COMPLETE - Leatherworking Badge

Leatherworking Badge - Troop #346 (now called LeatherCrafting Badge)

Scout Name: Paul-Meronym

Costs: leather, crafting materials, patch

1. World - Learn about different types of leather. What are some different animals that are used for leather, and what are the differences in them? Journal about your findings. What is your favorite type of leather, where is it from, what do you like about it?

- Some animals used for leather are: deer (tough & water-resistant), cow (nubuck retains some hair for a velvety surface, Russia leather has extra oiling step), buffalo/bison (thick and spongy), pig, lamb,kangaroo, slink (unborn calves), goat (soft but tough), elk, snakes, crocodiles, ostriches (goose bump look), stingray (abrasive), shark

Leather types:
- buckskin/brained leather - tanned soft hide, smoked heavily
- patent leather - has high-gloss finish, usually has a plastic coating
- boiled leather - gets very hard - good for armor
- rawhide - not actually leather because it hasn't been tanned - scraped, soaked in lime, and stretched
- fish leather - used for shoes & bags - rawhide - not actually leather because it hasn't been tanned - scraped, soaked in lime, and stretched

Tanning types:
- chrome-tanned/oil-tanned - oils & waxes applied during tanning to add water resistance - 80% of global leather supply
- vegetable-tanned - suitable for stamping or carving, but can be damaged by water
- aldehyde-tanned, formaldehyde-tanned, chamois leather - water-absorbent 
- synthetic-tanned - usually white
- brain-tanned  - very soft and washable

I don't think I have a favorite kind of leather so far, but I know the big girls in my system really like buffalo hide floggers because they're really thick and spongy, which gives a heavy thuddy feeling.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Leather

2. Explore - Brainstorm and list different kinds of things that can be made of leather, write a journal entry or collect pictures in an online sharable photo hub to show off your findings. What are some common things made of leather? What are some uncommon things?

Things made out of leather:
- garments: shoes, vests, jackets, gloves, skirts, pants, shirts, belts
- containers: bags, wallets, scabbards, holsters
- horse gear: saddles, halters
- kink stuff: floggers, whips, dragontails/tongues, cuffs, paddles
- other things: book covers, wallpaper, furniture coverings, armor, drum heads, parchment, dog chews, car interiors

3. Diligence - What tools and supplies are needed for creating things out of leather? What kind of safety concerns should be considered? Come up with a safety check list for you to use each time before starting any leatherwork.

Tools/Supplies: 
- General - protective board or mat, paper towels, trash can, flexible light, nitrile gloves
- Cutting - box cutter, sharpie or leather marker, paper for pattern-making, scotch tape
- Edge finishing - Edge Kote, applicator stick, alcohol, edge beveler, wood slicker
- Eyelets - leather marker, ruler, paper & pencil (for math), eyelet parts, eyelet tools, hammer, rotary holepunch
- Lacing - leather lace, scissors/box cutter
- Tooling - water spray bottle, stylus, swivel knife, plastic wrap, scotch tape, ruler/straight-edge, modeling spoon, mallet
- Coloring - antiquing gel, paint, paintbrushes
- Affixing - anvil, hammer, copper rivets, rivet setter, rotary holepunch, side-dikes

Safety Checklist:
- first aid supplies available
- phone nearby
- will anything have odors (may need to be done outside)?
- be sure box cutter is sharp at all times
- cover any surfaces to protect from cutting or dye/stain/paint

4. Mentorship - Have someone teach you to create something small out of leather. Make sure you pay attention to how they taught you so that you can teach someone else. After you complete your lesson write a journal on how you liked your lesson, would you change anything when you teach it?

- Boss taught me to braid strands of kangaroo leather around a paracord shell core. It's a four-strand braid, the same kind of braid used for bolo ties, and he got bolo ends to put at the end of them. The plan was to make the braids and then use them to lace our new vests' sides. But my braiding, because I'm less experienced, wasn't as tight as his braiding, and the braids I made won't fit through the eyelets. Boss has some ideas on how to improve them.

If I were teaching the four-strand bolo braid to someone else, I would probably start with some shoelaces or something that are easier to work with and less expensive. I'd stress that you have to tighten it up really frequently, not just every now and then. As I learned to tighten up more often - and how to tighten it up- my braids got much better.

5. Community - Work together with someone to make something of leather that can be used in a scene. When you are able to play with your new leather creation make sure to tell your play partner the story of your leatherworking badge work.

 - We went to a class/workshop at Tandy Leather to start building a pair of floggers. Of course, the girls in my system will be doing the playing with them. It required a lot of hand and arm strength to do the work. At the class at Tandy, we made the handles by wrapping leather around a wooden dowel piece, then tacking it on. We used a tool to cut strips in the hides for the falls.

At home, we worked on attaching the floggers. The first option was to wrap the two-inch strip at the top around the end of the handle, but that looked bad, so we wrapped it around a piece of metal rod instead, and drilled a hole in the handle to attach it. But we started with rubber cement to hold it, and that wasn't strong enough, so we went out and bought some epoxy to make it hold.

After the epoxy cured and the handles were really well attached, we took off the strings. Then I hung up the floggers and trimmed the ends a bit shorter. It's like giving an upside-down haircut! Also, I learned that even with scissors, I really can't cut a straight even line...

But finally we finished the floggers! We took a strip of the green leather that I used to make my sash wrapped the junction of the handle and falls, then put a few tacks in the end of the strip.

And we finally played with the floggers. We used one of them as a top - despite it being amateur-made, it threw pretty well. The handles are a little long, but they also gave it some pretty good weight. We were able to control it pretty well. We felt one and two of them as a bottom - and they hit much heavier than you would expect, maybe because of the handles? The falls have a really spongy hit with very little sting to them, and maybe because there are so many of them, really grab and hang on. These are medium-to-heavy floggers, and we thought they'd be light floggers when we first started making them.

6. Selflessness - A handmade gift is always a treasure. Share your new craft with a friend. Make something out of leather that requires dying or painting and gift it to someone.

- First I made something for me that required both dying and painting, so that my best effort could go to someone else. I made numbers for my troop sash; and then I made another set to give to another scout!



7. Benevolence - Practice care and keeping in a way that you want to excel at. Give someone else's leather some tender love and care.

- I keep Boss's boots and our vests taken care of pretty often. See my bootblacking badge page for more on that. http://paulsls.blogspot.com/2017/09/in-progress-bootblacking-badge.html

8. Create - Create a brand new something you can wear from leather - like a troop sash.

- We took a pattern we found online for a kid's scout sash, and made it longer. I traced and cut it out from butcher's paper. We taped it together, then made some folds and lines and taped those. Then we made a new set of paper patterns and taped it together. 

The second paper template fit a lot better, so then we traced it onto the leather and cut it out with the box cutter.

Boss gave me three options for finishing the edges. Double the width of the sash and fold it over into a tube, putting the seam on the inside - but that uses twice the leather and is twice as expensive. Fold the edges over and sew a sort of hem - but we don't have a leather sewing machine, and my hand sewing probably won't look pretty. 

The third option is to use Edge Kote to basically paint a black rubber on the edges to seal them in. I went with the Edge Kote. Unfortunately, I had to do it outside (because it smells), and I did it at twilight, and got really eat up by bugs!

Then I measured out and punched seven holes in each end, then hammered eyelets into the holes.

I cut leather lacing to about three times the width of the sash and laced the two ends together. Boss is going to add a patch to where the brand is to strengthen the leather there, but he had to do that because of the contact cement and our allergies.

With the patch glued to the back and the lacing done, I printed out our troop number on paper to see what it would look like - and my sash is done and ready to put patches on!


9. Advocate - Write about creating things out of leather and share it with the troop, compile your journal entries on the subject as a talking point about the importance of this craft.

- I shared this blog entry with the troop at https://fetlife.com/groups/144714/group_posts/12595205.

- I did find a leathercrafting group in the area - South Central Leathercrafters' Guild. They sometimes meet at Tandy Leather. They are not a kink-related organization, though. But maybe we'll go to one of their events soon.

10. Self - Oh the places you’ll go! You’ve got the sash now you want to attach all your awesome awards. Learn how to attach badges and patches to your new sash.

-After making our troop number to go on the sash, I attached it with copper rivets and put both my mascot red panda pin and my Little Scouts pin on it.

- I attached my first badges to the front using Badge Magic. It held the patches onto the sash fine, but the patches I put on my leather vest began coming loose after a few months, so I had to sew them.

For this, I used a leather needle I bought online and some translucent synthetic thread that Boss had. At first I started putting the needle in the back through the liner, the leather, and the patch, but it tore the embroidery on the patch pretty badly! Then I figured out that I needed to push the needle through the liner and leather, but come through just missing the patch, then loop it over the edge of the patch and push down through the patch, leather, and liner. So the first edge of a patch I did is all torn-looking, but after that, it got better. I sewed two patches onto my leather vest.

http://leathersupreme.com/how-to-put-on-patches-for-leather-jackets/

Here's the sash with a bunch of patches stuck on with Badge Magic:

http://www.advantageemblem.com/fun-patches/S-1112-leather-crafts-bag-and-shoe.asp