Tuesday, August 26, 2008

How to "Tool" Leather

What does the term "leather tooling" mean and how is leather tooled ?

Step1
Just what is Custom Leather Tooling ? The American Heritage Dictionary defines with word custom as something made according to the specification of an individual purchaser. Leather is dressed or tanned animal hide. Tooling in our case is ornamentation done with tools on leather. So we when we speak of a Custom Leather Tooled belt we speak of a leather belt made to the specification of our customer and embossed or decorated by carving or using dies and tap hammers.

Some of the tools used to emboss or tool leather include: a swivel knife, venier, beveller, pear shader, seeder, cams, backgrounder, dies and tap hammers. The swivel knife is held in the hand like a pencil and dragged along the leather to outline patterns. The other tools are punch-like instruments which are struck with a maul or mallet to further add definition to the lines.

Very common leather designs in the United States are stylized roses and acanthus that make up the well known Western Floral style. At LeatherBeltsDirect we offer our own version of this style. It comes as a tooled design on the belt with the option of an additional second color that gives the belt a rich, two toned effect. We also offer our own versions of geometric and basket weave designs.


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