Horsewright
Knifemaker / Craftsman / Service Provider
- Joined
- Oct 4, 2011
- Messages
- 11,678
I've been talking a lot with several folks lately about basket stamping. Finished all my Christmas orders and got em shipped, so I thought I'd take a few pics and do a little tutorial on how I basket stamp. Maybe help some other folks too besides the several I was talking with.
First I need to mention there are lots of ways of doing this. None of them are wrong. This is just a method that has developed and evolved over the years that works well in our shop, for us. My hope is that ya might find something here to help ya too.
So we're gonna be tooling a holster for 5" 1911 with a rail. This holster is for myself, so it got to wait for some down time. Our leather is Wicket and Craig 8/10 oz russet skirting. In this pic the stitching lines have been laid out, the top and bottom has been creased and edged and rubbed and the leather has been dampened with a water/Pro Carv solution. We are waiting a couple of minutes for the darker, more damp spot to even out.
First tooling we're gonna do is the border. This is where I move away from how basket stamping as traditionally done. Most folks will tell ya to do the basket stamping first and then do your border. I use to do it this way. I found that it took a lot more time and ya opened your self up to the chances of a lot more errors doing it that way. This occurred when ya had to come back and line up your basket stamp just so, and angle it just so, to get it right up to the border after you'd stamped the border. Doing the border first has proven, over time, to save time and give ya a more finished project because you are eliminating a lot of those chances of error. Here I'm using a regular camo border stamp on this holster and I stamp the four corners first. The top right is still a little damp but we can get to work. Just don't strike your stamp as hard there.
After each corner is stamped I come back with a small seeder behind each corner stamp. Not necessary, just a little something. Doing the border stamp itself is another place I kind of move away from tradition. Many folks and most books will tell ya to draw a line, cut it and bevel it for your border stamp. I quit doing this many years ago. I have thousands of projects out in the real world getting beat to death. I have cowboyed with guys that I'd made basket stamped leggings for many years prior. I started noticing that the cut and bevelled line was a place that used and abuse leather started cracking first. So I quit doing it. This deviation has helped my leather work to last longer when getting used hard. Another little trick that this pic shows is to border stamp towards each other. That is, just don't start on the left and go to the right corner. When you are starting to close in, alternate, one on the right, one on the left, one on the right etc. This will enable you to judge the spacing better and not have to squish the last one in a space smaller than the stamp or have a lot of excess space around the last one. It won't work every time, sometimes ya still gonna squish or blank space but about 8 out of 10 times I betcha its gonna help.
Ok got our border all stamped and now we're gonna need a pokey tool and a straight edge. Using the pokey tool and the straight edge, scribe a line across at an angle diagonally. I think that basket stamp done on the diagonal looks better. The only project I do straight is a belt. I admire guys that can stamp a belt diagonally and keep everything lined up. Its not easy and not often accomplished, so I go straight and scribe my line the whole length down the center of a belt.
Once you have your line scribed start at one end and stamp with your basket stamp with both prongs of the same side of the stamp, on the line. Then alternate side to side the whole length of the line. I rotate the project around 180 degrees each stamp so that I can make sure that the prongs are lined up on the line before stamping.
Another straying from tradition and most folks do this now a days but use to be that ya'd be told to overlap the prongs 1/10th of an inch or so. Most folks today and we do too, overlap the prongs completely. Much easier to get a uniform pattern that way than trying to guesstimate a 1/10th of an inch each time ya smack your stamp. So now I turn the project sideways and hold it down with my bean bags. Whatcha gonna do is fill in the blanks. You are literally gonna start at one end and put the tool into the prong impressions already stamped. Line everything up straight and stamp. I'll usually start on the left and go all the way to the right and then come back to the left. This allows me to more accurately fit in the stamping at the border. Angle your tool away from where you don't want to stamp when you get close and are doing the stamping close to the border.
Literally back and forth until you have filled in that upper space. Then flip your project over and do it again.
There, thats pretty much it.
I'll give it a visual look over and see if there is any over strikes into the border or any spots where I might have not got as close to the border as I wanted. I was good with that but did have a couple of overstrikes. So I stamped the border again. I have found that you get a much more uniform appearance if you stamp the entire border not just where ya have the overstrikes. Takes about a minute and a half cause ya already know where to put the stamp.
Thats pretty much it. Its not that difficult. Once you get some practice in ya can get some really good work done pretty darn quickly. If I wasn't stopping to take pics, I'd guess tooling that holster would take about ten minutes or so. Hope this little tutorial was some help to ya. Any questions or statements always welcome.
First I need to mention there are lots of ways of doing this. None of them are wrong. This is just a method that has developed and evolved over the years that works well in our shop, for us. My hope is that ya might find something here to help ya too.
So we're gonna be tooling a holster for 5" 1911 with a rail. This holster is for myself, so it got to wait for some down time. Our leather is Wicket and Craig 8/10 oz russet skirting. In this pic the stitching lines have been laid out, the top and bottom has been creased and edged and rubbed and the leather has been dampened with a water/Pro Carv solution. We are waiting a couple of minutes for the darker, more damp spot to even out.
First tooling we're gonna do is the border. This is where I move away from how basket stamping as traditionally done. Most folks will tell ya to do the basket stamping first and then do your border. I use to do it this way. I found that it took a lot more time and ya opened your self up to the chances of a lot more errors doing it that way. This occurred when ya had to come back and line up your basket stamp just so, and angle it just so, to get it right up to the border after you'd stamped the border. Doing the border first has proven, over time, to save time and give ya a more finished project because you are eliminating a lot of those chances of error. Here I'm using a regular camo border stamp on this holster and I stamp the four corners first. The top right is still a little damp but we can get to work. Just don't strike your stamp as hard there.
After each corner is stamped I come back with a small seeder behind each corner stamp. Not necessary, just a little something. Doing the border stamp itself is another place I kind of move away from tradition. Many folks and most books will tell ya to draw a line, cut it and bevel it for your border stamp. I quit doing this many years ago. I have thousands of projects out in the real world getting beat to death. I have cowboyed with guys that I'd made basket stamped leggings for many years prior. I started noticing that the cut and bevelled line was a place that used and abuse leather started cracking first. So I quit doing it. This deviation has helped my leather work to last longer when getting used hard. Another little trick that this pic shows is to border stamp towards each other. That is, just don't start on the left and go to the right corner. When you are starting to close in, alternate, one on the right, one on the left, one on the right etc. This will enable you to judge the spacing better and not have to squish the last one in a space smaller than the stamp or have a lot of excess space around the last one. It won't work every time, sometimes ya still gonna squish or blank space but about 8 out of 10 times I betcha its gonna help.
Ok got our border all stamped and now we're gonna need a pokey tool and a straight edge. Using the pokey tool and the straight edge, scribe a line across at an angle diagonally. I think that basket stamp done on the diagonal looks better. The only project I do straight is a belt. I admire guys that can stamp a belt diagonally and keep everything lined up. Its not easy and not often accomplished, so I go straight and scribe my line the whole length down the center of a belt.
Once you have your line scribed start at one end and stamp with your basket stamp with both prongs of the same side of the stamp, on the line. Then alternate side to side the whole length of the line. I rotate the project around 180 degrees each stamp so that I can make sure that the prongs are lined up on the line before stamping.
Another straying from tradition and most folks do this now a days but use to be that ya'd be told to overlap the prongs 1/10th of an inch or so. Most folks today and we do too, overlap the prongs completely. Much easier to get a uniform pattern that way than trying to guesstimate a 1/10th of an inch each time ya smack your stamp. So now I turn the project sideways and hold it down with my bean bags. Whatcha gonna do is fill in the blanks. You are literally gonna start at one end and put the tool into the prong impressions already stamped. Line everything up straight and stamp. I'll usually start on the left and go all the way to the right and then come back to the left. This allows me to more accurately fit in the stamping at the border. Angle your tool away from where you don't want to stamp when you get close and are doing the stamping close to the border.
Literally back and forth until you have filled in that upper space. Then flip your project over and do it again.
There, thats pretty much it.
I'll give it a visual look over and see if there is any over strikes into the border or any spots where I might have not got as close to the border as I wanted. I was good with that but did have a couple of overstrikes. So I stamped the border again. I have found that you get a much more uniform appearance if you stamp the entire border not just where ya have the overstrikes. Takes about a minute and a half cause ya already know where to put the stamp.
Thats pretty much it. Its not that difficult. Once you get some practice in ya can get some really good work done pretty darn quickly. If I wasn't stopping to take pics, I'd guess tooling that holster would take about ten minutes or so. Hope this little tutorial was some help to ya. Any questions or statements always welcome.
).
