Jump to content

Beehive

Members
 View Profile  See their activity

  • Posts

    203

  • Joined

  • Last visited

 Content Type 

Everything posted by Beehive

  1. Beehive
    The OP has some serious competition. "StrapCode". Average price for a nice leather band. ~$70. Fastest shipping I've ever seen. No idea how they do it. For a person to succeed in the watch strap business. I highly advise going exotic. Stingray, crocodile, elephant, and ostrich. And to the folks buying them, they need to understand, it's only good for a year. It doesn't matter if you spent $500 for two square inches of elephant. Quick release bars....only on a $150 San Martin. Definitely not a $8000 Tudor.
  2. Beehive
    I don't know but it sure makes me think. I'd assume 18x18 inches would produce a 16x16 that's 2inches thick in the middle. Going with 19x19 to make sure. ~3" thick. You can always buy the thin foam craft sheets. Cut the panel sizes and glue them together. Do a mock up. The foam craft sheets are about as thick as 4-5oz. I've used it to mock up holsters. Worked for me.
  3. Beehive
    Yeah, watch straps are no joke. If you plan on selling them. It needs to survive being on the wrist. 24 hours a day, 7 days a week for 1 year. Then it'll be worn to the point it'll need to be replaced. Replaced for the security of the watch. You do excellent work.
  4. Beehive
    I'm getting better. 24oz maul and two, dual tine irons. 3.38 and 3.85mm. Using both to make sure the corners were right. 24oz is my sweet spot. I get the best feel when the pricking iron passes through and begins to enter the vinyl pad. My book cover is coming along.
  5. Beehive
    As a strap maker using those quick release bars. What guarantee do you give me, that it will hold my $5000 dollar watch on my wrist, worry free?
  6. Beehive
    I prefer the factory spring bars. The quick release bars are a universal sized bar. Seiko sized. Using the Marathon watches, they have massive spring bars that are designed to fit the drilled lugs on their cases. For me to use your quick release strap. I have to remove the spring bars you installed. The peg or lever used to release the spring bar. Has to be cut off so the spring bar can be removed out the strap. Cutting the lever also leaves a sharp edge of metal. That drags through the strap while being removed. It's either that or the stitching has to be removed and sewn back. On the Damasko, the spring bars are curved. Another element that needs addressed.
  7. Beehive
    Go to the source. Angelus has their own color mixing information. https://angelusdirect.com/blogs/news/the-art-of-color-matching-with-angelus-paint
  8. Beehive
    That's pretty much the same as the Harbor freight combo kit but they toss in a couple extra airbrushes and charge you an extra $30 bucks.
  9. Beehive
    I wish you guys would stop using the easy release spring bars. I have to cut that peg to get the spring bar out. I have four Marathon watches. Three jumbo, the GSAR, and the small GSAR. The JSAR is a red maple leaf. Anyway, that quick release is a no go on drilled lugs. Too much worry those Seiko style bars will pop out the lugs. Losing my thousand dollar watch. Wouldn't work on the Damasko DC58 either. I love your craftsmanship. I hate the spring bars.
  10. Beehive
    Have you seen the other airbrush stuff at harbor freight? They have the, "Black Widow" line of stuff. Pencil and trigger style airbrushes. To include a duel outlet compressor with a tank. All together, $70ish for the airbrush, another $200 for the compressor. With the store offering a warranty. Compared to Amazon. Decent, single outlet compressor with tank, ~$100. Sometimes it includes a generic brand, cheapo airbrush. All the hose with quick disconnects. No warranty besides the return period window. Before I bought the low level kit. I was using a compressor from Hobby Lobby. Big POS but it survived me for over a decade. Then Old faithful finally gave up. For the size of pieces I spray. I simply do not need a tank. After all, I'm not airbrushing a naked lady on a show car. I personally have had no problems with an airbrush set-up meant to do t-shirts.
  11. Beehive
    What pops in my head. Try Vinegaroon that's treated with baking soda...before applying to the leather. See what happens. See if the baking soda has decreased the strength of Vinegaroon. Producing that shade of grey before the chemical reaction can fully take hold. I'm spit ballin' here but that's what I'd try. Either that or reduce the alcohol based, black dye, down by a third or more.
  12. Beehive
    If you want a permanent shiny. Use saddle lac. Not resolene. Resolene is and always has been kinda in between satin and gloss. It's supposed to give the leather a, 'glow' without looking like it's plastic. Saddle Lac doesn't play. It's Army dress shoes gloss and it's permanent. Understand the difference in finishes. It all comes down to the level of sealing the leather. Some finishes will allow oil to enter the leather for routine maintenance. Others, do not. So if you use Saddle Lac, you better oil the leather first or it'll be 10years before saddle lac will wear down to the point to where oil can pass through it. That's also including horse sweat and butt sweat.
  13. Beehive
    We've cut funding to the BBC. Plus a lot of the other stuff. Especially protests and the paycheck they receive. You should start noticing differences right now. No worries. The people sending the money won't be around much longer either.
  14. Beehive
    Look up color mixing. They'll show what colors need to be mixed to be close to the color you want. Then it trial and error. Use a cool color light source. Nothing warm(yellowish looking light). You want the blueish type light to show the true colors of what you're using. The only thing that'll prevent you from color matching is the cost of the paint. It's only money. I'm sure you've seen the Angelus, "Best sellers kit". 12 colors all together for $40. Start there. It has the primary colors plus others. Follow it up with a color matching website. Search for, "color matching tool". You can do it.
  15. Beehive
    Lots of people following the thread. Y'all can ask questions. Anything you'd like to know on airbrushes and leather.
  16. Beehive
    I use the, 'Avanti' brand Harbor freight airbrush combo kit. I also have three Iwata brand airbrushes. The combo kit doesn't have an air tank. It's direct from the compressor. Works fine. If you're going to have an airbrush set-up. Expect to spend around $100. Consider it a required tool for spraying finish. I spray Angelus #600 acrylic finish straight from the bottle. No thinning. I haven't used their paints, yet. An airbrush will spray anything that's about as thick as whole milk. If you have to thin the paints. It's absolutely no big deal. Whiskey shot glass or medicine cup to hold the paint and an eye dropper to add water. Popsicle stick split in half down it's length. Used to stir it up. As for masking tape. Try that press and seal food storage wrap. The plastic wrap that you use to cover a bowl. They also the same stuff to mask off for automotive paint.
  17. Beehive
    Cloth doesn't stretch like that. Maybe 5mm but not 2-3inches. Which doesn't matter. Make the new cloth fit like it's supposed to.
  18. Beehive
    The model paint surprised me in general. I've used the enamel and I don't know what they do but it's better then the big spray cans. Sprays finer also. You gotta wonder why they want $10 for a tiny can of it. Not offering big cans. I wouldn't think a person would need that level of durability on a plastic model car but I guess they do. I'm also contemplating sacrificing a one ounce silver slug coin and start plating copper rivets. I have nickel anodes but trying silver would make it fun.
  19. Beehive
    I'm pretty sure that's what they did. Looking up, "single watch roll" on Amazon and they're all over the place. ~$13 on sale. Aliexpress probably has an entire crate of them you could buy. So don't think for a second you'd be ripping off some special design. They already did the leg work. $13 bucks for a pattern isn't bad.
  20. Beehive
    I've been looking for some lacquer paint to coat some old conchos. The original finish has worn off. These are silver plated brass. I want to prevent tarnish. Airbrush? Nope. Most are watered based. I'm looking for the real deal, you could paint an old car, single coat, clear lacquer. I wasn't looking forward to having to clean my airbrush with lacquer thinner. If you've never experienced lacquer thinner. Let's say it has a serious industrial overtone. Looks like I'm going with model car paint. Comes in a small spray can. The issue with using something like Simichrome to polished mounted conchos or rivets. Is the black residue it leaves behind. Black smudge that will not be able to cleaned from the surrounding leather.
  21. Beehive
    Here of recent, I have a ranger belt project. I used Wickett and Craig with a Horween liner. My last belt, of over 20years, was made from belt blanks from Hobby Lobby. I've worked construction and in the cattle business. My old belt as been rubbed up against a jack hammer with a mix....to put in nice words. Every kind of bovine fluid on hoof. I'm not a certain brand of leather fan boy. Results is more my style. But if I'm building a genuine, "Made in Texas". It's going to be American leather. Not Chinese.
  22. Beehive
    I get to bust out the Harbor freight airbrush today. Angelus #600 on a decorative pad that'll be the base for a collar button. I like the reference to floor wax. It's pretty much what it is. Air hardening wax. The decorative pad was dyed chocolate. No tint is required.
  23. Beehive
    I'd experiment using acrylic paints added to the resolene. I don't remember where I found it, but I came across some small tubes of acrylic artist paint. The water based version of the oil paints. It's quite durable when applied to leather. One of these days I'm going to try and antique with it. I wonder what blue, 'antique' will look like. Black dye and blue artist paint.
  24. Beehive
    Raises hand* Why is it red? (The needle bottle). And how thick is this leather to where it needs so much wax? Doesn't it make one hades of a mess? I'm not having any kind of that difficulty pulling irons out.
  25. Beehive
    If you wrap a piece of tape at a known depth on a French iron. You can repeat the same size holes. It also helps give a visual on how far in your going or need to go. I'm not kidding. You only need about .50-1.0mm protrusion of the tines on the exit hole. It also helps you from gorilla pounding the irons too deep. Repeated results. The French are some smart craftsman. No wonder Paris fashion is the thing. Anyone saying they don't like French irons because some guy on YouTube doesn't understand them. Is selling themselves short. It's all about the wedge.
×
×
  • Create New...