Shop Tour with David Ferry

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Omega Leather Works

Joined
Jun 13, 2007
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I've been wanting to make contact with many people over the years here at BF. After the dozens (probably hundreds) of emails back and forth, Dave was at the top of the list. Oddly enough, Dave happened to be only a couple of hours away. With an invitation I knew that this was definitely happening. :) My interests are not bound to leatherwork, I also enjoy the occasional grinding of steel so this visit was surely going to be like Christmas in June.

When I arrived it was nice to meet Dave, Nichole, and a couple of their friends from across the pond.

Here you'll find Dave to the left, Nicole to the right and their gentleman friend in the center (forgive me Dave, for forgetting their names).

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Here's a shot of a rawhide hobble around the front legs of one of their horses.

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Nicole's brand new bespoke boots.

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Dave stitching. He literally made a sheath for the customer while he waited. Wish I could do that.

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I see at least 3 things that I really want in this pic. One is the hydroma cutting board, another is the chunk of Lignum Vitae that sparked my other thread on hand burnishers. I'd never seen this wood before, but it's surprisingly dense and heavy. Lastly is the Maul Master er... maul. I've seen them on the Weaver website and in their catalog, but the look just didn't do it for me. Don't judge that book by its cover though. It's mighty comfortable and not squishy or hard.

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Knives!

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Dave keeps the dirty work outside. If I had a view like Dave I'd work outside too.

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Crazy sharp edge applied to a vintage head knife.

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There are, literally, tools, knives and leather everywhere. In an orderly fashion mind you, but you couldn't get within 10 feet of this place and not know what's going on. :)

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Nichole's work area.

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The crown jewel (as far as I'm concerned) is this surface plate. Dave told me it weighs in the neighborhood of a gazillion pounds and I'm inclined to believe. :)

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Just some of her awesome work.

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A beautiful knife for the better half.

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I think I have more pics but my computer is fried and had to use my wife's. Couple that with the new stupid imgur update and the odds were stacked against me. Next time I'll shoot some video too.

Here's the bottom line. If I learned anything on the visit it's that Dave's dog really is weird. And cute.

At one point I felt something and looked down at my foot. Just another rock and another round of catch. :) I'm cool with that.

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Thanks Dave, for a great day, and for the insights. Next time we'll get pics of the sharpness tester, burnisher and your work will be featured in a thread thread I'll be making soon on the crazy generosity of the people here. [emoji106]
 
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OMG, how awesome is that! (btw, you double posted/reinserted some stuff i think)
great that you got to go there and see the people and the shop and well, literally everything!
 
Jealousy doesn't adequately describe how I feel right now .
What a great way to spend the day .
We ( my wife and I ) are planning to travel again in a few years and I warn all of you guys right now , don't be surprised if there is a knock on your door .:)

Ken
 
vilePossum said:
OMG, how awesome is that! (btw, you double posted/reinserted some stuff i think)
great that you got to go there and see the people and the shop and well, literally everything!
Click to expand...
Yeah, I don't know what happened, but I *think* it's fixed. Also, I didn't take any pics of the interior of the home (aside from Nichole's work area), but let me tell you, it's beautiful.

harronek said:
Jealousy doesn't adequately describe how I feel right now .
What a great way to spend the day .
We ( my wife and I ) are planning to travel again in a few years and I warn all of you guys right now , don't be surprised if there is a knock on your door .:)

Ken
Click to expand...

Leather workshop at Dave's? I'm in!
 
Here's a shot of the ranch.

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For part of the day there was flashing lightning and booming thunder. Light sprinkling. It's been pretty hot here in the Valley, the drastic elevation change was welcome indeed.
 
That's cool! It's hard to go into a REAL shop. My leather tools all fit in a old briefcase! Thanks for taking us on the tour.
 
I'd be up for just ridin' fence and enjoying the countryside! The knives and leatherwork would be icing on the cake!

Thanks for the tour!
 
Very cool shop tour! Thanks for taking the time to post the pics! :D

That Maul Master maul, my mystery maul may be identified! I bought it many years ago at Tandy before they started the Stohlman line. Out of box I had no idea who made it. Cool part about it was they sold spare heads. Mine is all black metal parts and has a foam rubber handle, otherwise its identical.
 
Buddy it was great having ya here! Mark and Lisa were our friends from England. They'd come over to pick up that saddle pictured in Fallon NV. They'd ordered it two years ago and it was ready now, (I understand the makers waiting list is 6 years now not 2). Hadn't seen them in 4 or 5 years and they showed up out of the blue. Kinda fun. So Nichole was trying out Lisa's new saddle when you got here and UPS had dropped off her new boots. By the way your suggestion on the Pro Carv worked great. Although I'd been using Pro Carv for years it had been sometime since I'd read the bottle. Nichole's new boots had one tight spot on the left ankle. Anthony mentioned that the label on the bottle of Pro Carv said it could be used to stretch leather some. Used our normal solution and dampened that spot some with a sponge and made it perfect. Anthony it was fun having ya up for the day in the shop. Have to get ya back soon.
 
Dave I have a quick question .
How do you put a sheath together so quickly , don't you have to wait for glue to dry and stuff like that ?
I've found that if I don't wait for the glue to totally dry burnishing the edges for example doesn't finish up as nicely as I want .
Maybe I'm just overly cautious , are there some tricks of the trade that speed up the whole process ?

Ken
 
Thanks for the pics Anthony. Let me tell you, Dave is a real gentleman, I've never met him in person but I do bug him a lot with emails about sheath construction and he always gets back to me with advise. I don't know how he does it, he has so much going on.
John S.
 
I can think of very few things that would make this country boy from Kansas even consider visiting Ca. A chance to visit Dave's shop would be at the top of a very short list.
Thank you for sharing Anthony.

Chris
 
I do hope this is made into part of the Universal Studio's Tour ! :)

What a nice visit you had Anthony, I have a maul about that same style too and that block of granite? that is one hunk of denseness if ever there was one !

Dave, it's great that you are so giving of your time and knowledge, I always say I can't make them all and would far more want others to gain this passion, it needs encouragement and to be passed on to the next generation.

Enjoyed the post Anthony, thanks again!
G2
 
Ken, it would be about 20 minutes hands on time. The glue I use does dry extremely fast and so not much waiting. There are some tricks to being efficient, most of them just learned from doing very many of the same type of sheaths. For instance when the folks stopped by Thursday night, at dinner Mark told me he needed a new sheath and the type he wanted. So the next morning I took one of my pre cut sheath shapes got it wet in the middle and folded it. Getting it wet is so the leather doesn't crack. I edged and creased the mouth area of the sheath at this time. Ii set it outside in the sun to dry. I had a precut welt and a premade belt loop. Had to wait till they got here from there on though as I didn't know if Mark was right or left handed. So when the folks got here it was pretty simple and quick to proceed everything was ready. Sew on the top of the belt loop, fit the welt, stitch the top line of the sheath and then stitch the sheath and the bottom of the blet loop. Plop it into my water bucket and let er sink. Wet form it to the knife, burnish the edge and into the oven for two hours. Pull it out , oil it, let it sit in the sun again to set the oil, rub the edges and apply finish. yeah about 20 minutes hands on time. 3 hours probably actual time.
 
Here's that old maul of mine, does have a family resemblance. Aside from the squishy handle that is. Kind of looks like I could slip a motorcycle grip on it though, hmmmmm.

 
Yeah a guy sure can see a family resemblance. Yeah that might fix er up. I'm just surmising never actually having held it but with a soft handle like that you'd have to kinda really hold onto it I would think. Get tiring after a while. If the MC handle don't work how about wraping it with that leather tape they use on tennis rackets?
 
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