Hi, I'm Jim Linnell with Tandy Leather.
I'm going to be showing you how to make a wallet,
and I'll be going through each of the steps,
with each of the tools in enough detail,
so that you'll know how to get the best results out of your leather work.
Now that we've completed the beveling, we'll add some of the detail textures
to the design.
Like putting the seeds in the center of the flower.
We'll start with that.
The seeder tool that I'm using, it's a smaller one,
it's got some lines that radiate out from the center of it.
All of these tools come in a lot of different sizes,
different sorts of textures and such.
I like this particular one because it makes it easy
to make it look like all of the seeds fit together.
And there is a technique to this.
To make this look like a raised up seed pod in the center,
a lot of times when I look at leather work that some have done,
they will just really hammer this seed in here,
and make it look like they used a nailset or something like that.
And it's all sunken into a hole in the middle of this flower.
And what we want it to do is look like a cluster of seeds that are raised out,
ready to kind of come loose in the center.
So the first thing I'd have you notice is the angle of the tool.
You see how this tool is again angled.
I'm getting a much deeper impression on one side of the seed.
It almost looks like it's beveled.
And I have it angled, I'm going around that outline
that was raised up when we used the camouflauge tool.
By going around it like this, it helps to keep that area
kind of puffed up looking.
And you want to go around there and put as many seeds as you can
right on that line, without them overlapping,
without one biting another one in half.
And then you come back and fill this in with row after row of seeds
until you have it all filled in.
One of the things you probably will notice is how lightly
I'm tapping this tool.
It's not being hit very hard at all.
Obviously it's a smaller surface area.
There's not as much-- the tool's not that big so,
you want to be careful about how hard you hit that.
But by putting that outside row in with a little bit of force,
with a sharp angle on it,
you end up making it look like these seeds are beveled.
And the end result is that you have a raised up seed area here
that looks like it's full and ready to pop out of there
instead of being hammered into a hole in the middle of that flower.
That's a trick that you probably need to try to use.
Another seeder tool I'm going to use on this design
is one of the larger ones.
This one here has a little bigger opening in the center.
But it also has lines that radiate out a lot farther from the center of it.
And I'm going to use that in the center of this scroll.
Just kind of right out here in the center of this tightest part of the curve.
I'm going to use that as a center point.
So we'll get that seed impression placed there.
And since we already used a tool that placed these seeds
in the center of this flower here, we already have that one covered.
so we're done with the seeder tool.
That's the places that we would use it on in this design.
The next thing that I want to show you is the veiner tool.
And there's a few things about how a veiner tool is used
that I'd like to show you.
First of all, let me get a line ready here for you.
You know that curved line that went up the center
of the acanthus leaf?
It was kind of a line shaped about like this.
And it had the camouflage tool going along one side of it.
So I'm going to put these in place just so you can see how they go.
And we used a corner impression here.
And we're going to be doing the same thing with a veiner tool.
But that's one of the things that the camouflage and the veiner
have in common, is a lot of times you're using
just the corner of the tool,
getting a partial impression that fades out as it goes.
That line that goes up the center of the acanthus leaf
was first used with a camouflage tool.
And then we used the beveler to bevel the other side of that line.
(tapping)
And then once we have that beveled, it's now ready for the veiner impressions.
When we use the veiner tool,
again, as I said, we use just the corner of the tool quite a bit.
A lot of times just because of the length of the tool,
it would be chewing up another leaf beside it
if we didn't use the corner of it.
But also this helps to give some angle to it.
When we use the veiner tool,
like along this line that goes up the center,
we have it angled, so that not only does it make
a deeper impression in the center,
and then it fades out and gradually disappears,
but we also rotate that angle just a little bit between each impression
so that it looks like it kind of fans out.
And it give some motion and some contour to those leaves.
And that's how I'm going to be using it on this design that we are working on.
So let's pull this in here.
Here's the acanthus leaf here.
We've got the camouflage tool going along one side of it.
We've got it all beveled ready for the veiner tool.
On the other side this one curves in the other direction.
One of the things about where the veiner tool get used
when it's being used on an acanthus leaf,
is that it's usually used on the outside of the curve,
and the camouflage on the inside of the curve.
So that's something to keep in mind.
But we'll start down here at the base.
We'll have a little bit of an angle.
And again, this is because this is such a wide tool,
if we used the full impression, we'd be chewing up
part of these leaves right along side of it,
so we have to angle for that reason.
And then as I moved down the length of it,
I'm going to slowly change the direction of it,
so it kind of fans out and gives us that kind of a flowing motion.
It makes it looks like everything kind of moves toward the center
of this leaf.
And everything kind of blends into the middle of that crease.
You see how that veiner impression works.
It gives you a nice, deep impression.
You should have good moisture content in it
when you're doing this.
But that's how the veiner tool typically gets used.
These veiner tools come in a lot of different sizes
and different textures and so forth.
There's another one, sometimes this is called a shell.
But it's still a veiner-type tool.
I'm going to use this one around the outside of this scroll.
That's another place that we need some impressions here.
This scroll, even though it's got some contour on the inside,
it's really blah looking there.
It needs some more decoration to it.
So we're going to use the veiner tool to do that.
And again, the angle of the tool and the rotation of the tool
is very important.
We're going to start using these impressions right here,
where this part of the scroll kind of ends up.
Then we're going to work all the way around,
probably to the center of it here.
And we're going to change the angle as we go.
So the first impressions-- I'll make a couple here,
and then I want to explain to you what determines this angle.
I kind of imagine that if this tool was long enough
and you followed this curve,
all of these impressions would eventually end up
right here in the middle of this seed.
So I kind of use that as my guide.
I'm kind of pointing each one of these impressions
so that it looks like it would eventually arrive at that seed.
That allows me to give each one of these impressions
a little bit of a twist-- I can change the angle of it
just a little bit as I move around here.
You want to get your spacing to be somewhat consistent.
And just again, as you work around here,
you'll end up with this nice spiral-type of a pattern.
(tapping)
And this is how we will dress up this scroll.
I'm making the corner of the tool-- deepest impression right out here
on the edge of that scroll-- on the line that we beveled.
And then as it comes across the scroll,
it fades out and disappears.
You see I rotate a little bit every time I tap it.
And I'm getting lighter and shorter with the impressions
as I get toward the center.
But that's how that scroll impression gets stamped.
They have this nice spiral-type motion that goes along there with it.
One more place that I'd like to use a veiner-type of tool
is on this little bud that runs up in between the scroll
and the stem of the flower.
And I've got another one of those shell-type of veiners
that I'm going to use there.
It's a little shorter one, a little smaller one,
so we'll use it to add a little bit of texture to this.
And here I'm going up with the deepest impressions
along the outside edge,
as the impressions come toward the center of that little bud,
they fade out and disappear.
And I'll come up both sides and let both of them
kind of fade out in the middle,
and it gives it kind of a neat, ribbed effect.
You see that we get kind of a nice little ribbed effect
running up that little bud right there.
Thank you for joining me today.
Be sure and check back often here at our blog,
and we'll show you more tips and ideas
on how to get the most fun out of your leather work.