Leather Crafting Basics | With and WITHOUT special tools

What up fam! Welcome to Skilltree where we learn how to do just about everything. So on last Monday's quick skill episode, I showed you how to make this nifty little dice bag. And on today's episode, I'm going to show you how to make this nifty little leather dice bag. The difference between the two aside from the color, obviously is the fact that this one was made using no specialized leather tools. Oh, and if you like how this leather bag comes out, make sure you stay to the end because I'm giving this sucker away and I'm going to show you how to get it. So the thought behind making this project was twofold. First and foremost, I want to remove any barrier you might have to try to start the skill out. I often get like in the comment section when I finish a leather project that people want to try it out, but they don't have any of the special tools and they don't want to invest the money into something that they're not sure they're going to like. But at the end of the day, tools are just there to make a job easier. Once you realize the principle behind what the tool is supposed to be accomplishing, you can then find a bunch of creative workarounds of things you probably already have laying around your house to accomplish the same goal. The second reason for this episode is the fact that we're getting really kind of high up in our levels here for leather crafting. And as we do, I keep having little disclaimers being like, Hey, there's stuff we've already covered. Here's a bunch of other episodes in which we've covered the basics. By using this project to show kind of the basics of leather working as well as those little workarounds in case you don't have the tools. I can then just use this episode to say, Hey, check this one out. It's going to cover all the most basic stuff. There's always something you can just kind of jump right in. Cool. So with that stage all set, let's level up this skill. Edge treatment. So in the Monday episode, I went over how to make the template for this. It doesn't really require any like specialized leather tools. And as this episode really isn't about the build itself, but rather the methods used for basic leather crafting. I'm going to skip all that template part and just get right into our first specialized tool. Just so you know, what's going on in case you haven't seen that episode. This thin leather makes up these side gussets and this eight ounce drop of leather is this decorative strip right here. So when you first cut your leather out, you'll notice that the edges are a hard square shape with these little exposed fibers sticking out. In general, you're going to want to round off and smooth out those edges because it'll just give it a more professional finished look. And the first step to doing this is using this little forked tool called an edge beveler. You simply run it along your edge to remove any sharp corners. So knowing that the principle of this tool is really just to slice off the sharp corners there. You could always just use a razor to get this job done. Now this is going to take some practice, but when comparing a side done with the beveler and the side done with the razor, they're almost identical. Now that that edge has been beveled, we're going to want to get rid of all the little fibers that have been sticking out. So normally you do this by wetting the edge and using this little tool called an edge slicker to vigorously rub along the edge. Now the purpose of a slicker isn't to push down all those fibers, but rather to create enough heat through friction to actually burnish the edges. This is going to leave behind a smooth and slightly shiny surface. Now knowing all you really need is something that causes enough heat and friction to get the job done. Something as simple as a rag can accomplish this. Just wet it down as usual and vigorously rub the cloth along the edge. The end result is indistinguishable from the area burnished with the slicker tool. Cool. So now that our edges look at all clean and professional like it's time to move on to setting the stitch holes. So lots of leather projects are going to require you to stitch two pieces of leather together. This is going to require you to have the same number of holes with the same spacing so that the two pieces can marry together exactly. Now an easy way for you to do this is to use a hole punch like this one. Using something like this, all the holes are going to be exactly spaced apart nice and easy like, but if you don't have this tool, you can simply use a fork to make all the marks you need. Just walk it along where you want the stitches to be leaving little indents behind. So then punch those holes using an awl or a nail or whatever other pointy thing you have at your disposal. Sure. It's an extra step over just using the space punch to get all the holes down and perfect, but it works. Sometimes though, you want to make sure your stitches are in a perfectly straight line and lay down flush with the leather. To do this, you can just use this awesome stitch groover tool. It cuts a perfect little indent for your stitches to sit in. That being said, you could also just use a sewing needle. Just lay a straight edge onto your wet leather where you want the groove to sit and make a few passes with the needle. Can you even tell which one's done with the tool and which one's done with the needle? Now I just use my fork to lay down the whole pattern and punch them out with my awl. Okay, clever. I hear you say. Slicking edges and punching holes. It's all well and good, whatever. But how do I get an awesome design in the leather without any tools? I am glad you asked Segway providing viewer. Tooling the leather. So normally if I want to add a design into a piece of leather, these are the steps I take. First I'd either draw or print a design to fit the desired space. Next we'll need to wet down the leather. When you wet down leather, it becomes actually really malleable, almost like clay. Then you can even just kind of carve out a shape with your nail and it'll stay in place. I then put some plastic over it so my paper doesn't get all soggy and I trace over the lines of my image with a stylus. Though if you don't have a stylus, just tracing the image with a pen works great as well. And it also has that added bonus of being able to see which lines you've already covered. The result is a perfect indentation of your design. But the design at this point is super flat and it's probably going to disappear with time. In order to give it this really nice raised appearance and really separate it from the back, you can use this tool called the swivel knife. It produces a shallow cut along your lines and is super easy to control. That being said, if you don't have one, you could always just cut your shape out with a razor blade. Just be careful not to cut too deeply. Now it's admittedly harder to get really smooth arcs cut in with the razor and the swivel knife has like a wider bevel to the blade that separates the leather a bit more. But in a pinch, the razor totally does the trick. So now that the shape is cut out, we need to give it that appearance like it's sticking out from the rest of the leather. To accomplish this, we don't actually push it out so much as we push all the edges around it in a little bit, giving it the appearance that it's actually sticking out. Now normally you accomplish that with this tool called the bevel stamp. Simply wet the leather and follow the outside of your cuts, tapping the stamp with a hammer. This lays down the leather around your design, making it appear to stick out. Now I made a really short video up here showing you how to easily make one of these out of a timber spike. But since I'm trying to keep this with stuff that you probably already have around your house, I figured out you could actually do it with the edge of a pen. Now you'll have to experiment to get the angle just right, but the end result is more than adequate. Just make sure you don't have the actual pen part clicked out cause you don't want to draw all over your leather. In fact, I would probably recommend you just taking the inside of the pen right out. So it's not even a risk. But yeah, that method, it actually worked really well. I had to wet the leather a little bit more than usual to make it a bit softer. And I had to push down a little harder, but yeah, it, it did the trick. It looks like it's, it's raised up and everything. It looks good. Sweet. So with our design all laid out, let's move on to dyeing. So I'm not going to show any hacks pertaining to the dyes themselves. I think that would actually constitute a whole different episode. If I tried to make my own leather dyes, which actually sounds really awesome. I will, however, touch base on a little hack I learned for actually applying the dyes. So normally I just use rags or these little puff balls called daubers to apply stain, but I sometimes have trouble getting a really even coat on with the rags cause they don't hold too much. After just a couple of passes, those daubers get really small and sad and useless. So on a whim, I just used a bit of this poly stuffing material and I was super impressed with how much it laid down. It's crazy cheap and just a little bit goes a long way for spreading dye. Now with a carved design like this, I also like to add a resist followed by an antique. The resist helps the leather resist taking on any more dye while the antique brings out more detail by sinking into the little crevices, making them darker and making the whole thing seem a little bit more aged. It also just kind of gives the whole thing like a nicer, more uniform look. All right, so let's keep this train rolling and move on to stitching. Now this is another area that I'm only going to touch on a little bit. If y'all like this 101 style video, I could do one that is all just like the five most useful stitches for leather working. What I will touch on is kind of the common needles and thread you'd want to use. Now leather needles are usually kind of beefy and blunted. For example, here's a leather craft needle compared to a regular sewing needle because the holes are already punched in your leather. You don't need that sharp point to stick it through. In fact, I've learned that using sharp needles is kind of a pain literally and figuratively. I mean one, you're really kind of fighting to get into leather sometimes and if it just comes out quick and it gets you, it really hurts. And two, I found that it actually sticks into the leather. Like while you're trying to put it through the holes, that sharp point always tends to find a fiber and get stuck. Also anytime that I've used it, the sharp point of the needle end up kind of scratching up my leather in places. You can always get around this by using a file to just blunt the sewing needle if that's all you have. The thread you decide to use is also kind of important. First, you're going to want it to be kind of on the thick side, like something you'd use to sew buttons in place or the seam of like a heavy jacket. Also, you really should wax it. This is easy to do. You just kind of run it over a block of beeswax a few times. This is going to help your thread guide through the holes and it's also going to stop it from fraying. Leather is way rougher than fabrics, and it actually tends to cut into the thread over time. Your beeswax helps protect against that. And with that, this project is just about done. Let's just wrap it up by installing eyelets. Now, as you can see here, I've added these little eyelets for our quarter to be able to pass through. Now, normally to do this, you would use a hole punch to set the proper sized holes in place. Then drop the eyelets in and lock them in place using the appropriate strike or an anvil tool. But if for some reason you've gone out and bought eyelets and you don't happen to have these tools, you can start by using the back of the rivet to mark your leather. Then carefully cut out that circular indent with a razor. Now just use a ball peen hammer to flare out the inside edge of that eyelet and lock it into place. It's not as perfect looking as when you use the actual tools designed for it, but it works. And with that, this bad ass bag is done and considering it was done with no specialized tool. This thing is dope. Like I would proudly wear this like a Ren Faire or a LARP or whatever. I think it looks great. So there you have it. No reason not to give this fun skill a try. Now, if you like this bag and like to make it your very own, leave hashtag monkey down in the comment section below. One of you will be picked at random and I will send you this lovely bag. Oh, speaking of contests, there's also kind of a fun GIF challenge going on right now as well. GIF or JIF, you can argue about it in the comment section. It's to celebrate the fact that we just surpassed 5,000 subscriptions. All you need to do is make like a fun skill tree GIF. I usually use giphy.com to do this, but there's a bunch of ways to do it. You can either leave me a link to it in the comments below, or you can leave it on the discord server. More details for it are in my YouTube community tab and whoever wins their GIF is just going to be featured on my 5,000 subscriber celebration video that I'm coming out with. Oh, and having just mentioned the discord community, I wanted to shout out the skill monkeys over there. Check out these amazing projects they've shared with me. This community is growing every day and I could not be happier. The people here are just amazing and talented and super supportive. So if you haven't joined them yet, seriously consider checking it out. The link to it's in the description below. And one more special thank you goes out to my bad-ass Patreon members. Vortex and NordW26 are the first to get into my $10 tier. I also have a $2 and a $5 tier, but really everybody who jumps in on that, um, I honestly couldn't be more grateful for your support. Things like that are going to help me get more leather and more metal stuff and just be able to make this show way better. So seriously, I, I appreciate the hell out of you. Uh, thank you so much for your support. It really means a lot to me. All right. I think that's everything. Feels like it was a lot today. If you liked what you saw, why don't you hit me with some of that thumbs up love and do not forget to subscribe. So you know when I release new content. Also if there's any skills you'd like to see me cover, leave it in the comment section and I will add it to the list. All right, well, I better get going now that I'm doing giveaways and stuff. I want to come up with some more stuff to get you guys in the meantime, keep leveling up you.