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When hand stitching you can hide your last stitch inside the leather and cut the ends off below the leather with a sharp knife. Most saddle makers will use the last stitch to make a lock stitch by doing a half hitch around the bottom thread some use two or three half hitch's around the bottom thread and then pull the knot into the middle of the pieces of leather you are stitching together. thus the last stitch is locked by half hitches and then when the threads are cut you make sure you cut the thread below the sureface of the flesh or finished side of the leather. I hope this will help it makes a very clean end to a stitching line.

I like it! looks clean and makes a good impresson in the leather. are you going to market it or just keep it for yourself? did you do the work on a laithe or Mill? are you in the habit of making all of your own tools? Keep up the great work!

nice work! I have a question where did you get your fid? that is a very nice looking fid. just curious

I have used some eighty grit sand paper to rough up a couple saddle seats after they have become smoothe and have had very good luck with it since it is a hands on approach, you can actually see and feel how much leather you are removing. hope this helps.

I am really confused why or what paticurly are you riviting? if you are putting in a buckle why not just use chicago screws? they are crome plated, or come in brass. now if you are doing special belts and are looking for somthing different to put on the belts perhaps Ohio Travel bag would have something that you would like. if you use steel if they get wet they will turn the leather black. and aluminium flakes off so it looks like the leather has a lot of grey junk on it. still wondering what you are actually using the rivets for?

you should enter that one in the brownwood boot and saddle roundup in texas in October. very nice looking great lines.

Looking forward to your post on Monday, wish I knew about it sooner. thanks for the information ahead of time.

Most of my craftools are from the 60's and 70's and have never had a problem with them, but I had some hidcrafters that I received about ten years ago and when stamping saddles they tend to bend a lot. Hide crafters was kind enough to replace them a couple times but since they kept bending I just ordered from Barry king and basically have the same tool in Stainless steel and have not had any bending problems. Thanks Barry! and I did appreciate Hidecrafters for working with me on the bent ones.

Josh those look great! I do have one suggestion though and that is when doing cuffs they usually are not the same for the left wrist as for the right wrist it looks as though you have cut out both cuffs for the same wrist. one shoud go the opposite direction than the other one. so when you cut them out you need to flip your pattern over to have it correct for the opposite wrist. not trying to disrespect your work as I think you did a great job with your layout and tooling. thanks for sharing them.

What I like to do is cover the cap with leather as well the looks are amazingly better and it matches the rest of the canteen. cheers Mate. good luck you canteen is great! I like the braiding it adds a nice flair to your borders.

I agree! it is better to put it down in black and white for everyone to see. it also allows you to blow off steam so you don't use your anger on anyone. I am clinging to my guns and Bible as well. don't be ashamed of your feelings as there are thousands of others who would and do agree with you! I know this isn't the forum for this kind of thing but sometimes you just have to blow your own horn.

Thanks Slick Fork those pictures were just the ticket for me to understand what i need to do to make my own little table. it's a great tool. thanks again

Hey Slikfork could you show a picture without the leather so we could see how you mounted the board? I have to get a better look so I can make the board myself. I too have the Hansen String Cutter but would be nice to see how others use it as I am still learning to use it for making my strings.