KINGSMERE CRAFTS

More than anything else edges are what gets noticed. If you can get the edges right you are going in the right direction to be able to call yourself a craftsman, otherwise, forget it, you're a bodger. But once you've mastered the art of getting good edges, you've cracked it. That's what makes the difference, between the article you've made wearing well and lasting for years, or looking scruffy and falling apart within a very short time, and your customer never coming back.

A well-finished vegetable-tanned hide edge is one that has been bevelled, back as well as front, dyed (or stained using a permanent marker pen) and burnished. The burnishing can be done with a burnishing tool, which looks like a small wheel about 3" in diameter, these days usually made of plastic though there are wooden ones, and which is run back and forth along the dampened edge of the leather. You can use a flat stick-like one, also plastic or bone, but that wouldn't be my choice except on those occasions when part of an edge is inaccessible otherwise.


Wheel-like burnishing tool	Flat burnishing tool

Alternatively it can be done if the edge is dampened using gum tragacanth (this is obtained from any of the plants in the spiny leguminous genus Astragalus, especially A. gummifer of Asia, having clusters of white, yellow, or purple flowers, and yielding a substance that is made into a gum; you don't have to worry though, you can buy it in lots of craft's- or artist's-supplies shops!) instead of dye or water, and before it can completely soak in, is rubbed vigorously with a folded up piece of denim. This is what compresses the cut fibres and gives the edge a hard and glossy finish. You can also run beeswax along the edge before rubbing with the tool or the denim, but my own preference is not to do so.

Finishing your edges in this manner is particularly recommended when you are making vegetable-tanned hide belts. It must be done before punching any of the holes or attaching the buckle or keeper. It will take quite some time to do it properly, but the look and appearance of the finished article makes all the effort more than worth it, not to mention the longer life the belt will have as a result.

None of this applies to thin or loose textured edges, to do so would achieve the complete opposite of your intentions, namely, to have perfectly finished edges on whatever it is you are making.

In reference to what I was saying in the previous paragraph, the best method in this event is to lay the object on a flat, hard surface, and polish firmly along the edge keeping it pressed on to the hard surface.