for the caddy from the drawer, and figured the number and sizes of the holes I needed then marked them lightly in pencil. I wanted them spaced generously, as crowding makes it very hard to locate the tool you want. The tips all begin to look the same. Once they were ready, I went to the drill press, and the forstner bits.

10 measured and marked.jpg

I drilled each group with the appropriate size. 1/4, 3/8, 1/2, and 1-14 for the rawhide mallet. That is the only one that goes all the way thru.

11 first group done.jpg

After about two hours, I had drilled the initial passes on the drill press, then deepened the straight holes from the press with a hand drill. The tool bar and the bases were cut and ready, lightly sanded.

12 tool bar and bases cut.jpg

[BrokenolMarine]

I moved to the bench and put the bases in place.

13 bases in place.jpg

With the tool bar in place, the tools are very well organized. It allows you to group the punches by type. Bevels, shaders, and specialty.
You can also group the types in size order. Putting these tools on the tool bar makes them so much easier to locate.

14 organized.jpg

In addition, it freed up a lot of space in the drawer, and allowed much better organization of the drawer, organization there by tool type as well. Swivel knives, measuring tools, etc.

15 drawer is more organized as well.jpg

Next trip out I will make some accommodation for the stack of reference materials, and do a bit more practice. I have watched hours of tooling and carving videos and need to put that to use and get some time in so I can get a sheath made. Then back to knife making... and more sheaths.

[markiver54]

Looking great! Nice organized set up.

[BrokenolMarine]

Back out to the shop this afternoon for some practice.  Whew... after the research I did on you tube I was looking forward to the work.  I found a pattern to work with and got the leather ready and transferred it.  Will use a pencil rather than the stylus.  Cleaner lines.

21 transfered.jpg

Once that was done, I could use the swivel knife to begin cutting in the lines.  You choose the swivel knife blade that you need for the task at hand. With a bold blade you cut in the main, outlines.

22 cutting in.jpg

Next step is choosing a bit finer blade and cutting in the tighter curves and the finer lines until the design is all lined in.  The next time through, I will cut in, in fact, TRANSFER only the main lines of the design... leaving the pattern less cluttered.  Keeping the pattern on the desk I can cut in the accent lines after the rest of the tasks are done, making working the design a lot easier.

23 cut in.jpg

The next step is working the edges with the beveler.  As you can see in the pic, this begins the process of turning a flat design into something 3D.  Once you have worked the edges with the beveler, you can work the vines and stems inside the design.  The beveler is used to bring depth to the design by showing which level each component is on.

24 beveling.jpg

After working the beveling tool, you would work the shading and backgrounding tools, as well as the pear shaders and others to bring the design to life with shadows and accents.  I am embarrassed to say that I forgot to take pictures of the finished work prior to screwing it up trying to dye it.  It looks like my six year old niece tried to color it prior to her nap when she was tired and grumpy.

Understand I am showing you this part, not because "hooray for me," but because it's only practice... and you have to fail, to learn. 
THIS is called a learning experience.  

25 not happy.jpg

One of my Sergeant's Major used to say, "I judge a man not by the way he wins, but by the way he handles losing."
Usually after someone screwed up.  :winkgrin:

Look Sergeant Major, I'm going back out tomorrow and make another mess. 

[BrokenolMarine]

Seriously, it's practice and I learned several lessons from that piece.
Use a pencil to get crisp lines to cut in the design.
Cut the major lines in
Leave the accent lines til last.
My bevel lines need to be smoother.
The choppiness can be eliminated in several ways,
(I watched more video to discover them.) I will try them tomorrow.
Take more pics to show the work, some might want to see how you screwed it up so bad.

[BrokenolMarine]

Back out in the shop yesterday. Tried to get some practice in. I watched MORE videos and tried to apply what I had learned. Sigh.... it went better than the last time, but still not there.

First step, transfer the pattern. This time I DID use a sharpened pencil. That worked better.

31 pattern.jpg

Once you have the pattern, you choose the appropriate swivel knife, and start cutting in the lines to define the pattern. This is the starting point and is the second most time consuming portion of the work. You have to work slowly and take your time. Minor mistakes can be corrected. A major slip and you have a slice across your leather, ruining all the work to this point. That piece of your project has to be recut. Really sucks if it's a high dollar piece of leather or a large section.

I have several knives here with different size blades, various thickness and widths appropriate for different sections of the carving. The blades are interchangeable. As I came across sales, I added extra knives to avoid swapping blades.

32 swivel knives.jpg

Here you can see the comparison in the portion of the pattern that has been cut and that portion that has not. Also note the finer detail in the center of the rose that was cut with the finer, smaller blade in a different knife. Trying to cut that with the thicker bold blade would have lost the detail. (I still botched the detail a bit, arthritis. A little slower and I may have made those tight turns. Practice.)

33 began cutting in.jpg

In this pic the cutting in has been done, ready to get started on the detail work.

34 all cut in.jpg

In the pic below, the real detail work has begun. Look at the top flower where some of the beveling, shading, and detail work has been done. You can see the definition starting to take place. I have not yet gotten this down, but you get the idea. The beveling on the lower portion of the pattern is mostly complete.

35 shaping and carving.jpg

Here, I have done a lot of the detail work and this includes a new technique for me. Outlining the edge of the leaves. It worked well on some, on others I didn't tilt the tool enough and over shaded the leaves, ruining the effect. Meh... practice. I might buy an extra one of these tools and grind the texture off the bottom so it's smooth. OR just make one from an old screwdriver. There is another tool I saw in a video that's $15 that I will attempt to make, it's basically a screwdriver with a bevel cut and polished on the end. LOL. I still have work to do to "Finish" the piece if I was to decide to do so. I might decide to just toss this piece and start over on another practice piece, concentrating more on the relationships of each element of the flower and the other portions of the pattern.

36 better but not great.jpg

Again, I wasn't really happy with the outcome, especially compared to the results I see on the videos. Then I remember that I am basically starting over. I remember how happy I was with MY woodworking, then I'd come onto the woodworking sites and see the other's work and think how poorly I compared. These days I have another fifteen or twenty years in... and I am very happy with much of what I do, but I can still log on and see the results of some of the other's work and think... Wow.... I'll never get there.

[BrokenolMarine]

The more I look at it, the less I like it.
I'm thinking oak and acorns or something.

[BrokenolMarine]

Had to drive to OKC this morning for a VA appointment. The Tandy Leather shop is about ten miles from the hospital. Since it's a two hour drive, I took advantage of being in town and got there early enough to swing by. I picked up a yard of heavy leather for the real projects once practice is over. Three reference books with how to and patterns. I also picked up a background tool and a lifting tool (carving) I needed.

A note for anyone wanting to try the knife project... Woodcraft will have three kits on sale for April. The Tanto is 50% off starting 4/1. I'm going to order at least one of each.

[BrokenolMarine]

I got out in the shop yesterday and worked a bit on a practice piece, and then back out for a little this morning and worked a bit more, including antiquing the piece to highlight the work I had done. I am a lot happier with the work compared to the stuff I had been hacking at when I restarted, but NOT happy yet. Here is a look at the finished small practice carved piece.

41 another piece.jpg

Then this is the piece after the antiquing paste has been applied and then rubbed off, leaving the paste in the carving and shading areas. It really brings out the details.

42 stained piece.jpg

I went back out after lunch and started another practice piece, once again taking my time and laying out the best I can. I try each time to eliminate the mistakes I made in the past. THIS time I tried drawing in the design of the flower and the leaves freehand. Not too bad for the first attempt. FAR from perfect. As you can see, I have the border cut in and worked, the flower worked, and ONE side of the leaves worked. NOT finished yet. Still more accents to be done and one side of the leaves need done.

43 in progress practice.jpg

Practice. I'll probably practice in the morning on the leather, then may start work on the two knives. I still plan to order knives when they go on sale on April 1st.

[JEBar]

its clear you have a talent for leather working .... thanks for showing us the process you are going through

[BrokenolMarine]

Yeah, I didn't show you the four pieces I tossed.
Two were just disappointing, one was downright embarrassing.
The last in the group showed a little promise, but nothing worth wasting the group's time over. I have also been practising the transfer of designs and creation of patterns. That really IS embarrassing.