22/11/2009 by Paul Carpenter.

I guess there is alot of people getting all excited about the release of the new AC2 and probably for some good reasons!!!

Our kids have been looking forward to its release for months and as with other similar fads they have had over the years we had to paint them on their walls, including the new assassin. Not quite as detailed as the real thing (atleast real on a computer screen) but it made them happy for a 5 minutes.

The first wall paintings we did were of bugs life, dinasaurs, disney, thomas the train, sonic - the list is endless. Below are a few of the results, not great to start with but I think they have improved over the years;

For all those who do have kids and the new AS2, good luck!!!!!!

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08/11/2009 by Paul Carpenter.

Finally got round to writing the leather armour PDF. I have not really written alot in thuis one, depending more on the numerous photos to portray my methods and it really is’nt a beginners project more for the semi experianced leather craftsman because as stated above I have not included alot of explaination.

Saying that tho, depending on how visually aware you are, a beginner might get alot out of it but I would advise looking at my other tutorials about carving and the steel knives as I don’t cover that in this tutorial.

Leather Armour tutorial

Just completed this fictitious ad print for the armour while playing around photoshop, and saved it as a PDF - might get a laugh out of it if you have my sense of humour!!!!

black armor advert

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06/11/2009 by Paul Carpenter.

Apologies, since starting back to school have had little time for posting or even making any leather stuff, so thought I would talk alittle about some past pictorial leather carving.

Have been carving leather for about 5 years now, started off easy with some Al Stohlman designs and then progressed to other projects as dictated by past customers, family and friends. Most of the carving was based around the A4 size which is good practise for saddles, books etc as shown above but as my skills got better, so did my carvings.

from the start I only used the contours created by the carving to give my pictures that 2D look but after 2 years or so started to push the leather in from the back to help improve the look of various subjects giving them more of a rounded feel such as the horse in the plain Indian scene at the top. It also help improve my portrait subjects.

Only did a few portraits but I do not apologise for using the great John Wayne as my favourite subject - I used the pushing out of the leather from the back method on both these carvings of him and they did improve their feel, look and texture, especially the poster size one which otherwise would of had alot of flat surface on it.

Probably seems strange to mix the old with the new, but I include the bike carving because apart from the pack horse carving above (A5 size) this bike carving is probably the most technical I have done mostly due the small area I was trying to carve alot of detail into.

The last big project I did was the shield for Robert Low and that was about a year ago - I think if I tried to do some of the carvings above again they would not turn out so well - like everything it is practise, practise.

Paul

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27/09/2009 by Paul Carpenter.

This a project I did a few years ago after making a few just like it with peoples names on them instead of ‘Scotland’. This was the first as way of a sort of trial which to the trained eye is evident by the uneveness of the braids - turned out to be more differecult to try and keep 28 strings in-line at once. Got there in the end with the others as shown in the second photo but it is a shame that the patterns did’nt quite turn out as expected on the string one.

I could only find a photo of the top of the last one - apart from the pine cone carving, there was also some braiding below it.

Since doing these I have done a few others and are very enjoyable to make - unlike with making braided belts or whips or if using rawhide, I can take my time, need very little force and can leave them for weeks or finish quite easily in a day - plus with fid work they are so much easier to alter incase of mistakes, unlike knots.

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22/09/2009 by Paul Carpenter.

Set off again on another little stroll amongst the highest Scotland has to offer and despite the onset of dark clouds and constant winds, the day did’nt turn out too bad, that and the fact it had been over a year since I’d ascended these sort of amounts.

set off about from the usual spot at the ski centre car park and made my way up the ski runs then over the plateau and down into loch Avon - the steep path down to the loch is very slippery or it was the last time I used it in winter when it was covered in ice, but today even a few dry days had made it slightly more passable.

From there went onto Loch Etchachan - I had planned to walk upto Beinn Mheadhoin but changed my mind and continued to Ben Macdui. from there made my way to the equally steep path down into coire an Sneachda, the same path I used to on my last walk.

Eventually got back to the car park 5 hours after leaving, not feeling too bad at that time - not so the next day when the muscle’s around my knee’s just did’nt want to work.

The only bad thing maybe about the cairngorms on a bonny autunm day is the crowds that gather there; upon reaching the last steep path, it did seem like a shopping spree in piccadilly circus with reindeer added in for amusement - winter is best time here for me. When most visitors are just there for the crags and rock climbs, the slopes and hills are left virtually empty and on a clear snog free day, the sights are great.

For any body who also likes walking in scotland, and the rest of the UK I have found this site to be very useful; http://www.walkhighlands.co.uk/

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19/09/2009 by Paul Carpenter.

After messing around with the cow and Buffalo horn in the making of the armor, I thought it would be great to try something more traditional - hence the drinking horn. The one shown can hold 1 1/2 pints of whisky (or any other beverage). After a day scraping and filing the outer layers off this great looking black streak revealed its self.

The two knots are a sort of heel knot with a 6 string strap attached, probably about as much viking as the western style concho I used to attach one end of the strap, but I,m not viking either!

Lastly I finally managed to one, get my son in the armour and two, have a nice warm day (a rare event indeed in Scotland this summer) to get a photo of the finished piece. I did enjoy making it but am also very glad that it is finished, I do plan at some point to write a tutorial about making it but it will be a biggy so will wait awhile until I have a few days free.

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07/09/2009 by Paul Carpenter.

I guess it must seem as if I’m having a quiver bing at the moment, but it’s probably just a spert of energy - or some may hope going by some of the idea’s I’ve had thus far. Unfortunatly the wierd and wonderful idea’s just keep coming, this new quiver being the lastest.

I have decided in my wisdom to call it the ‘Fanorientern’ mainly because their are eastern, western and fantasy elements or influences within it. In regard to the materials and design, the horn is from India, the leather from Italy and the design just poped out of some where! As for the carvings, well they are obvious, a chinese archer on pegasus figthing a dragon! could’nt be more unlikely a situation.

Also managed to finish the boots for the black armour, which prtetty well means that project is finally over and done with - After this mini monsoon we seem to be getting is over I might have a chance to get a photo with my son wearing it all - but for now here are the boots - Not totally perfect but they fit and did’nt work out to bad for my first attempt at boot making.

Paul

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27/08/2009 by Paul Carpenter.

As part of the Armour, I made some horn clip piece’s which when sewn onto the Quiver enabled the bow to be attached unstrung and strung. I am not sure if this could be done with other types of bows which have profiles but with my horse bow which is rectangular with flat widths and covered in leather, the horn pieces seemed to work very well keeping hold of the bow when not in use but still allowing quick removal when in use.

I liked the idea so much that I used the same idea on my hip quiver for field archery - only this time I just used one longer horn piece and still holds the bow quite firmly. Below are pictures of the these horn pieces in action on the armour quiver and my hip quiver.

I can upon the idea for these horn pieces after much thought of how to attach the bow on the armour quiver - regardless of the fact that the armour is for a kid who may never actually ride a horse let alone use the bow while riding (despite the enthusiam of such a thing from one of our horse owner friends) I tried to see the attaching of the bow from the perspective of a mongol archer or more importantly from my perspective and how I might like the bow to be stored enabling not only a secure way to keep the bow while not in use but also when it may be called into use.

Leather straps were of course the first idea but they would mean fasteners in some fashion or loops of leather both meaning that the whole quiver would have to be removed or someone else would have to remove it for me, so hence the horn clips, could use plastic or metal but horn seemed more in keeping with the whole armour.

I did try stream bending the tops of horn (which are fairly thin) but the result kept breaking, so in the end I just sawed rectangular blocks from the tips of horn then using a wood drill bit the same diameter as the thickness of the bow limbs, first drilled a hole then sawed out a groove, smoothed down and polished. On the armour quiver I attached the clips by rawhide, but on my quiver I used leather lace. Quite simple really, probably not unique but they do a great job and leave both my hands free so I still use them to alaberate on all those high tales of adventure! 

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20/08/2009 by Paul Carpenter.

After much deliberation, I decided to fix on a leather handle to the knife below by the use of a rawhide knot and not just any normal small knot but a whopping 32 bight one - I could of very well just sewn a strip of leather on but thats just to simple for me. Plus have’nt played around with rawhide lace for awhile now and it was good practise.

The first photo is of the blade and horn sheath, the second of the finished article with the knot tigthen on, the third photo is of the knot striaght off of the mandrel that I used to tie it on.

Thge mandrel is 2 inches in diameter and the nails were placed 4 inches apart. Lace was 3.5mm wide and the length about 8m, altho it is best to just wind the lace around all the nails to get a better idea of length ( I forgot to measure it!!). I just used the 13 bight 12 part pineapple knot pattern shown in one of my tutorials - fid work and braiding knife handles plus lace prep - After following it for awhile you should see the pattern being formed.

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18/08/2009 by Paul Carpenter.

Amazing how you can spent weeks making odd bits of something while trying to visualise what the finished article will look like or even work and then within a day the whole thing comes together - still got a few fitting prob’s to sort out but over all I’m quite pleased with it. Now just the boots.

Oh and if you ever make something like this for a kid and the new stiffness of the leather makes them stand like a robot - put on some spice girls music - got my kid dancing!!!!

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