Wearable art from coryinfinite on tiktok!

1-2. Spoon jacket

3-4. Keyboard jumpsuit

5-6. Penny pants

7-8. "X Marks The Vest"

Today I am showing a build along set for a recent custom order of bracers, The instructions were : To be, Matching, Viking(y) and signs of battle damage with round Brown leather lace and gold eyelets, inside left natural. had fun making these, Hope some of you out there will have a go at making these as they are actually easier to make than they might at first look. watch and see.

Firstly I purchased some ‘Veg Bellies’ from our local Tandy leather shop, these pieces are ideal for bracers as they are quite thick rugged pieces with some good natural markings and holes etc and they are relatively cheap £15 and the shape lends itself to getting at least two Bracers out of it.

Pic 1 : Many long time followers have probably already realised this but for the benefit of any newcomers, You can’t see it on these pics as I trimmed it but there is decorators tape on the back of these to prevent too much stretching whilst tooling and to prevent dye getting on the flesh side. As many of you who kindly follow my projects will already know, two things, firstly..I make a lot of these Bracers...love doing them and secondly..I can get so immersed in the project that I can forget to take pics as I go along, this being one such occasion..Sorry guys, as my school reports used to say..’must try harder’ lol. Yes I was so engrossed in the cutting and tooling I forgot but..if any newbies would like to see how the Carving/cutting and the tooling is done can I direct you to my archive where you will find many pictures of the Bracer projects and a few vid clips that will show how I do it, thanks. So here in pic 1 you are seeing the already tooled Viking heads with the horned Helmet and the crossed axes and a nice border design, with them in the background is the dyes I used, A medium brown Eco-Flo water stain dye and an antique brown to go on top with the leather Sheen to use as a fixer, I had no daubers at this time but it’s fine to use cotton balls with surgical clamp to hold them if needs be, as long as you don’t rub too hard the cotton doesn’t come off to any great extent.don’t forget your gloves and paper in-case of spillage...and you ‘will’ spill it..one day lol.

Pic 2 : here the Bracers have been dyed with the Medium brown, weirdly it always looks kinda red-ish, I waited for these to dry before doing anything else.

Pic 3 : On here you can see the ‘Battle worn’ part of the bracer, when I cut the leather I placed the template in such a way as to incorporate the Natural rough edge of the leather piece,also there is a natural hole through the nice edge design which is cool as looks like maybe an arrow could have got through it at some point, ( Ya gots ta have a good imagination to do these lol ) these work well to give the affect of old battle damaged areas. note also the marks along the outer edges for the eyelet hole placement.

Pic 4 : The customer asked for matching pictures on each but different ‘Battle scarring’ so on this one I used a large sharp knife from my collection and chopped the edge giving a ‘skimmed’ look to it.

Pic 5 : This shows the result after putting the antique coat on top of the first dye, I used a sponge and got lots on it, then rubbed it in a circular motion all over as quickly as I could then wiped it off just as fast, you can see the antique has gone into all the ‘detail’ marks making all the details stand out much more whilst still allowing the Brown color to come through, together they make a great old look.

Pic 6 My tiny work space, can’t wait to get my new workshop up and running..have to save for it yet.

Pic 7 : I used a Hand punch for making the holes and then a ‘setter’ punch to bend the backs of the eyelets over and fix them to the leather.

Pic 8 : As mentioned many times, I use a Canvas cloth to help shine my projects as it gives a burnished kind of shine to the piece. note ll the eyelets are now set and the edges have been dyed very carefully using a cotton bud to avoid getting it on the flesh side of the piece. You have to be careful doing the edges as this is the time you are more likely to get dye on the wrong bit. When all the dying is done, remove the tape from the back before fixing the eyelets.

Pic 9 : Both Bracers finished , Matching design, battle scarred, Gold eyelets and Brown dye,ready for the Lace.

Pic 10 : Gave the Customer two options for lace, a flat lace..which could have been done in the brown or the Round Brown lace, they still chose the round brown lace.

The Leather Factor: Delighted Original Year! 2018

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