Tooling leather tips

How to Make Leather Knife Sheaths

Posted October 14, 2020 by don Gonzales

This project video is one that I should have made a long time ago. One of the best selling items we have ever made in the saddle shop has been our fold over knife sheaths. In this video, I show you how to make these from start to finish.

If you are looking for a project that doesn’t use a lot of leather and goes together quickly then this is it. This is also a great way to use up the scrap leather that may be accumulating in the corners of your workshop. Floral tooled, geometric tooled, dyed, painted and even plain leather, these items will become one of your most popular selling items.

I have developed a set of patterns to use when making these that will cut out all the fitting issues for most knives. My pattern uses the tooling window to size the finished sheath to fit a particular knife. If you would like to purchase the digital companion pattern pack for this video, then CLICK HERE and you can purchase that from us. This is a digital PDF file that you will download and print the patterns out on your own printer. Along with the cut pattern for the shealth and the three different size tooling windows that I use in my shop, you will also get 6 different floral tooling patterns for each of the three different windows. That is 18 different patterns to choose from.

Looking for a good source for Herman Oak leather? Visit our friends at Maker’s Leather Supply as they are a Herman Oak dealer and can help you get the leather and any other supplies that you may need.

How to Make a Saddle Bag Crossbody Purse

Posted August 10, 2020 by don Gonzales

This video shows how to make a new crossbody purse that I just came up with. The design is based on a real saddle bag design altered to work as a crossbody purse. I think the design of this purse is really nice and would be popular with many. This would be a great project to offer to your customers for gift ideas. You also may want to make one of these for that special lady in your life.

This crossbody purse goes together very well and has a lot of room to do floral tooling and personalization.

If you would like to purchase the pattern pack for this project, then Click Here to get that. The pattern pack is a DIGITAL DOWNLOAD in a PDF format that you print out on your own printer. The pack includes all the cut patterns as well as 6 different floral patterns.

Complete DG LeatherCraft March Tooling Series

Posted March 31, 2020 by don Gonzales

Our “Tooling Series” videos are back in March! In this tooling series video, i go through my entire tooling process. In each video we will work through a certain number of stamping tools to complete the pattern shown in the video. In March, we are tooling a much requested skull… with a twist… this one is wear an indian headdress.

This series will show techniques for not only floral tooling, but also detail work of tooling a skull as well as getting realistic feathers. When this pattern is completed, we will do a video showing the paint and dye work on a piece like this.

Take a moment and click the link below to grab your FREE copy of this pattern in a PDF format. Just enter your email address and you can download and print your copy of this pattern and then tool along with us through this series. Here is that link to grab the digital pattern for FREE: https://dg.jonmensing.com/marchtoolingseries/ Continue reading →

How to make a Pistol Case with Maker’s Leather Supply

Posted November 18, 2019 by don Gonzales

The product line at DG Saddlery over the years has included many types of leather goods. We have designed and created knife scabbards, pistol holsters, belts, home decor, harness, tack and of course saddles. One type of item that we attempted many times are zippered type bags. This item not being my area of expertise, we were able to make something that worked but wasn’t at the level that we wanted to create. Because of this, we as a company many times would stay away from taking orders on any type of zippered bag.

I have recently decided that I would like to finally gain the skill set needed to be able to create projects with zippers incorporated. We were in Waco, TX recently to make a video with Aaron at Maker’s Leather supply on Sewing Machine Selection. While we were there, Aaron and I decided to do a collaboration video together building a project. He came up with the perfect project for our visit.

This video is our collaboration on the making of a pistol case. This particular pistol case holds two pistols and zips closed. This was a great project that allowed me to gain more knowledge about installing zippers in bag design. Continue reading →

Basket Stamp Around an Object or Figure the Easy Way

Posted October 17, 2019 by don Gonzales

Learning to Basket Stamp leather is relatively straightforward and one of the first decorative skills we learn in leatherwork. This tool and the design that it creates has been around for well over a century and works great to cover a project quickly and easily.

One of the more challenging tasks that come up in some projects is Basket Stamping around a brand, figure or object that is in the middle of a piece. Many times this can lead to a pattern that becomes off course and just doesn’t seem to work. This can lead to a project, or at least a piece of it, having to be remade to correct the mistake in the pattern. Continue reading →

Figure Carving a Horse Head into Leather Video 3

Posted July 18, 2019 by don Gonzales

Here is a much requested video from your suggestions both here and on our facebook page! For the July Leather Tooling Series we are showing how to figure carve a horse’s head into leather. I am not the greatest figure carver out there and I still have a lot to learn on the subject, but I will attempt to show you what I do know. After that, you can seek out guidance from some of the greats out there… and there are many amazing figure carvers that you can learn from. Jim Linnell and Peter Main would be the two that I would highly recommend checking out if you haven’t already.

Here is a link to Jim Linnell’s website

You can find Peter Main on facebook

If you would like to tool along with us in this tooling series, here is a link to a FREE copy of this pattern Click Here.

Just enter your email address and we will shoot that out to you. It is a PDF file that you can download and print on your own printer.

This is video #3 in this series.

Tools used in this video:

-Modeling tool – Peter Main

-Modeling tools

-Craftool Thumbprint

Here is the photo of the horse in the pattern for you to use as reference.

The model for this project is an unknown Bay Gelding that resided on a place that borders us. I just liked the way the horse looked and took many photos of him for artwork reference. Not sure what happened to him, but we haven’t seen him in a long time… I like to think that he is somewhere on the rodeo trail or maybe just retired and moved to Florida.

Online Leather Classes with DG LeatherCraft Academy

Posted July 13, 2019 by don Gonzales

The biggest request we get is “Do we offer any Leather Classes?”

I’m going to cut right to the chase… we have a Big Announcement to make this month. After a year or better of researching, planning, cussing, discussing and finally building… we are finally ready to reveal the biggest digital project we have ever created.

Based on the inquiry for leather classes and feedback that we have gotten over the years from amazing fellow LeatherHeads like you, we felt there was a real need in our industry for this type of product. It took us some time to choose the right platform as well as build out all the components that go into creating something like this so that it offers the most value with the least amount of hassle on your end.

We think that we have done just that!

I would like to introduce our newest addition to DG LeatherCraft,

DG LeatherCraft Academy is our new platform where we can create Online Courses that go in depth on different topics and areas of leather craft and design work. Much further than we can on our YouTube channel or on our blog. The Academy will be home to all of our future Premium Courses for those who want complete leather classes on particular topics and certain areas of the craft.

These courses will be completely online so that you can go through any of our leather classes at your pace on any device. No set dates, times or having to travel out of state. Once enrolled in a particular course, you can go through the curriculum all in one sitting in order… or you can do a lecture a day in any order you want. And when you complete the course, you can go back through it again anytime as many times as you want.

Worksheets for these leather classes can be downloaded and printed so that you can work along with us throughout the course. Then after completion you will have these sheets to reference if you need to. Continue reading →

Figure Carving a Horse Head into Leather Video #2

Posted July 9, 2019 by don Gonzales

Tooling a Saddle Cantle Back in Hyper Speed

Posted July 5, 2019 by don Gonzales

This is a Hyper Speed video of me tooling a saddle cantle back for a saddle I am making. This is the entire tooling process from start to finish at 500%… minus carving it in. The last one we did like this was the tooling of a belt and you guys seemed to like it so I thought I would show y’all this one. If you want to learn how to tool floral patterns into leather, then be sure to check out one of our tooling series playlists here on our channel. In this series, we explain in depth the tooling process and different tools used. Click Here to see our latest Tooling Series Project and get your free pattern to tool along with us.

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