Rock Harris wrote: "The only thing giving me fits because I haven't come upon a
good process is sharpening my head knife. (a half moon knife that is emblematic
of the leatherworking profession). I thought woodworking meant a lot of
sharpening, then I started making leather objects. Woof. I can see why razor
blades used by the hundreds is standard among hobbyists like me."

Get a copy of "Leathercraft Tools: *How to Use Them *How to Sharpen Them." by Al
Stohlman. This gets across far more of the basics of leather tools than any
other source I know. It is a kind of book that normally drives me to agonies of
contempt, lots and lots of pictures and comparatively little text. But Stohlman
had the touch, he is concise in his pictures and concise in his text and
everything needed is there (I think, a memory of the first times I used the
book) and it is all correct (ditto). In the same category, as an absolute
essential, is his "The Art of Hand Sewing Leather." I think I had learned most
of what he has in the book before I discovered Stohlman, a fact or two at a time
from a dozen different books, none of which had more to offer than that one
isolated fact. But Stohlman gives a whole.

Most of Stohlman's other books are "project" books, and I could care less.
Project books have always bored me and struck me as unnecessary. And Stohlman's
biggest focus was on Western-style leather carving and, well, lets just say he
wasn't Frederick Remington. But on basic leatherworking technique he is
unmatched. No one else can even be compared.

Leatherworking has suffered from a two-angle learning slope. It is very easy to
learn how to do some simple basic things, and have a bit of fun for a while. But
to go from those simple things to work that is really rewarding for a long
period, the level of technique to be learned is staggering. Leather is one of
the most versatile and profound materials, but it demands high skill to get the
best out of it, or even to advance beyond laced-edge keyholders.  The difficulty
in learning to sharpen a head knife is sort of emblematic of the difficulties,
in a way, just as the knife itself is (as you say) emblematic of the whole
craft. In America in the last century the craft went through cycles of
popularity, and with each cycle there was a generation of "teachers" who had
never tackled the second, steeper, slope, and each generation knew less and less
technique. By now, it is hard to recover the lost skills. Compare the horribly
crude work of a storefront sandlemaker of the 1970s with some of the sixty-to-
the-inch stitching on English riding boots of the nineteenth century, shown in
John Waterer's Leather Craftsmanship (New York: Praeger, 1968), the best
introduction I know to the deep possibilities of leather.

Waterer writing in the 1960s said that saddlers had preserved more of the heavy-
leather skills than anyone else, and bookbinders more of the light-leather
skills. That still looks pretty much true to me (though skilled bookbinding is
under assault from weekend-workshop "book artists"). I suspect that skilled
saddlery will survive as long as there are saddles at all. After all, if a
saddler isn't skilled, a horse gets a sore back. No arguing with that, no real
way to say "I like it better that way," and a great big financial hit if you
have to throw a saddle away and try to make a better one.

Tom Conroy(not a real leatherworker, not for heavy leather, but at least a
little way up that second, steeper, slope).