madPete

you should try the shellac again, sounds like Miranda had good luck with it

believe it or not that wool hat was a large size and had an Old Navy tag in the liner 3.99 at Goodwill

I've been using Olive oil as a substitute for Neatsfoot oil. The added benefit is if you leave it in the sun, it darkens and ages to a beautiful dark brown without stain. Stain goes on very uneven. So I started pretreating the leather with water or oil (depending on the dye base) and the dye absorbs more evenly. But even then its a PITA. Since I was treating with oil anyway I experimented with some belts and discovered how nice the leather ages with just oil. The flip side is it does have a slight smell of olive oil, at least initially, and you dont want to leave olive oiled leather lying around where rodents can get to it or they will chew it. (i.e. in the barn with horses)

and here is another goodwill hat I just stiffened. I squared the top a bit and rolled the back side down, front side up. Just a desperate pyrate cook I be!

Here are the knife roll and utility bag after smearing them with olive oil...

I normally do olive oil. But i have some aussie leather conditioner so will have to spot check

I'll probably oil it at some point. I'll test on a sample.

Could have fooled me. Sure looks like you could. Here is the finished knife roll and utensils bag...

Excellent, looks like a successful effort! I swear by it, cause its so easy to sneak up on the shape you want!

ooooh... aaaahhhh... Nice gussets!😁 Have some large rubber bands or string handy and/or some blocks that you can prop up the brim after soaking it thoroughly. Let it dry and evaluate. Repeat until you are happy with stiffness. Once its close, you can do smaller sections at a time and shape them. I made a wooden hat block that shapes the crown flat and holds the size. I've used it a couple times now. By the way I found another black felt hat at Goodwill today. Not sure I will have time to do anything this time around, but its a larger size so at least I dont need to stretch it.

The mens shoes look like the same maker as mine. They have worn well so far and have to be 6-7 years old.

But, can you bounce a quarter off that private!?!

That looks cushy! and it reminds me. I need to make leather straps for mine...

more progress. This is the knife roll. It has space for the Big Mike Knife, which isnt available right now, and some sort of sharpening stone TBD. A couple of these knives are Russell "Green River" blades for which I made plain maple handles a while back. There is the cleaver and another set of 3 modern blades with the name polished off. The black leather will be attached at the top and fold over the blades as pic 2 shows. The end flaps fold in and there will be a leather tie on the outside once rolled up...

Made some progress today... I used distressed leather since it was less expensive and will likely get beat up in travel anyway. Next to the partially stitched bag, the utensils sandwiched together, to see how they will fit. I may punt on the extra bag for the wood spoons, I think they will all fit in the top end of the bag. Originally, I was going to make the top half smaller around til I realized the spoons still have to go thru the opening🫣

yeah, I know its not "kosher". but we needed one for a lot of potatoes.

Now that I have all these cooking utensils, I need something to hold them and ship or pack in (There's waaay more than photo shows). #1 originally thought I would make a big tool roll to hold them all, but the size and shape of the forged spoons and spatula made me rethink. So now I've decide to do a knife roll (being separate allows me to ship knive if necessary) kinda like #2 photo a tall skinny utensil bag for the spoon/strainer/fork/spatula/masher (similar to a ditty bag but taller wiht round bottom) #3 a small portmanteau case to hold the wooden spoons, measures. serving items #4 hopefully I can get it all done before 1721. The ditty bag will be easy, as will the knife roll, the portmanteaus usually take some time.

guess I missed that!