Beginner Leather Craft Ideas You Should NEVER Try

this past week the Stax family went on a mini vacation down by the ocean I was getting ready to do a new video about a very unorthodox leather working tool that I found while I was on my vacation then this happened you've got to be kidding me I had just heard some of the worst beginning leather craft advice from an expert then it happened again so I'm gonna give you the breakdown the lowdown and all the information [Laughter] I'm going to expose the fallacies that are out there on the interwebs about beginner leather crafting welcome to big stack small Workshop before I get into the bad advice I'd like to take a few moments there was some really good advice out there for beginner leather crafters and I want to share these with you there's a lot of advice in this video but it's not a good idea to skip around I'm gonna be covering a lot of different things and busting a lot of different myths you might miss something that could be detrimental to your experience as a beginning leather crafter and I wouldn't want that to happen tip number one don't buy tools you don't need when it comes to leather working most of your Basics can be done with a knife a mallet some punches and maybe a little sandpaper and a lot of times Hardware comes with its own tools so if you buy a set of rivets or you buy a set of snaps they're going to come with their unsetting tools they even have the little anvils that go inside there really to make basic leather projects all you need is basic tools when you're ready to upgrade your leather working that's when you upgrade your tools it's a Rite of Passage to start with less expensive tools number two don't be afraid to make mistakes mistakes are going to happen mistakes happen to everyone I guarantee you the best leather workers out there made a lot of mistakes when they started leather working practice practice practice start off with simple projects then work up to more advanced ones learn to master the basic techniques first then when you have those down real easy level up buy new tools start a new project anytime you're going to buy new tools you need to practice with them as well I can't tell you the amount of times that I tried to set copper rivets before I had the process down and I still don't have it perfected but I am definitely a lot better now than I was before I'll get to the next tip in just a minute but if you're enjoying this video please hit that like button so YouTube can share it with more people just like you number three use a hard surface for stamping and tooling I use a stainless steel workbench but before that I did use a granite slab to do a lot of setting and my grandfather's Anvil is still my go-to Surface whenever I'm setting rivets or snaps stamping on a plain wood surface is not really a good idea you'll get a lot of vibration if you don't have a lot of money you can go to one of your kitchen emporiums or places that sell kitchen counters and make a deal with them from one of their sink cutouts and it'll be large enough to do any tooling or stamping in addition to any rivet setting that you want to do now that we've covered a few nuggets of good advice I'm going to give you the bad advice and this isn't for sensitive ears so if there are young children around make them cover up just say earmuffs the first bad piece of advice I heard was start with a sheet of plywood plywood is going to dull your blade so fast that it's going to frustrate you frustration equals stress and if you're stressed out there's no way you're going to continue leather working you can start with a piece of plywood for maybe one or two projects but I would really suggest investing in a cutting mat cutting mats are inexpensive and they're designed to take cuts from a blade without dulling it using a piece of plywood is okay for one or two projects but I would seriously suggest that all leather Crafters get a cutting mat fairly early on in their leather working Journey this video is sponsored by today's video is sponsored by Olive Miracle leave-in conditioner great for her hair but great for your beard as well okay so all of Miracle is not a sponsor of my video but I love that product I use it in my beard every single day it's really inexpensive and it does a great job the next piece of advice really wasn't bad advice but you do need to be careful and pay attention to what's going on because it could mean that there's a bigger problem don't muscle your knife through the cut take multiple passes I totally agree you don't want to muscle through the cut but you do need to be careful always let your blade do the work for you taking multiple passes on thick leather is okay but if you find that you're taking too many passes to get the cut then your blade is probably dull when you try to force your Cuts your Cuts can be irregular or off or worst of all you can end up cutting yourself the most dangerous knife is a dull knife and if you find that you're taking too many passes it's probably a good idea to go ahead and sharpen your blade or if you're like me and use an X-Acto Knife go ahead and replace that blade in a price of a new blade is not worth frustrating yourself or even worse cutting yourself when you're doing your projects now here's one that could probably be debated but I'm going to stick to my guns just wet the leather and Stamp It you always want to wet your leather before you stamp it or tool it however you definitely want to wait for that water to soak into the leather I saw someone take a wet sponge run it over their leather and within five seconds they were stamping it literally five seconds you definitely want to make sure that your water soaks into the leather the goal with stamping your tooling is to compress the leather if you only wait five seconds there's a good chance that you're going to end up tearing your leather I usually wet my leather really good then give it a few minutes to soak in before I stamp it or tool it if you only wait five seconds there's a good chance you're going to end up tearing the surface of leather and your tooling and your stamping is going to look like garbage now here's some really bad advice that I hurt so we definitely want to make sure there's no young ears listening earmuffs don't waste your time with cheap Hobby Lobby leather buy the expensive stuff well obviously it's going to be much easier and enjoyable to work with expensive leather if you can afford it when you first got your license did you buy the most expensive and exotic car you could find you think that every mechanic out there started with a set of Snap-on tools I do a lot of Woodworking and I would never suggest for a new woodworker to build their first projects with unsteamed Walnut or spalted maple when you're starting out you're going to make a lot of mistakes remember don't be afraid to fail but failing with expensive leather is going to do nothing but stress you out and it's much easier to find cheap leather than it is to order expensive leather online and wait a couple of days for it to be shipped to your house it's okay to start small you're gonna screw up you're going to get frustrated and that's all right it is okay to do those things but if you're doing it with expensive leather you're going to get even more frustrated you're going to stress yourself out and you're going to probably give up on leather working it's better to screw up on inexpensive and cheap leather because it's easier to replace now you don't want to buy just any leather that's out there you definitely want to stick to veg tan or Chrome tan what you don't want to do is use genuine leather genuine leather is just a bunch of scraps glued together and then painted to look like real leather it's the five dollar belts and wallets that you see in Walmart that leather is genuine genuinely bad genuinely probably gonna crack genuinely not good Leather So I personally don't advise you get horween or Wicked and Craig or Herman Oak leather to get started I really think you should start with the basic leather you can find once you're more comfortable with your leather work then you could upgrade to nicer leather especially if you're making gifts for someone just like it's a Rite of Passage to start with less expensive tools it's also a Rite of Passage to start with less expensive leather and the last piece of advice I heard that was bad was get inspired but don't copy anyone well you're just starting out it's okay copy people do exactly what they do that's how you learn copy and practice practice and copy copy and practice practice and copy imitate it's okay look at what people are doing look at how they're doing it why are they doing these things you're not going to understand until you do it yourself now I'm not saying sell anything unique and claim it as your own ideas but how many people you think out there started with an original idea do you think Google was the first search engine you think that Ford had the first automobile feel free to use my free leather templates you can make the cable keeper the strap keychain or the dresser valet make as many and sell as many as you want I give you permission to do that as a matter of fact I've got a Halloween project that I want to show you and I'm going to provide a free pattern for that as well along with the free projects that I did last week you can click right here to get those free patterns so let's get started print out your template on a piece of heavy card stock or print it on a regular sheet of paper and glue it to the back of a piece of cardboard like from a cereal box foreign out and don't forget to cut out the eyes and mouth you can trace your template onto the leather either using a scratch all ice pick or I like to use a leather pen cut your jack-o-lantern out and don't forget to cut out the eyes and mouth then punch holes so you can insert a key ring if you have any beginning leather craft myths that I didn't cover I'd love to hear about them please drop me a comment down below remember big Stacks grows big Stacks builds and big Stacks makes if you want to see me build the other three projects from the free template package click on this link right here

Channel: Big Stacks Small Workshop

Views: 67,971

Keywords: Leather Craft, Leather Crafting, Leather Free Pattern, Leather Working, Leather crafting for beginners, beginner leather projects, free pattern leather, free pdf pattern leather, leather craft ideas, leather craft tools, leather working projects

Id: I8CwoL2iBbI

Length: 12min 0sec (720 seconds)

Published: Wed Oct 26 2022