RWB

Tom, Easy way to do edges. Put your finish on your belt, let it dry, and then edge it. For belts I use a #3 edger on the top and a #2 on the bottom. Take a coarse piece of canvas and rub glycerin soap into it. Fiebings makes it in a bar. Moisten your edges well and rub it till its slicked. The roughness of the canvas will jerk some of your fuzziness off and the soap will slick the rest down. Dye your edges. Let the dye dry and slick it again. Slicking it again will remove any excess dye and give a nicer edge. Bees wax is a good option for the second slicking or you can just use glycerin again. Then I Tan-kote my edges. Hope that work as well for you as it does for me. Ross

That's a good point about the belt being smooth as opposed to stamped, Bob. Most of what I do is stamped so I don't have so much the cracking problem. Good insight. By the way I took a look at you gallery. Wonderful flow to you flower stamping as well as the overall lines of your products. I like it a lot. Those spur straps that you have up are really nice. Ross

I don't why your finish is cracking, but I think that a different finish would be a solution. Don't use the oil dye just get the regular Feibings Leather Dye. Apply it, and let it dye over night, apply a LIGHT coat of neatsfoot oil over the top. Again let it dry overnight and the apply Neatlac if you can get it or Clearlac. RUB it in good with wool skin. This should give you a nice matte finish. I personally have not had it crack on me. Don't forget to really rub that laquer in, and go ahead and put two coats on if you like. Neatlac is better for this than the Clearlac but its not being made anymore so chances are you won't be able to find it. Let me know how that works. Ross

I'm with brewer. Thoroughbred is good. Edges slick really well with water and Feibings white or yellow paste saddle soap.

$25.00 a quart is what I think I paid.

Have you tried Clear Lac? Its a new product to try and replace Neat-Lac. I got a can from Montana Leather in Billings, MT, http://montanaleather.com/catalog/. The company making it is: Leather Coatings, INC. 11262 Leo Lane Dallas, TX 75229 It works fairly well. Not as good as the old Neat-Lac did. Apply it the same way with a piece of woolskin and rub it on(I like to rub it alot). The consistency of it is thinner than Neat-Lac was, and I have found that I need to apply more coats to the item. Neat-Lac had almost the polyurethane shellac type finish that sat up on top of the leather. This stuff soaks in deeper, thats why I have found I need more coats, to build up that finish. I always liked to dye my edges and my backgrounds before I applied Neat-Lac, it helped seal all that in and kept your edges really nice. But be carefull doing that with this stuff, it tends to strip that dye off and smear it worse than Neat-Lac did. You can use it for that but make sure oil over the top of the dye first, then your Clear Lac, I use (like a lot of people) Feibings Antique Paste, Tankote over the top of that, and then Clear-Lac again. It provides a wonderfull top finish. Tell me if that helps. Ross