Making a Hand Tooled D&D "Dragon Scale" Journal Cover | Leatherworking

I made a leather field notes cover with the Dungeons & Dragons logo on the front and a hand-tooled "Dragon Scales" interior. The field notes booklet is replaceable, ensuring the cover will see many years of reuse. Here's how I did it!

The whole project took me about 10 hours in total, not counting its time in the sun (see below).

For the cover I used Conceria Walpier Buttero leather, and for the interior Badalassi Carlo waxy oiled pullup. Both are premium Italian leathers. Though the color difference isn't very apparent in the video, I left the Buttero out in direct sunlight for a few days and this darkened the leather naturally, rather than using dyes. In the future I might leave it longer, although it will continue to patina naturally on its own as well. This leather really just looks nicer and nicer with age!

I cut the logo with a piercing saw from sheet metal and taped the pattern to a plywood backing to make, essentially, a glorified stamp. This took about two hours.

For the tooling I used Craftool B701, D436 and F915 tools along with an English Point punch from CS Osborne. I also used a modeling spoon for fine details, and two swivel knives (3/8" hollow ground and 1/8" filigree blades). The tooling also took about two hours.

The journal was then hand-stitched using black 0.4mm polyester thread at 10 stitches per inch. The stitching took, you guessed it, about two hours.

Even reviewing the raw footage, it's hard to estimate where the remaining 4 hours went. I know I spent longer than usual on the edges, in part due to the outer cover shrinking a bit more than I expected during its time in the sun. So for consistency let's just say I spent 2 hours on the edges, 2 hours on miscellaneous stuff like measuring and cutting.

I offer some handmade things for sale at https://www.d20creations.com/

Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/c4workshop
Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/colinsworkshop/

Music from: https://www.tubersongs.com/

#d20creations #leatherworking #handtooled #fieldnotes #journal #cover #handmade #diy #leathercraft #leather #tooling #handtooling #leathertooling #dnd #dungeonsanddragons