leather tooling, C and B Leather: Custom Hand Made Leather Goods

Angled Leather Basket Stamping Tutorial. It’s Easy!

When I published my Straight Basket Weave Tutorial I said that I planned on making the same kind of thing for Angled Basket Weave, and this is it. Angled basket stamping is actually what I use almost exclusively when doing leather basket stamping. So if you look at my work this is the technique you will see almost anytime I’m basket stamping a project.

Leather Basket Stamping

If you’re not familiar with the term, angled leather basket stamping means you are stamping your impressions at an angle but the centers of the impressions run at a straight line to the borders of the project. See the picture below for a visual of what I mean.

Leather belt with basket stamp design

On this belt the actual stamp impressions are at an angle but that angle is such that the basket weave design runs parallel to the length of the belt. There are a lot of ideas and techniques out there on how to do this. Sometimes people work out the precise angle the stamp needs to be held at to achieve this effect, they make templates of the angle, etc. Those techniques work but there is actually a very simple way to do this that works for every basket stamp and does NOT require any knowledge of trigonometry or using any special tools! In this case there really is one simple trick to lining the stamps up correctly.

I’ve done this tutorial differently than the last one. This time instead of a photo heavy blog post, I’ve created the tutorial as a PDF file that you can download. You don’t need to sign up for anything, just click the link below to download the file. Take a look at it and I think you’ll see it’s really easy to stamp angled basket weave. Grab a piece of scrap leather and give it a try. You’ll be stamping angled basket weaves like a pro in no time flat!

Download the tutorial here: Angled basket tutorial

As always if you have questions leave a comment here.

Basket Weave Leather Stamping Tutorial

Leather Carving, Leather Construction, Leather Stamping, Life of a Maker

Basket weave leather stamping is really intimidating to many people but it doesn’t have to be difficult. I have been working on a way to explain the techniques I use in my basket stamping (and really any stamping with a basket weave or geometric stamp) and I’ve come up with this tutorial as a starting point. I decided to begin with the simplest form of basket stamping where you are stamping in a straight line across the leather. Later I’ll write up a tutorial on angled basket weave stamping, which is more complicated but what I use most of the time.

Step 1:

Here is the cased leather I’ll be using for this tutorial. It’s a money clip wallet back and I’m going to place a straight line of basket weave stamping down the length of it.

NOTE: I am right handed so all the descriptions and directions are what works for me. If you are left handed most likely you will do everything in the opposite direction from what I’m writing here.

I start out by making a faint line across the middle of the leather. This will be my guide line for the first row of stamps. Note that I made this line very bold for this picture. Normally I would try to make this a faint mark but in this case the stamp will always be placed over the line so no part of the guideline will be left once I’ve stamped the whole piece.

I’ve also marked the border on the piece because later I will need to make sure I don’t stamp past the border lines.

Step 2:

Basket stamp on leather

I start by placing the basket stamp with one side right on the line and with the back edge right up against the border. Take your time and line this up carefully. This first row is the base for all the stamping on the rest of the project and any problems here will lead to more problems across the rest of the project.

Step 3:

Here is the first stamp impression. Note the legs of the basket stamp are right on the line I marked on the leather. You want to keep the stamp aligned straight with the guide line as much as possible.

Step 4:

Time for the next stamp impression. Move the tool so you are making an impression with the other side of the stamp on the guideline as shown in the picture. The next impression will still be along the guideline but with the back leg of the basket stamp overlapping the first impression. The leg of the second impression should drop in perfectly to the leg of the first impression. As long as the side of the stamp is lined up along the guide line, you will keep your stamps going in a straight line.

Here is main secret to how I stamp and keep the whole project straight and uniform. Note the black arrow in the picture pointing at where the back of the stamp is sitting. There is a slight gap between the back of the stamp and the center bar in the first stamp impression. This is very intentional and it’s about the width of the leg of the stamp. This extra space is a bit of play we will keep between all of the impressions. As things get a bit off or crooked, this amount of play will allow us to adjust and keep things from getting far off. If we stamped the impression right against the center bar there would be no room for error in the stamps around it and eventually you would end up with stamps crowding each other and the overall project would be crooked.

Step 5:

Here is the second impression. It’s on the other side of the guide line but still has its legs lined up with the guideline. Again, take you time making each of these first impressions and make sure they line up. The time and patience you show here at the start will pay off in the end.

Step 6:

Now it’s time to repeat back on the other side of the line. Again place the legs of the stamp in the last impression and make sure you have the same small gap between the back leg of the stamp and the center bar of the last impression. It’s important to try and be as consistent with each impression as possible and to try and keep that slight gap the same for each impression. Again your patience will be rewarded.

Also note that while I’m stamping this first row this is basically my view. I’m always looking from the side to see how well it lines up with the guide line. Once I finish this first row I’ll change how I look at the leather but for now I want to focus on making sure each impression lines up along the line and has the right spacing.

Step 6A:

First three impressions made. About a few hundred to go.

Step 7:

This view shows more stamps running along the line as I continue to work my way across the piece of leather. Again, keep the legs of the stamp on the guideline and try to make the space consistent between each impression.

Step 8:

This pictures shows how even when you are trying to carefully line things up slight accidents will still happen. The black arrow is pointing to where the previous impression was slightly off the line and you can see it is not quite lining up with the next impression. We are all human so slight errors like this are UNAVOIDABLE. This slight error causes the row next to it to be slightly off. As you expand the stamping the errors like this compound which is why we tend to start off nicely but end up with our basket stamping being all over the place by the time we finish. It’s that slight gap between the back of the stamp and the center bar that allows us the freedom to correct this kind of problem as we go along.

Step 9:

Once we reach the other side most of the time the stamp isn’t going to line up with the border. In this case I tip the tool on end so I’m just making a partial impression. I line up the legs just as before but tilt it up slightly so that when I strike the tool I only make an impression inside my border.

The second picture here shows the tilt from the side and I’ve exaggerated how much I tip it, but you do need to tip it more than you think. If you don’t you’ll end up accidentally making faint marks on the other side of the border.

Step 9A:

Here’s the impression of the tipped stamp. Don’t worry that there is a pretty large gap between the partial stamp impression and the border. We’ll fill that in with a border stamp later.

Step 10:

Now that I have my baseline across the project, I start stamping the area to one side of it. To do this I’m going to reverse the direction I’m adding new stamps. I now will be stamping from right to left (I’m right handed but you are left handed you will most likely reverse this) I start by lining up the legs of stamp inside the two stamps that are already on the leather. Note that I’ve rotated the project about 90 degrees and this is how I view the project in these two views. This way I can most clearly see where the stamp sits in the existing impressions.

Here is another key trick I use to keep things straight and neat. In the closeup picture you can see I’ve lined the stamp up with equal amounts of extra space on either side of the stamp. This is where having that small gap between the stamps pays off. From now on whenever you make an impression always try to keep the extra space on either side of the stamp equal, or stated another way keep the stamp centered between the two existing impressions. Also try to keep the stamp running in a straight line with the existing impressions. If you do these two things each time you stamp a new impression, it will help average out any slight errors we’ve made already and keep the stamp impressions form crowding each other. Paying attention to these two key details will go a long way to improving your basket stamping.

Step 11:

This shows several impressions I’ve made as I follow along my existing row of stamps, working from right to left. On each one I try to center the stamp between the two existing stamps and keep the stamp aligned with the existing stamps. This stamping will go faster than the initial row.

Step 12:

I’ve reached the end of the line again and again the stamp is running over the border. Just like before I tilt the stamp so I only make a partial impression. The second picture shows I only get an impression of the legs of the basket weave, but that leg impression is what I’ll use to line up the next row.

Step 13:

Here’s where we are at this point. We stamped a straight line across the project from left to right and then stamped one row of stamps back across from right to left. For the next row I’ll go back to the right and stamp another new row, tilting the stamp up at each end as necessary. I’ll keep doing that until I have filled up that side of the project and it looks something like…

Step 14:

Here I’ve added all the full rows I can on one side of the project and I’m bumping up against the border. For each stamp I’ve followed my process of making sure each new impression is centered between the two existing stamps and I check to make sure I’m keeping the stamp aligned straight with the existing rows. Fortunately it has come out pretty even with the border.

Step 15:

Now I am working on stamping as close to the border as possible by tilting the stamp towards me and making partial impressions. I still make sure to place the stamp centered between the two existing impressions and keep the stamp straight with the other impressions. I just want to be careful to leave as few marks as possible in the border area.

This closeup shows the partial stamp impressions and if you look carefully you’ll see I left a slight impression of one of the legs in the border. You can get rid of this by using a modeling spoon to gently rub the mark out.

Step 16:

Now I flip the whole project around and repeat the process on the other side. Again I start on the right and add impressions moving toward the left.

Just like before I center the stamp between the two impressions and keep the side of the stamp aligned straight with the existing impressions.

Step 17:

The other side is filled with impressions just like we did on the other side.

Step 18:

This time the whole stamp impressions came out pretty close to the border. I could probably get by without stamping any more but I’m going to go ahead and stamp partial impressions along the border by tilting the tool. I always try to get my stamps as close to the border as possible.

Step 18:

The basket stamping part is finished. Now to finish things up I bevel the border all around the edges of the basket stamped area.

Step 19:

Finally, pick a border stamp and stamp it around all the edges.

That is all the steps I go through, Yes there are a lot of details to keep track of and at first things go pretty slowly but after a little practice doing these steps becomes routine and it goes much quicker and

How To: Northwest Style Flower Carving Tutorial

Leather Carving, Leather Construction, Leather Stamping

This tutorial will show you step by step how to carve a traditional Northwest style four petal flower in leather. Grab some leather, your tools and follow along!

This flower is different from the one in the first tutorial and different from the kind you normally see in Sheridan Style Carving. Instead of using a flower center stamp the center of this flower is made with a tool called a seeder. The center is much bigger and the flower is viewed at an angle instead of from above like we usually depict them in floral carving. This flower comes from a different style of floral carving called the Northwest Style because it was developed in saddle shops of the US Pacific Northwest.

Be sure to go back and look through the first tutorial in this series that I published previously. I won’t cover all the details I brought up before while discussing the tools this time around but you can find all those details by clicking here.

A note on tools: As I said in the first tutorial it’s more than likely you won’t have all the tools that I show here. For the most part I’m staying away from very specialized tools as much as possible though for doing traditional floral carving there are a couple of fairly specialized tools used to get very specific effects (like a center shader.) If you don’t have all these tools don’t worry. Where possible I’ll point out alternate tools you could use. In almost every case these tools are available at your local brick and mortar leather shop or online at your favorite tool maker. It’s sometimes possible to find these tools used from reputable online sources for very reasonable costs.

Leather and swivel knife — Initial carving with the swivel knife

Step 1: Tracing and carving. Again I traced the design onto the damp leather and then carved it in with my swivel knife. A note about how damp your leather should be: let it dry out to the point where it almost comes back to the color it was before you dampened it. Most people start off tooling their leather when it is far too wet and they don’t get burnishing when stamping it. Properly cased leather should darken like a bruise when a tool strikes it hard.

Step 2: Outlining the flower center. Again we’ll start with the flower center even though in this case technically the bottom petal is closer to the viewer. Think of it like you are viewing this flower on edge.

I always start with the center and work on the petals moving out from it. I still use the center shader to outline the flower center like I did before. When I traced the design onto the leather I put a dotted line where the edge of the flower center would be and now I’m using the center shader to bevel that line. Of course if you don’t have a center shader a checkered or lined beveller will work.

Step 3: Seeding the center. Here we introduce a new tool, the seeder. They come in different shapes and sizes but most of them make a small round ‘seed’ that we will use to fill in the flower center. I will stamp them in rows as neatly as I can, starting with the outer edge and working my way towards the center.

Step 3A: After the first row I add another behind it, trying not to stamp over any of the seeds I already placed of the edge of the center. It takes some skill to place these all in nice evenly spaced rows, a skill I am still trying to master.

Step 4: Beveling the petal in front of the seeds. Once I’m done with the center I start on the petal directly below the line of seeds. This represents a petal the viewer is seeing edge on, and I’m beveling the line that runs along the base of the flower center seeds into the petals on either side of the center.

You want to bevel this line on the side that is TOWARDS the flower center because this petal is supposed to look like it’s opening from the center. Beveling the other side of the cut would make it look like it’s below or behind the flower center, which would just look weird.

One reason I do the center before beveling this line is because you can get some seed marks on this petal and I’ll clean them off either with the beveling or with a little work from a modeling spoon.

Step 5: Stamping veiner marks on the petals. Next I’m ready to add texture to the petals with the veiner.

See the first tutorial for more details on this. I’m doing the same thing here that I did on that flower. The only differences on this one is that the long narrow petal just below the seeds doesn’t get any veiner marks. Also I did put them on the petal at the very bottom, but I added them after I took this picture. But you can see them in the next step.

Step 6: Shading the petals. Just like the last flower I am using my thumbprint or pear shader tool along the petal edges to add relief to the petals. I start at the tips and walk the tool back toward the center making lighter impressions as I go..

Notice on this flower I started the thumbprint right at the very edge of the petal. I’m actually extending the tip of the tool just a bit past my knife cut. This is another part of the Northwest style of carving. The shader goes all the way to the edge of the petal. Traditionally in Sheridan Style carving (which is the most common style these days) the shader or thumbprint mark stops just short of the edge of the petal. Take a look at the flower in the first tutorial to see an example of the Sheridan style.

Step 7: Starting to bevel the petals. First I’m going to bevel the bottom of that petal we’re seeing on edge. This time we want to bevel the side of the cut line that is away from the flower center.

Step 8: Next I’m going to use my undercut beveller in all the small scallops on these petals. There are a lot more of these scalloped areas on this flower and it will end up with a lot more depth and movement than the flower in the first tutorial.

Step 8A: All of the places I needed to lift up with the undercut beveller have been tooled now. You are beginning to see the ripple effect along the edge that this flower is going to develop.

Step 9: Beveling the tips of the bottom petal. Now I’ve switched to my small standard beveller (see step 8 in the first flower carving tutorial) to bevel the small rounded tips of the petal.

It takes small movements of the beveller to follow the tight curve here and not leave tool marks in the leather and get a smooth bevel.

Step 10: Looking at the bottom petal I thought it looked kind of plain where it met the petal above it, so I decided to come back with my thumbprint tool and add some shading from the center towards the thumbprint marks I had already made on the petal tips. I made the new marks so they lined up with the ones from the tips.

Step 10A: This shows what the marks I added look like on the petal.

Step 11: Now to bevel the two petals on either side of the flower center. I did this the same way as the bottom petal using my small beveller.

Step 12: Beveling the edge of the top petal. Since it is the ‘farthest’ part from the viewer and parts of it lie behind the two side petals it gets beveled last.

Step 13: Decorative cuts. I finished the flower off with some decorative cuts on the petals.

Note I actually skipped a few steps on this one. I didn’t matte down the beveling ridges on the flower petals like I did in step 9 of the first flower carving tutorial, and I didn’t background around the flower either. This was mostly because I got in a hurry and forgot. But if you want to see those steps done properly, check out the first tutorial.

Northwest Style Flower Carving Tutorial – In a nutshell.

There you have it! Another complete and simple flower carving tutorial. Feel free to ask questions and I will do my best to answer all of them.

Great Leather Craft Books

Leather Carving, Leather Construction, Leather Stamping

Walt Disney is quoted as saying “There is more treasure in books than in all the pirates’ loot on Treasure Island. And best of all, you can enjoy these riches every day of your life.”

Leather working may be an old art form but it has embraced modern technology. Since the inception of YouTube people have posted how to videos on every subject imaginable, including leather craft. There are some good and some not so good videos out there, but I wanted to talk about some of the great leather books.

Craftool Tech-Tips by Al Stohlman

One of my favorite books is a simple book called Craftool Tech Tips by Al Stohlman. This book (more of a large magazine type format) is only 22 pages but packed into those pages were hundreds of tips and techniques from Al Stohlman on floral and figure carving as well as stamping with geometrics. In addition to showing how to use the stamping tools there are side notes about proper use of the tools. When I was just starting out this simple book was a treasure trove showing me how to use the tools I had and teaching about tools I discovered I needed.

Flower Carving in leather with a veiner tool — Using the veiner on flower petals.

When I first started working with leather by main interest was in carving and I used to spend hours going over this book to learn the techniques. I can still pick up pointers from it to this day and I consider this to be one of the best books I own. I was fortunate to pick up a copy early in my leather carving career.

This first book has been around a long time (it was first published in 1969) but my second favorite book is much more recent.

Leathercraft by Nigel Armitage

Leathercraft by Nigel Armitage is a much newer book, published in 2020, and its a much different book from the first one. While the first book talks all about carving leather this book talks about basic construction techniques, particularly hand stitching leather. It is written by a master leather worker with over thirty years experience and it gives a really good insight into English leather working techniques. Since my early education in leather craft had been focused on carving and stamping, this book was a catalyst to improving my construction skills, refining hand stitching and improved pattern making. It is a well written book that is easy to follow and understand and will improve the skills of any leather crafter. It has exposed me to techniques and skills that I did not know about and it has broadened my capabilities as a leather crafter. I can’t say enough good things about it.

These are both excellent leather craft books that will serve you well during your journey to explore leather crafts and arts. I highly recommend adding both of these books to your library! And check out many of the other books out there. Some of them were written over 50 years ago but they contain descriptions of techniques that sometimes aren’t documented any where else. With so many leather craft books out there you can find something that informs you on the areas of leather crafts that interest you and will enhance your skills.

Where to get these leather craft books?

Leathercraft by Nigel Armitage is available through Amazon or Barnes and Noble, or through your local book seller. Craftool Tech Tips was published by Tandy Leather but as of this writing seems to be unavailable through their website. You can find copies available on both Amazon and eBay but you might also be able to find a copy at a brick and mortar Tandy store if you get lucky. Hopefully this book will be available again soon on the Tandy site.