Leather Tooling and Carving

Book excerpt: This book by a well-known handicrafts instructor will teach you the fine art of leather tooling and carving so that you will now be able to make the handsomely crafted leather of handbags, belts, watchbands, and billfolds you have often admired. You will find that custom-crafted leather items are not only easier to make than you may have expected but also offer quite an enjoyable hobby. Many books deal with leatherwork in general but this book is one of the few that concentrate on tooling and carving. The author first introduces the various types of leather and tools, giving complete information on how to identify the superior sections of a hide and how to decide on which kind of leather is best for your purpose: kidskin for gloves, steerhide for billfolds, etc. Twenty-six different leather tools are depicted along with an illustration of the impressions the different kinds of stamping tools make. After this necessary background, the author covers the basic processes of leather crafting from start to finish: cutting and preparing the leather, transferring the design, tooling, carving, lacing, cleaning, dyeing, and finishing. This section is profusely illustrated with line drawings and photographs to make each step easy to master. You are now ready to begin the special projects, for which complete instructions and patterns are provided: bookmarks, key cases, coin purses, watchbands, billfolds, belts, shaving kits, camera bags, handbags, and cowboy accessories are just a few of the things you will be able to make. Hand-tooled leather items are quite expensive on the market, but you will find yourself with substantial savings when you make them yourself. What is more important, however, is that leather tooling and carving is an enjoyable craft that anyone can become adept at ? and this book will provide you with all you need to do just that.