BASIC GUIDE TO LEATHER TOOLING Pt. 1

Leather tooling - a.k.a Leather Carving is one of the biggest fun you can have leather crafting.

Carving has always been my favourite thing to do with leather. It is in fact how I started leather crafting.

In this article I will show you how to perform

basic leather tooling with one of my carving patterns.

It is very basic and simple.

You will only need 4 tooling stamps for this pattern I use quite a lot.

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THINGS YOU NEED

• Spray bottle / wet sponge

• Hammer

• Wing divider or Compass with stylus

• Metal ruler or plastic if you dont have one

• Set square

• SWIVEL KNIFE

• CARVING STAMPS - B200, S705, V463, F910

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STEP 1. Drawing outline

Use a ruler, compass and stylus, draw the out line of the border.

Anytime you are TOOLING leather you need to damp the leather with spray bottle or a piece of sponge.

Make sure the leather is wet evenly.

Draw the outer line at 7mm inside of the leather edge.

To do this, you can either measure with ruler and manually draw.

or you can use compass to guide the stylus.

You can get a tool called Wing divider.

But you can substitute this with a compass and a stylus.

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STEP 2. Cut the line

Now follow the line over with the swivel knife.

Hold swivel Knife with 3 fingers like the photo.

Knife length is adjustable.

When you are making cuts, tilt the knife away from you, and cut towards you.

For straight lines, I like to use ruler as a guide.

Once the outline is cut, Make X cut diagonally.

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STEP 3. Cut diamond pattern

Draw series of parallel lines to create diamond cuts with 1.5 cm intervals.

To draw parallel lines, use a ruler and a set square.

Hold one side of set square against one of the diagonal lines.

Hold a ruler against the adjacent side of the set square.

Then slide 1.5cm to the side and so on.

Finish each line with narrowing ends naturally disappearing.

You can achieve this by gradually reducing force added to the swivel knife.

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Continue to BASIC GUIDE TO LEATHER TOOLING Pt. 2.