blueblazer

I prefer the tertial because I put 4000k LED bulbs in my work lamps to have a nice light in between warm and daylight. It really helps when I need to take a picture for instagram or a customer and I can get more accurate colors.

Out of curiousity, where did you get the Campbell's thread from? I've been meaning to try some out.

How does the campbell's compare in thickness to the royalwood 3ply and 332 lin? I'm interested in the black, yellow and red.

Ive also successfully removed oxidized black spots with lemon and lime juice, though they were more like light smears. Might be worth a shot trying that out first.

At some point I saw theKid's post about using the safety beveler and I've since gotten not terrible at this method. After finishing up with the safety beveler, I hit up some hot spots with a dremel to sand down some spots and run the entire piece of leather against some sandpaper then slick down the grain for waxier stuff or glue on my liner for drier stuff. I must have missed the note about stropping, Kid, how do you strop your safety beveler blades? I've been experimenting with snapping various razor blades I have around to fit the safety beveler in an effort to find a replacement for injector blades.

The second one looks just like a sunburst finish on a guitar, might be able to get more tips looking through techniques for that.

That grain though. So good. Nice job.

Thanks everyone for the kind words. I still have so much to learn and far more complex designs to tackle, but I'm enjoying every minute of it.

Just wanted to share what I've been up to in my first two weeks since finally getting some leather, watching a lot of videos on youtube and picking up some tools from japan, all thanks to this forum. The brown is either Horween kudu or the brown oiled I got from nstarleather, the red is Horween Cherry Cavalier, which I believe is a chromexcel originally developed by Oak Street Bootmakers, or at least from what I remember from what I researched. Veg tan is herman oak I got from springfield. Thread is white bonded nylon t207 and brown bonded poly t277. Stitches are 4mm and 3mm pitch, which is something like 6 and 8.5 spi. I'm still not happy with my edge work, glue overrun is proving hard to fully sand off. I'm pretty pleased with the saddlestitching I'm pulling off with just a spring clamp for a jerryrigged stitching pony. I really need to make myself a pony and get a slab of granite so I can really go at it with my stitching irons. My life is in transition right now, and I'm trying to see if I can make this work full time, but the time I'm spending making these things is really great. I've been working in offices and resigned to just being satisfied doing the work with my hands that really captivates me as a hobby, but I think I'm going to make a serious go at trying to make leatherwork, work. I'm glad that this site exists and that there is such a vast wealth of knowledge and supportive community of likeminded people here.

You might have some more luck with Bish's Tear Mender. It's really thin and tacks up pretty quick and I've been using it to hold together some Horween Kudu that's downright greasy stuff. It makes Tanner's Bond look like a gluestick, honestly. I found it because someone mentioned it here but couldn't find much more than the one member who loved the stuff. The amazon reviews were mostly by people who use it as a substitute for stitching when patching things up and they all seemed to love it even through wash cycles on their clothes. I haven't tested it as rigorously as you would probably need for shoemaking, since I've just been making wallets but I'll glue some up right now, let it fully cure and get back to you.

I tried waxing the soles of my shoes once. They were a pair of double sole brogued longwings. Got them all polished up, waxed, and took them out for a spin on a warm spring day and... almost wiped out and barely caught myself from looking really silly slipping on concrete sidewalk, on a sunny, dry, day. I had to scuff up the soles real good before I could walk without my shoes slipping out from underneath me for a while. Honestly, I think that at worst it'll just be slippery, at best it'll just wear off. That being said, I am intrigued by Alden's "double water lock oiled" leather soles. I have no idea how they do it though. Maybe you could put wax on the inside of the shoe? the side of the sole that's not in contact with the ground? I imagine application would be something like with Obenauf's or Sno Seal, rub it on the leather, heat it up with a blowdryer to get it to melt and absorb and repeat until you're satisfied.