Scratch made 100% custom leather pauldron

[TK-3855[TK]]

Im posting this here to see what the forum thinks. I wanted to make a trooper who could wear a pauldron that wasn't a sandy so here is the place. I wanted to put my leatherwork skills to the test as its been my hobby for the past 6 years. I got the idea to make a custom pauldron from seeing several standard pauldrons with event patches glued to them. I thought it would be neat to make a pauldron with my TKID and my Garrison crest. Im currently working on a second for my unit CO. This took an extreme amount of time due to all the saddle stitching being done by hand and not machine so I don't know believe I could consider going into mass production of these by any means. However I will keep the forum posted on my progress of different leatherwork possibilities.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

What do you think?

[Quebectrooper]

That is some serious amazing work !

 

I'd like to have that inside my holster but all black so when my blaster is out you can see it !

Edited January 2, 2011 by Quebectrooper

[dashrazor]

very nice work

[TKCaleb]

very nice man! looks great!

[SuperTrooper]

Your leather skills are fantastic.

[TK-3855[TK]]

Thanks so much! I also tooled the Cog and my TKID on my E-11 holster as well If you want any help or advice or How-to about making one yourself let me know

[bluehickey]

Looks fantastic, very impressive!

[Daetrin[Admin]]

Creative and very well done

[SolderMaster]

Impressive......Most impressive!

[Dargas[501st]]

I want to know!!!

 

I'm about to make my first TK pauldron and I would LOVE to have the imperial cog etched in it like that!

 

I already have the leather at home, I just need to know how to etch it like that! Awesome!

[john danter]

Are these troopable with your GML and garrison or are they just for display and stuff?

[Laspector[TK]]

Oh Wow! That is SWEET!!!

[carbonitekid]

Are these troopable with your GML and garrison or are they just for display and stuff?

 

 

I would have to second this question.

[SuperTrooper]

You couldn't wear it for your 501st profile pictures or at canon events, but there shouldn't be a problem for non-canon events which most Legion events are.

[Locitus[Admin]]

In nordic garrison 80% or so of our troops are considered semi-canon. Meaning no pauldron and absolutely no bucket off. The only real difference for us between the common semi-cannon and our cannon events is that I may lend my suit to someone else who is a member or supporter for them to troop in, as long as I take responsibility for their behavior.

 

End of off topic.

 

Super nice pauldron! Would look awesome on a HWT!

[carbonitekid]

Here in the UK we do not distinguish between the 2.

ALL our troops are treated as if they were "canon" events.

[TK-3855[TK]]

Wow, ok so its been a little bit since I looked at my post on how to make one of these. I'll see what I can do to post the pics to give a tutorial on how to tool the leather like I did for my pauldron. Basically you first need to create a stencil of what you want on the leather once you have the shape of leather cut out how you want it. You then wet the leather, and taking a stylus, you copy the image over to your leather. From there, you take a swivel knife to lightly cut the major lines of the design into you leather. From there you take a beveling tool and a mallet around the outer edges of your design, compressing the leather to make the main image stand up and out off the "background" From there you take what ever other tools to create different effects, such as a pear to give the background (like on my pauldron) the hammered look within the cog. From there, leather stain or paint the parts you want painted. Then I use a spray on Leather Shene by Fiebling's to protect the color and give it that shiny look. From there, the black parts of my pauldron were created by cutting 2 pieces of black died pigskin into the appropriate shapes. Holes were punched through the cowhide leather as well as the pig to give lines of holes to created the necessary pattern. As I stitched I filled each pocket with a poly-fill used for pillows. The piping around the outside was creating by cutting long strips of pigskin with 3 roles of holes punched through it (in addition to a matching row of holes through the cow). I used 2 needles in a simple hand saddle stitch to get through the stitching since i don't have a $1500 leather sewing machine. 3 hole rows go through the pigskin due to how you wrap it around the cowhide. Its flipped into an "e" shape around the cow. So the top is fold in to give you a straight edges so that your needle will go through (from top to bottom) Row 2 Pig-> Row 1 Pig -> Cowhide -> Row 3 of Pig. I'll do what i can to create a picture tutorial. If you have any questions feel free to write back in the meantime

[TrintEastwood]

You are an artist, that leather peice looks amazing!

[stormtrooperguy[501st]]

Great work on this!

 

I found a fun cheat when I'm hand stitching heavy leather... I use one of those little rolling stitch gauge markers, then use a drill press with a laser cross hair to pre-punch the holes. Makes it much easier to keep on pushing through.

 

On the note of trooping in it, it's always interesting to see what each garrison does with this. In my area we are very informal unless the event expressly calls for it. We don't go bucket off in front of people unless it's at a con, but we let our troops wear non-canon accessories most of the time.