Thank you for the comments everyone. They are very encouraging!
kaelln wrote:Pete's right, anything will mat it. In my experience, that's not necessarily a bad thing, but if you want it to continue looking like suede, don't put anything on it. OTOH, if waterproofing is more important to you, you can rub in shoe polish or mink oil, and you will wind up with something that looks like a kind of low grade leather, inexpertly tanned, but waterproof. Sort of like something a Ranger might have done for herself out in the wild, using just the materials she had at hand. So it depends on what you're going for.
That is funny you should say inexpertly tanned leather, because the courier pouch is made from Tandy's scrap leather from the bin that's 1 pound for 3 bucks and it was all pre-punched - so it IS badly tanned leather and not really suede. LOL I got some neatsfoot oil and I thnk I am going to treat it with that.
wulfgar wrote:When you say that it is "suede", is it actual suede or are you referring to flesh side of veg tan leather. It looks to me like it is a vegetable tanned leather with a smooth and a rough side. If it is veg tan, you will probably want to put something on it, like neatsfoot oil. I use a mixture of neatsfoot oil and beeswax. Imagine veg tan leather as your skin, your skin needs moisture and protection other wise it's gets hard and cracked.
Yes you are correct it is the flesh side of the leather and it is badly tanned - at least the front and back. The sides of the courier pouch are the good 4-5 oz. leather. So, can you explain further on how you do the neatsfoot oil and the beeswax? Do you put the oil on and then rub in the beeswax or do you melt the wax and mix it with the oil and then apply or do you do something else?
I would like to try that on my pouch.
Now here are some more pictures of stages two and three of the pouch: Tooling and dyeing...
So now it is down to the sewing part:
Hopefully I will have pics of the final sewing up by the end of the weekend.
I wasn't happy with the streaks in the dye job, but as it has dried it has grown on me. It makes it look more rustic and worn. I used the prefab clasp because I like the way they look and the ease of opening them and I didn't have anything else readily available.