Leathercraft

Leather! No other raw material comes close to combining the high quality in addition to it's practical usefulness. From the outset of civilization, leather has long been utilized to greatly enhance man's surroundings and to assist him in a number of other ways. Besides it's useful and functional uses, leather is in all likelihood the single most adaptable art & craft mediums ever made. It can also be molded and formed, decorated with tools,, used up and coloured. It can also be made hard and stiff or simply soft and supple. Regardless of a person's passions may well be, there are many artistic techniques to use leather.

Leather is almost completely the by-product of the meat packing industry. The skins used by the tanneries can come, with a several exceptions, belonging to the animals that have been delivered to the meat packaging plants. Some of the skins utilised usually are cow, pig and sheep. Although various sorts of skins can be obtained, these 3 signify the majority of the full leather production in north america.

Leather is usually split into two types: chrome-tanned and vegetable-tanned. Chrome leathers are used for garment, linings, shoe uppers as well as women's and mens accesories, just to name just a few. Vegetable-tanned leathers are used for belting, saddles, harnesses, soles for shoes and sandals, and many other types of purses and totes. Vegetable-tanned leather is the only kind which can be hand tooled or carved.

Carving as well as tooling is perhaps the best known technique of embellishing leather. For many centuries the working of leather previously had also been a closely safeguarded secret within the leather working guilds. Expertise was passed down from father to son and membership within the leather guilds was extremely limited to only a select few. Because of the introduction of Europeans to the New World, bringing along with them their horses and saddles, new horizons had been opened up for the tradesmen of the "old world" as their particular creative skills rapidly turned to the floral patterns that they discovered all around them in place of continuing with all the complicated geometric designs dating back to ancient times.

From this beginning, the leather worker these days can easily make a great number of handy and stunning pieces by way of making use of the patterns and designs utilized by ancient leatherworkers while using the most up-to-date tools and techniques associated with present day artists and craftsmen.

For more on leathercraft materials and supplies, please see our main website Zelikovitz Leathers and Crafts!

Have you ever considered redyeing leather? Do you have a worn or faded couch or jacket? Perhaps a purse that's still in great shape but the color is just not what it used to be. Well, re dyeing may be the solution. Why throw it out when you just may be able to renew it.

Basically, it is a 3 step process.

1. removing the old finish with a deglazer or acetone.
2. Applying the dye
3. Finish with a leather sheen

We have written a complete guide and you can read it
for free. It's located in eBay's reviews and guide section at this link.
How to dye leather guide

Also, here is a link to an article by a customer who used our Zelikovitz brand of water based pigment dye. It did quite an impressive job on his car seats.
http://www.associatedcontent.com/article/331485/leather_dye_a_rewarding_doityourself.html

Leather Craft Secrets
Is a downloadable e-book that shows you Everything You Need To Know About Leathercrafting In One Lazy Afternoon... Even If You're A Complete Beginner!

Loaded with Tips and Tricks and packed with solid information that every leathercrafter can use.

Check out their website right now
Leathercraft Secrets

Making craft lace from scrap pieces of leather is a very simple process. However, you will need a tool called the lace maker. This inexpensive tool, less than $10.00 in our ebay store, allows you to turn a piece of scrap into beautiful lace. And the entire process only takes minutes.

Simply start by cutting a 1.5" hole in the center of the leather piece. The lacemaker can cut 7 different size widths in up to an 8oz. piece of leather.

Select your desired width slot for the thickness of leather being used. To easily start the lacemaker into the cut(especially in soft thin leather) hold the leather between first two fingers, thumb and third finger. Push cutter against leather and push forward until small bit of lace appears at the back of the lace maker cutter.

Grab the small lace piece and pull while allowing the leather to rotate. Tipping sideways may help. Continue until you reach your desired length of lace or you reach the outside edge of the leather piece.

That is all it takes to make lace using the lacemaker. You'll never run out of lace again.

Al Stohlman born on August 15, 1919 and passed away on March 6, 1998 was an incredibly gifted leatherworker and author of numerous books on the art of leather crafting.

His wife Ann collaborated on many of his books, as well as working with him on many of the leather projects used to illustrate the books. They lived together on a ranch in Canada and wrote many of the most popular instruction books that are still used today to teach people how to work with leather.

Al Stohlman began working with leather during the second world war while he was stationed in the Pacific. He and his army buddies made their own leather working tools from nails. Many years later, he set up his own line of very popular tools, The Al Stohlman brand line of leatherworking tools and hardware and are still available from leathercraft supply stores today.

The Al Stohlman line of books are an excellent resource to expand your knowledge of leathercrafting. From beginner to expert, Al covered them all including books on hand sewing, embossing, carving, tech tips and a 3 volume encyclopedia on saddle making.

Get 3 Crafting Books for $1 each! Click for details!

Leathercraft's Leather Stamping Tools are intricately designed metal tools made to speed up your leatherwork and give it a high-quality professional appearance. You will be amazed at the detail that you can come up with in your leather designs with the use of these kinds of stamps. The stamps are perfect for providing new leathercrafters of any age with a chance to create far more complex and stunning designs.

Leather Stamping tools are used to produce creative impressions in to your leather projects. Generally the raised look that you see is created simply by pressing down on the areas we do not want to be raised. To ensure that the effect stays in place, the right moisture content is essential when you're striking the leather. Leather that's too wet or too dry can cause the impression to rise back up eventually.

These tools work by either a single downward action or a double (down-up) action with each strike from the mallet. Single action tools are held firmly down in order that they are unable to bounce back. They can be leaned right or left, front (towards the toe) or back (towards the heel) that will give only a partial impression.

Double action tools are often called walking tools. You should hold the tool firmly with your hands but exert no downwards pressure. This will permit the tool to bounce back up from the leather immediately after striking and creating the impression. You will use the recoil to move the tool down a line unhindered, and make a clean continual impression in the leather.

* The Camouflage stamp - The camouflage stamp is a single action tool that is normally used to depict various textures to stems, leaves and flowers.

* The Pear Shader stamp - The pear shader stamp is a double action tool which is used to depress the leather to make concave areas.

* The Beveler stamp - The beveler is another double action tool. It is used to give relief to the various objects that are in the pattern.

* The Veiner stamp - The veiner is a single action tool and it's used to give the impression of veins in leaves.

* The Seeder stamp - The seeder is used for creating the seed pods of flowers and it is also a single action tool.

* The Backgrounder stamp - The backgrounder can be used as either a single action or as a double action tool on bigger areas. It is used to mat down the background section of the pattern.

* Geometric stamps - Geometric stamps can be used for many decorative and also special effect purposes. By using even one single geometric tool, you can cover a considerable region with a nice design in no time.

* Border Stamps - Border stamps may be used on their own to produce a decorative frame around leatherwork. They are also used all around basketweave or geometric designs to fill in any unevenness around your leather project's border areas.

* Figure carving stamps - Leather figure carving stamps were designed to assist you create leather carvings that depict wildlife, plants and landscapes. Also, a number of these stamps can also be used for border designs, too.

* Stop stamps - Stops are mainly used at the end of swivel knife cuts, with a floral design, to enhance its look. They are used at the bottom of flower petals, leaves and lots of other parts to give additional definition to the design and to create special effects.

* Flower center stamps - You can Produce beautiful arrangements employing the flower and leaf stamps together or use them individually to make an attractive floral border.

* Leaf Stamps - Use these leaf stamps in combination with the flower center and veiner stamps to make bouquet patterns or you can use them on their own to make a decorative leaf border design.