Some Housekeeping

Hello, I just wanted to talk about a few things.  As I have mentioned before I wanted there to be a place where you can come to learn about leather craft and not worry that someone is trying to sell you something.  I want to clarify a little:

You will find that I don't always do things the "Tandy Way."  I take shortcuts.  Use one item instead of another.  One of my favorite food show hosts is Alton Brown and he is always looking for an easy convenient way of doing things.  He also hates the concept of "unitaskers."  Items that have been created and only can be used for one purpose.  (He often says the only "unitasker" in his kitchen is a fire extinguisher.)  I'm trying to take the same angle with leather craft.  Granted we can't get away from unitaskers as many of the tools were made for just one purpose.  But sometimes we can find another use for it.  Or maybe another tool can do it's job so we don't need it in the first place.  (When I was learning leather craft my instructor told me that when he was in boy scouts and he learned to tool leather from a professional leather crafter at this camp.  This professional showed them how to make wallets and use stones as mallets to tool the designs.  Talk about not using a unitasker!)

One example I will use is I don't have a piece of marble to lay under my projects as I tool them.  Almost every place you look they are telling you that you need marble or granite under you projects.  What you need is a sturdy table with something that you can place on it to take the abuse of your tooling.  (And forgiving family and friends as the banging can get loud.)  Yes, having marble or granite under your projects is ideal.  But ideal isn't something all of us can afford.  There may come a time when I'm at my local Tandy store and I have the extra cash to pick up a marble slab but for right now I don't.  So I work around it.  (I'm looking into the possibility of picking up a stone cheaper at a local Home Depot.  More on that later.)

I just want to provide you with some ideas to work around some of the issues you may come up with.  I want to approach a problem and see if there is another way to solve it instead of purchasing a fifty dollar tool that you will only use for that purpose.  And sometimes that fifty dollar tool is the only way.  When that happens I will point that out too.  Sometimes you just have to spend the money.

Also I wanted to address another point.  I may seem to be hard on Tandy but actually I'm a huge fan.  I get all my supplies from their stores and they have done a lot to further the interest of the craft.  They also are out to make money so sometimes their advice is with that in mind and not necessarily what you need.  That is why I'm here writing this blog.  They are not going to say, "Well you could accomplish this task if you have some basic rubber cement that you can get from any craft or big box store."  They are going to say, "You will need to pick up our special contact leather cement that you can get at your nearest Tandy location or check out our website."  I want to point those situations out.

Finally, as I have been doing leather craft for fifteen years I'm still learning.  I want you to learn from my mistakes as well.  I'm going to make them, I guarantee it.  So when I say it may not be the best idea to use a certain item in a certain situation it's probably because I did and found out for myself.

Well that is all for now.  I hope you enjoy this blog and please let me know if you have any feedback.

Happy Crafting!