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Thank you and everyone else for teaching me and answering my questions! My family tended to never throw out cleaners, so I do have some of the old Johnson wax Future acrylic floor polish. Not sure though if I should quickly put it up on Ebay. lol. Someone else suggested avoiding chrome tan for my beaks - but it sounds like it's easily recognizable. Yay that. And it also sounds like I could keep using scraps then - even better! Since I do have some of the old-school Future, would you suggest using that or the Resolene? Would you recommend diluting either one with 50/50 water? If I used paint (I have that cheapo acrylic craft paint) would that help with the stiffening or eliminate the need for the floor polish or Resolene? Should I water it down or use it straight out of the bottle? Sorry for so many questions. I tend to stick to dry materials for my projects. I've learned the hard way that when chemicals are introduced to a project, i.e. glue, finishes, clay, paint, etc; they can look great for a long time, but can eventually fail big time. I had something randomly fail 30 months after I had boxed up the items - some were fine, some were not so fine. I've tried acrylic medium that the manufacturer insists always dries rock hard - mine is rubbery with only one coat.

One thing that may be of help ... I've found soaking veg tan in hot water and letting it dry makes a stiffer dry piece than room temp water. This was about 10 ounce leather but might be worth a shot. Vacuum sealing the pieces for about a half hour seemed to make them even stiffer. Just a seal-a-meal. The bags have a textured inside, which showed up on the leather.

When moulding it; give it a good soaking and a little bit of stretching. Clamp it up and let it dry. Resolene will work if can soak in, so usually not chrome tan Floor wax ? do you men 'Mop & Glo'? despite what it says that is not a wax but an acrylic varnish You can use acrylic paints on leather. Any paints. Don't go buying expensive ones. I use paints meant for plastic models. They're cheap. They'll only crack off if you put the paint on really thick, which you won't have to do

Basically you have veg tan and chrome tan. Chrome tan is used on furniture are rarely can it be wet moulded to hold a shape. Chrome usually shows a blue line in centre when its cut. I see from your photos your leather is not showing this blue Veg tan can usually be wet moulded and when dry will hold its shape

Here's a photo of one of the more curved ones.

Here's a rough photo of one of my experiment beaks. That's my thumbnail in the photo to show how small it needs to be. That's the one where I put a little Elmer's on the edges. I wrapped it around a skewer overnight, after cutting it. With the same leather, I've gotten a better curve by squishing and hopefully stretching it a bit more. Not sure if it should be stretched or just wrapping it around is enough or if I should wait to cut it out until after I stretch it. If I use the Resolene or floor wax, would that allow this to work with random scraps or should I use veg tanned only? I can use acrylic paints on leather? It won't crack or scratch off?

Progress! Looking at manuals for the 144W102 and 144W103, most things seem to match up with the machine that I have. The one exception is the stitch length and reverse feed. Referring to the manuals for the 102 and 103 from @CowboyBobs comments in this thread: https://leatherworker.net/forum/topic/110183-singer-145w-mystery/ , the 102 has a spindle at the center of the machine pulley for adjusting stitch length, and the 103 says to adjust the feed eccentric to get different stitch length. Here's a photo of the large crescent-shaped stitch length adjuster / reverse on this machine. The spring pulls the arm toward the top, where it makes long forward stitches. Pull the lever down somewhat, and you get shorter stitches. Down all the way and you get reverse. Seems it would be well-suited to a foot lever, if all you wanted was full length forward and full length reverse.

How do I figure out how it was tanned? Or would it just be smarter to buy it new so I know what it is?

Well, then you have guys like me that just enjoy working with their hands. I picked up the hobby accidentally while I was on a forced 2 week vacation due to a certain virus. I was only sick for 24 hours and slept for most of it. After that I was bored so I fired up the forge and made knives for my nieces and nephews and needed to make sheath for them. A few youtube videos later and some Amazon stuff ordered and I am making things because I enjoy the hobby, not for profit, dog collars with the dogs name, address, and phone numbers, a belt i wear daily, a few holsters, learning to carve and stamp and ended up making some craters with carved flowers for my mom's birthday. Yeah the OP could have checked back in but with each post the experienced people are adding to the knowledge base ys new guys rely on to learn from.

There are times I have to do suspenders . . . hate em . . . but whatever. I took some of my shirts with tails on em . . . laid em down and cut the tails off square . . . put a hem in em . . . and wear em Hawaiian style . . . suspenders inside over my tee shirt. Works pretty good for me May God bless, Dwight

Sorry, I must have imagined it. I could not find the timing video either. But, Uwe Grosse has some on Youtube that are informative, and there is a Weaver video that offers good information on a 205. One problem I had when I first got my 205 was that I had to order two extra shims to fit behind the collar on the bobbin to accommodate 346 size thread. There was certainly a learning curve between the Adler and a clone 205. Good luck.

in addition to my last post: Just in case you think the 29K71 (or other patcher machine - no matter the brand) is a great heavy duty leather sewing machine ... it clearly is NOT! Its is a machine for repair work but not for producing leather goods. It may work for odds and ends in your privat environment but not for pro leather work or for producing goods you probably want so sell. I´m barely using mine but if you need it for "odd work" then it is indispemnseable - it can do work that other machines can´t do.

thats very nice. I love those old floral patterns that Tandy has in their library.

oh heck yea!!

Very nicely done! Not to hijack your thread but here is one that I did for a Chrome book recently. It has a pocket on the front for possibles

1. If its veg tan leather you are molding it will hold its shape 2. Several coats of thinned water resistant PVA glue, or varnish 3. Try bees wax, rubbed in, it will protect the edge, not turn it too dark

I think veg tan leather would be best for what you're doing, 5 min epoxy inside the beak, cut the beak to shape, so when you fold it's in the shape you want, then stitch under or mold it on a form, Ie, a piece of wood. Then paint the inside after it's dry with 5-minute epoxy , then paint the outside with Acrylic paint, as Chuck said, good luck and have fun!

Hello All, Just wated to say thank you for your advice. I got my rotary cutter yesterday and it's made a big difference. Best regards to you all.

Without knowing exactly what yoU are attempting. You may have to experiment with a few beaks to find the best way to sew it on but yea it should work fine, I've seen leather used on toys and such before that were designed for rough handling. Resolene will stiffen it, or you can use acrylic floor wax also in place of the resolene if you have it on hand. I dilute the floor wax a bit with water. they will both darken the leather. so do some experimenting to see if it looks right to you. Acrylic paints work well on leather. A lot of folks also make earrings from leather scraps Good luck and have fun!!!!

Yeah this isnt a small burner, My forge burners have a .030 size orifice, actually a mig welding tip, with the forced air on at 10 psi they can melt steel. They can run both naturally aspirated and with forced air. Higher-pressure burners are scary loud indeed.

Hi Everyone! I'm hoping for some input on an idea. I primarily work with yarns, threads and woven fabrics. Most of my materials are recycled from other artists and crafters. Now and then I get some leather scraps but until now haven't really had an idea of what to do with the leather. I know nothing about working with leather other than the tiny bit I've learned from a few day's worth of Googling and Youtube. I'm not even sure if the idea of using random scraps for this is a good idea or that the idea is sound but I should use ___________ leather for consistent results. I'm hoping to make a series of small duckies and would like to use the leather for beaks. I'm cutting a single layer of leather into an oval about 1.5" long by about 1/2" wide. I'm wet forming it to shape, folding it in half and sewing it onto the duck in and around the fold. The leather I'm playing with is about 1mm thick and very flexible. I have three questions that I'm hoping you could help me with... 1. Does this sound like something that would hold it's shaping or will it eventually sag and just hang down the front of the duck's face? It's an art piece and not a toy so while it will get some handling, it hopefully won't be rough handling. 2. Is there something I could put on this small of a piece of leather to 'stiffen' or harden it after the wet shaping? 3. How would you treat the edges? I'm able to sand the edges some, but that's about it. I'm thinking paint or dye? I tried using a bit of clear Elmer's glue. Seems like an option. It does make the edge darker than the surface. I kinda like but wish it wasn't so shiny. Would the glue be somehow "bad" for the leather long-term or is there something better to use, that could be purchased in small quantities? Thank you for reading this far and I truly appreciate any suggestions that you could give me. 1 comment Like Comment Share

Appreciate your comments and the help you provide to many here.

Thanks Johanna, it is appreciated.

I'm not a moderator just your average joe user and probably a pain in the butt at times. I wholeheartedly appreciate the work and effort that all the moderators do to help keep the rest of us on track and this forum running. You really need to rethink what you said and your tone. It really doesn't do you any favours and may come back to haunt you in the future should you decide to stay when you do need help. Have a nice day. kgg

Anyone making Convho Belts ?