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Nice! I setup on top of my deepfreeze too. A bathroom exhaust fan on the bottom of a cabinet above the freezer, ducted into my furnace room, just the other side of the wall. I setup a cardboard spray booth with open front. The furnace room had 2 gas fired water heaters and a condensing furnace. The water heaters are vented up through a chimney. There is enough air flow that the furnace room never sees the atmosphere go above the LEL (lower explosive limit) for the dye or paint, or finish, so no worries there. Combustion air is drawn from outside, none of the air from the furnace room ever gets drawn back into the house, standard design according to safety codes for furnace and water heater requirements and fresh air makeup to the house. Compressed air comes from my shop compressor in my detached garage. Just had to run a hose between house and garage through an underground conduit that was already in place for power, network, phone lines. My only cost were the air hose and good quality quiet bathroom exhaust fan. All else is was scrounged materials from my hoard or free like cardboard.

Hi Folks, I'm in need all of the reverse feed parts shown in the attached parts list for my Singer 211G156. Basically, I have the stud that the lever attaches to, but not the screw, and I have the plate on the sewing machine body that the roller contacts. Everything else in between is gone. I managed to find a couple things at Dowling and College Sewing, haven't yet contacted Ronsew, but I'm hoping someone has some salvaged stuff stashed that covers everything. Thanks!

Nice work. They look great.

Welcome, Josh. I'm in Germany too, near the Black Forest area, but originally from England. Where is the best place to search for craft fares dates and places? Is there a website to go to? Paul

You give far too much credit to our governments. It was just a few years ago, maybe during Covid, that our government decided in their great wisdom to extend the return to standard daylight into November in order to improve energy savings. Studies have been done several times over the various years daylight saving time was implemented or repealed. All showed there was no real energy savings, just shifted the usage period. Ontario and BC have decided that they will move to eliminate DST when the states south of them decide to. They make claims that it interferes with business if they are not on the same time. Seems that doesn't bother Arizona or Saskatchewan. South Easter BC used to stay on STD time year around. So part of the time there were with Alberta and the rest of the time they were with the rest of BC. Their major trading is with southern Alberta as it is closer than the rest of BC. I have worked on projects with partners in the UK, Germany, France, India, Shanghai, NY state, and Ohio at the same time and never had trouble with communications with them. With UK, France, and Germany, we could conference in the morning my time, and any revisions end of day or next morning. Just part of business to make things fit. Sometimes coming in an hour earlier, or staying an hour later, pretty much my typical day anyhow. It's time to get rid of this flip-flopping back and forth. It is healthier to be on a STD time and far fewer accidents and heart attacks in the 2 weeks following each change while people are having to readjust. For shift workers, make no difference as they are always changing their awake hours according to their shift schedule. My rant, done.

I tried my hand at a new skill: sand casting my own conchos. I would say the process was a tad more difficult to learn than I expected. However, after a couple of lightbulb moments (a few actually), I was able to churn them out pretty successfully. These are cast in tin, which is easy to melt and work with. I plan on making them in silver eventually.

Check out Tony See patterns.

Hello Tobias, and welcome to the forum 🙂 At first your backpack reminded me of an old military backpack (Tornister), but with a different type of leather. My concerns with a backpack that is 25 x 20 is that it could easily look "roundish". Unless you add some stiffeners inside the sides like a small frame - or in the back part so that it will remain flat even after you put in a sweater or some other stuff. If you look at something like Schweizer Armee Segeltuch Rucksack, It is a classic rucksack, and it has a front pocket, and it still looks good (in my opinion). I am not sure how the internal stiffening is made on that one, but I think it important to have something to make it last for the next 50 years. It looks very similar to your picture, and one could make the backpack in the size that you are aiming for. I suppose it also depend on if you want to use the backpack for hiking or for everyday use or something else. If you want to use it for hiking, I think the shoulder straps should be wider compared to if you are going to use it as an everyday backpack to and from job/school etc. Brgds Jonas

Olena, you're doing great!

Hi- Need all of the reverse feed parts shown in the attached parts list for my Singer 211G156. Basically, I have the stud that the lever attaches to, but not the screw, and I have the plate on the sewing machine body that the roller contacts. Everything else in between is gone. Thanks!

Hello, my name is Tobias and im from Germany (so please excuse my not perfect English). I love Backpacks and since I couldnt find the perfect one to buy online I wanna get one hand made for me. I already have someone willing to manufacture it but I obviously need to provide plans with meassurements. I know its supposed to be 40cm x 25cm x 20cm in size and made fully out of full grain buffalo leather with brass hardware. The backpack is supposed to last my whole life so it needs to be durable. While having an idea how it should look like I just cant get a full design I like. For example the front looks empty without a pocket but having a pocket that is usable means it will make the bag look a little weird. Here is a picture of the rough idea. I like the two straps holding the main flap. I definetly dont want a sipper or press fit buttons or magnets as the wont last 50 years (or longer). Also I feel like its lacking something. MAybe a little finesse or cool feature. Yes I want kind of a basic Bag but still Im not quite happy. After filling pages with drawing that did not make me happy I decied to ask in this community. Im happy for any help and open for any suggestions Thank you

Happy to ship at buyers cost, but would prefer a local California pick up.

Finally had some time to properly check and fix everything. I first readjusted the gear on the horizontal axis, but that did not seem to make too much of a difference. Next, I checked where the play on the horizontal axis came from. So I removed the Belt cover and opened everything up. I found that the bushing that keeps the axis in place (as shown in the screenshot) had come loose. Resetting that part removed all the play in the axis and also stopped my machine from locking up! So it seems I have found the culprit and fixed it! The only remaining problem seems to be that while doing all that, I have changed my needle timing after all... As seen in the video below. It seems in the end I will also have to learn how to adjust the needle timing. At least once I learned that as well, I am confident I probably will not need a mechanic for my machine anytime in the near future, which is good as the next one is more than 200 km 😂 @AlZilla @friquantThank you so much for the help, I appreciate it a lot. Do you also have any tips or resources for setting the needle timing :)? Kind Regards Josh PXL_20251022_210024307 (1).mp4

Thanks

You can read or download the documentation directly from Adler's website, here. There have been discussions about this model on Leatherworker.net. Just use our search box to search for all topics containing the term: Adler 269-373

I was looking for a sewing machine to sew wallets and bags and came across a Adler 269-373 for sale. The documentation I found indicates this model will be suitable for my needs. My question is does anyone know if this is a good design from Adler or did it have issues. I haven’t found much in the way of videos good or bad, I couldn’t find anything for setup or troubleshooting for it. My experience is with Juki clones so I am use to finding videos quickly and easily any time I have had issues to help me. The lack of videos and information is giving me pause and making me rethink the possibility of purchasing it. Does anyone have info or links to websites I may not be seeing. I did find a couple of videos, but I believe they were speaking German so I didn’t get much out of watching them. Any help or suggestions would be greatly appreciated. Thanks

@reveau There is an online manual for the Efka Variostop sewing machine motors, here. Page 25 deals with the motor's brake action. You must study the manual to learn how to set the braking action to get the motor to stop when you take your foot off the speed control pedal. Please note that the brand name is EFKA, not ELKA.

Working on improving my cuts with the swivel knife. Taking a class on ways to improve. I placed the pattern wrong and left off some of the tail. This looks like a crayon drawing compared to the instructors, a challenge to meet. Seeing our weaknesses can be our greatest strength.

Thank you Thank you Thank you

I think I have that Schrade. And i really like the Canadian leaf blade. Nice work!

Nice collection there

Had a fellow bring me his handful of knives that had no sheath . . . so I made em for him. Here they are. May God bless, Dwight

All Are Original Rings Blue Guns I have one more 3" Bbl. Taurus Judge available $7.00 each + USPS Shipping And several of each of the offered 6 models

(image attached) I'm stoked to get my KS Blade Punch brand … item, lol. I like it! I say “item” because I want to know whether to call them pricking irons or stitching chisels that happen to be French style...? If I looked at this, with my limited sewing experience, I'd have said “French Style Pricking Irons” you'd use to mark the leather, then follow with an appropriate awl rotated at that marked angle. But then everywhere I look I see people using these same types to punch all the way through like a chisel, be they KS Blade Punch, Sinabroks, or 4Z. Even Mr. Armitage talks about how they glide all the way through, in his great PDF article, here (although I couldn't tell if he was referring to the round or flat). What's the deal with that? Are these an “either/or” that can be punched through or used as a pricking iron? I got them to use as pricking irons, and follow with my C.S. Osbourne Saddler's Stitching awl. I have adequate, more affordable pricking irons in other sizes, that work fine, but couldn't find them above 4.5mm, so I got an 8 blade and 2 blade KS brand in 5mm I like the look of with 1.0 and 1.2mm thread. Often, the ads for these products say both Stitching Chisel and Pricking Iron. Thanks for your thoughts! -- Jeff (optional reading babbled below) : P.S. -- Commentary on my choosing KS over Sinabroks or 4Z, I chose KS because I saw Nigel Armitage's pricking irons/chisels reviews article from 2020. He stated in a very benign way (not taking sides) that Jin from Sinabroks left KS and went independent. Having business experience I saw this seemed to mean the development and design was taken from KS. When I bought these and mentioned loyalty to such companies vs. opportunists, Mr Son confirmed they felt very betrayed and their feelings were very hurt for some time (that they literally lost sleep at first), and didn't even mention any lost business. I cannot fully judge because I don't know if Jin was mistreated or something, but I've experienced appropriation of this in the past, where we paid for development time only to have an employee take off with designs and go make money, and it smelled like that. So I went to KS. Now it appears a third party in China is in the mix with 4Z but, go figure. Anyway, I'm no expert in any of this sewing knowledge, as my experience lies in other fields. I appreciate any thoughts about whether you'd use this as a pricking iron, chisel, or if it's a 50/50 that can be used as either. I've even been using chisels as pricking irons until I got pricking irons, and just dealt with them having unneeded points, lol. (That's not what is pictured... below is the KS ones I intend as "real" pricking irons... certainly better than fudging marks w/pointed chisels then using my awl, in any case)