Spinner

Hey folks, I've been looking at Black 1/8" kangaroo lace and have found that depending on where you look the price for a 25 yd spool varies from $23-70. That's a pretty big spread for a similar product. Is there a huge difference in what the suppliers have like there is in leather hides? If so, what are those differences and would some of the folks that use roo lace consistently tell me where you buy yours and why? Thanks in advance, Chris

Hey EngineCo1, I have seen this sometimes when posting my own. Here are some of the possible reasons: Editing a message after the photos are inserted can cause the links to break. Organizing your photobucket album or creating a new album or moving the pictures to a new album can break the links Editing the pictures for resize, cropping, etc. and using the save new copy vs. the replace option can break the links. If it wasn't any of these, only other thing I can think of it the bandwidth getting too high and hitting the photobucket cap. I've hit the bandwidth cap a few times so I had to break my photos into 3 different accounts, one for forums, one for family and one for secret projects. Chris

Hi Dink, I'll add you to the list. Peter, I'll add you as well. To all: I have a couple of custom leather jobs this week so I'll be getting paid and can buy the bits, wood, etc. for all these. I should be able to start sometime next week and it looks like it's going to take a week or so of turning in between leather jobs to get them all done. I truly didn't expect to be making more than six or seven of them. LOL! My lovely assistant (my wife) will be going back through the thread to make a list of the names and numbers in the order of the replies so we can sort it out and get to everyone in due time. Hopefully I should have them all ready to be delivered over the next 2-3 weeks. If I have questions on what sizes you would like, I'll send a PM through the forum otherwise I'll drop you a note when your bits are ready. Thanks, Chris

Thanks Russ, I was simply passing on the information I gathered when this question can up previously. It actually looks like we're both on the right track though. In reading up on it more after your response, it looks to be both things working in concert since without the glycerin additive, the surfacted water simply dries more uniformly (hence the term "Sheeting action") but at a similar rate. Glycerin extends the drying time of liquids due to a higher evaporation point and is also an additive in many detergents & soaps (as well as fog machine liquid, fake tears/sweat and professional bubble blowing mixtures). *Note - I was incorrect about calling it Ethylene Glycol...that's an additive in radiator fluid. LOL

Excellent Alex, congratulations!

The additive Bobby was referring to in the Joy dish soap is Ethylene Glycol. It's used in a number of products as a moisture extender. Simply put, it makes the water wetter for longer because it doesn't evaporate as fast.

Hey Thumper, I'm not an expert, but for the bibs and bags I have done this is what I use: Bib: 5/6 oz. with felt backing sewn in. Saddlebags: 9/10 oz. or 9/10 oz. front/back with 5/6 oz. sides Windshield Bag and other small bags: 9/10 oz can be used (to keep costs down by using the same side the saddlebags were made from) but usually I use 5/6 oz for these. lever covers: 3/4 oz. or 5/6 oz. Chris

Hey Jazznow, First off the beech is too soft/porous to work well for burnishing. Best bet will be with a more exotic wood like cocobolo, tulipwood, blackwood or lignum vitae (ironwood). The reason these work better is they are more dense and have very tight grain patterns so they don't absorb so much of the heat and product. I have used mine a few times in the last week and found a couple of things: 1. you need to prep it - meaning you have to burnish some scrap to get a good burnish on the wood first. This will close the pores even more and essentially seal it. 2. varying the speed - on thinner leather I found faster speed works better while slower speed works best with thicker leather. 3. I tried saddlesoap, gum tar and plain old spit, they all seemed to leave a slightly burnished edge, but not perfect. When I switched to using a light coat of Aussie wax, it worked much better. The key to this type of burnishing is the heat/friction more than the pressure. 4. a few times I found if I 'warmed' up the wood bit on a piece of scrap before hitting a finished project it worked better. I find this type of burnisher is used mainly to take the grunt work out of burnishing and doesn't necessarily replace a good hand burnish. By using the wood 'bits' first, my hand burnishing is cut down by half and ends up being more of a buffing/clean up step. Chris Hey Mike, I don't know about seriously marketing them, but I will be making them for LW folks that want them so I'll put your name down and let you know when I have them. Chris

Oh, hehe...I get it now. Yeah, the $10 was off the top of my head and then after talking to King's X a bit in PMs and factoring some stuff like the little boxes in that I hadn't thought about it bumped them up a tad. Update: Got another custom job request tonight so hopefully I'll be able to start ordering the shanks in a day or two!

Hey John, have fun making a few. If you need any info when you give it a spin let me know. K-Man, got your email and I'll reply to that as well. Yeah, I did a LW search as well and couldn't find anything. You might want to consider just adding an extra page to the website where folks can check stuff like this out. I actually work in leather, wood and metal and have divided my site map up for this so I can add little things like this that may not be heavy volume but might be sought for. Either way, good luck with everything. WestTX, no problem. As I mentioned, I'll let foks now as I get them made. Cheryl, I probably could charge more but for now this seems far and isn't my main business so just being able to provide my fellow leatherworkers with another option at a reasonable rice is good enough for me. (Unless of course I start losing money then I may reconsider. )

Hey guys, no need to get into it on my account. To be honest, I didn't plan on making these as a product to sell, I was simply showing off something I made that I hadn't seen before. The requests to buy then just sort of morphed from the thread. After I saw K-man's posting yesterday I did a deeper web search (I originally was just going to buy one but couldn't find them) and still can't find anywhere something like this can be bought in wood. Plenty of mention of felt ones though. K-man: There's nothing that says we can't both offer our wares to the LW members. Some folks may even prefer the metal (I'm assuming aluminum?) ones to wood or vice versa. I appreciate the photos and the size advice. The first difference (aside from materials) I see in the two styles is that I am confined to an area 7/16" long due to my current method. That's not the case with yours so they serve different personal preferences, etc. I would suggest actually putting them online somewhere if you're going to offer them though. I searched google, LW.net and even your website after your posting and still can't find them. Friendly competition is healthy as it gives the makers a reason to improve on designs and everybody wins that way. Good luck to you as well! To the folks wanting to buy these: I'm not a rich guy and this was initially an experiment so it may take me a week or two to purchase all of the shanks. I have plenty of wood between tulipwood and cocobolo (cocobolo does work as well by the way). I'll buy the shanks and make them as I can and message you in the order you replied to see if you're still interested. King's X was right about the cost, it looks like $15 each, including shipping is about right. Between the buying shanks, little boxes and shipping and T & M that's what it worked out to. If folks are getting more than one, it will be a little cheaper per as we'll be able to combine shipping. ~ Chris

Well, hell K-man...I didn't know you were making these already. I apologize for stepping on your toes like that, I hadn't seen anything for the dremel yet. You have some that fit 1/8" openings?

That would be cool X! I'll send ya a message with my info. I'm going to sit down this weekend to figure out how much the mailer, shipping, the parts, etc. are and work up a fair price (I'm already set up for high production runs of small turning items from doing wine bottle stoppers for galleries and wineries). I'm not worried about making bank on them, just trying to help folks fill a need that has been mentioned before. I'm also going to go through my wood supply and see about other woods to use (may test cocobolo to see if the weight bothers the dremel as cocobolo is great for burnishing too) I had a thought this morning, the troughs on this one work for 3/4 oz and 7/8 oz. respectively. Think it would be worth it to do a second version with one larger trough for say double thickness 9oz for the holster folks?

Looks like there is enough interest so I'll investigate everything this weekend and let you all know what the particulars are, cost, etc.

Thanks Engineco1! I may end up making a bunch for folks that want them. They only take a few minutes to cut and turn so cost would be pretty low I imagine. I'll have to check out the shanks at Harbor Freight. Home Depot wants $5 for the sanding drum replacement pack. Worst case scenario, I could probably make them and get them shipped in the lower 48 for $10...that sound about right?

Thanks Eric, as they say, necessity is the mother of invention. Lots of possibilities here, you can make them for pretty much any light - heavy duty stack of leather as long as the channel you make is within the 7/16" width and the depth is dia. - 1/4". I plan to go buy some more of the sanding drums and make various channels so all I have to do is swap bits like normal.

Johanna's right. I own 2 copies of the journal (don't even know how I got them) and 3 books. The rest of my learning and the list of suppiers/instructions bookmarks I have all came from this forum and the adverts above.

I have a lathe, a grinder & a polishing set up but I didn't have a good way to adapt any of them to burnishing (the lathe is usually loaded with wood or shavings and the grinder has two wheels I need for well, grinding) so I decided to see what I could make for my Dremel since I couldn't find anything. What I found is that if you take the sanding drum bits apart they make an excellent shank for a wood burnisher. Unscrew the little screw at the top, remove the sandpaper and then pull the rubber compression bushing off and what you are left with is a shank 7/16" long x 1/8" dia. So I pulled out some Tulipwood (dense & naturally oily like Cocobolo with 1/2 the weight) cut it to 7/16" long and drilled a 1/8" hole down the center and then turned the profile for 2 different sized leather edges. Sand to 600, hit it with some friction polish as a base for Aussie Wax and then reassembled everything onto the shank. Works beautifully and since the Dremel is variable speed I can find the sweet spot speed to get the edge I want. Just thought I would share the process and finished product in case other were wondering if it could be done. Chris

Ah, ok...I was confused too. Good 'old boy translation: Check out my online auctions! :D There are a couple of really neat stamps like the mountain scene that I haven't seen before.

Those look really nice! The text is crisp and the paint looks to be even and smooth. Not much to change here. What paints are you using since these will possibly be subject to fire, water, etc? What finish? Last question, I see they are stitched. Is that purely decorative or are they 2-ply or is there something in between like lexan for impact resistance? The sheath looks good too, I like the weathered look.

Good looking guitar straps. My favorite is the dragon design.

Check Etsy, there are a couple of folks that cast bumblebee pendants and such, they might be able to replace the loop with a rivet or screwback.

Hey Folks, I needed a Jesus Fish pattern for a custom job so I drew one up today and figured while I was at it I would resize & rotate them and make a small pattern pack in case other would want it. Gotta love vector graphics...draw it once, resize to your hearts content without image loss. Page is designed to print on 8.5" x 11" without needing adjustments. Enjoy! Chris