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itchaguide

My Tool Rant!

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I am rather new to leatherwork and I am still collecting tools on a "as required" basis, today I had my latest Tandy order show up in the mail and it included a lace maker.. I have been messing with this thing for 30 minutes and so far I have a bunch of leather chips and not much else.. the blade now has a "U" shaped notch at each opening..

OK I paid $6.00 for this POS but even so I would expect that a tool would at least cut a few feet of lace before the blade wore out... I am really getting discouraged and would appreciate any suggestions for leather supplies besides Tandy..

Oh and I am in Canada so a company that has a catalog or decent online store and will ship to the great white north would be a bonus..

thanks

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When I first started out I also bought one of these. It is a gimick tool at best. I am sorry you wasted the money like I did but you are money ahead by pitching it.

Tim

TK-Leather

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I've been able to make the lace cutter perform in the manner in which it was intended, but in my opinion, that is the biggest piece of :censored2: that Tandy sells...

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My Lace Cutter that i bought at Tandy is one of the Handest tools that i have.

you have to understand it.

Mine will not cut thin deer skin....It will cut med to thick Elk.

I have no trouble with veg tan leather, with a sharp blade. WHEN CHAINGING THE BLADE

BE CAREFUL.....YOU'LL GET CUT.

The best leather for me to cut is chrome tan leather.

sorry you are having problems. hope you get it figured out.

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I'm new to the group but wanted to reply. I've got one of the Tandy lace cutters and I've cut a lot of lace with it. The trick seems to be a fresh blade, which if you're cheap like me is an issue. So what I started doing instead of buying the injector type blades was I got a package of single edge razor blades cheap from harbor freight and what I do is take a blade, clamp it between two pieces of aluminum, then take a third piece and put it against the blade, whack with a hammer and you have a blade that is the same width as the injector blades, but a lot cheaper. What seems to work best for me is to place the blade between the two pieces of aluminum (1/4" thick I believe) then I clamp that in my bench vise. The third piece of aluminum is the same width as the blade is long. So you clamp as much of the blade between the metal as you want the width to be when you snap it off. works great for me, nice clean break, and very inexpensive. Sure you have to put in some effort to do it, but it takes no time at all to make up a batch of 10 of them and put them in a container for later use. Just make up several at a time.

If my description is confusing let me know and I'll try and post some pictures of what I'm talking about.

Chris

www.builderofstuff..com

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Here are some pictures I took of how I make injector blade sized blades from cheap single edge razor blades.

post-15942-064110800 1280440857_thumb.jp

Chris

www.builderofstuff..com

few more pics

Chris

post-15942-096993600 1280440876_thumb.jp

post-15942-052477100 1280440890_thumb.jp

post-15942-089639800 1280440905_thumb.jp

post-15942-078063900 1280440992_thumb.jp

post-15942-056111300 1280441007_thumb.jp

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Can you show us a pic of it in action?

Damon

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Can you show us a pic of it in action?

Damon

what the blade?

Chris

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Hmmm, maybe a cheap blade? We used the crap out of one when I was handicrafts instructor at a BSA summer camp. We made LOTS of lace with it. Not to be snide, but 11 year old Scouts didn't have a problem using it. Again, maybe it is just due to inferior blades. I take it that you are talking about the plastic lace maker that looks like a stick with grooves in it?

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I used to have the same problem with the black safety skiver Tandy sells. I couldn't get it to cut anything. Then when I started working with a saddle maker, he told me to change the blade. With a new blade it worked great for a while. As soon as the blade gets a little dull, back to not working well at all. He then told me to take out the blade and strop it. Put it back in and it worked as good as a new blade. It can be taken out and stropped and used quite a few times before you have to actually put a new blade in. Might be worth a try with the lace cutter too.

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