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Sign that I'm a city boy...I didn't understand half of what you guys were referring to. LOL The bracelet looks nice though!

Thanks for the clarification Art. You're a wealth of knowledge. Coming from a production and large scale woodturning background I tend to like machines that scare the bejeebus out of most folks and this looks to be my style. Of course, the price is a bit prohibitive for being a hobbyist but it sure is nice to look at for now.

Now that's a hard core machine! How do these compare to the modern day versions like Cobra and such?

Thanks Doc!

Had a request for a dog leash that came in. By the pictures (replacing an old leash) and description this thing was for towing big rigs or walking Clifford the Big Red dog. 1" wide, double thickness strap leather, 6 ft. long. The only part not to be double thickness was the handle. Had to use a snap clip that is meant for construction rigging because no leather supply store had one big enough. Hand stitched 5 1/2 ft. of the 6ft. length. I won't be doing this again anytime soon!

I have used acetone to pull some color (not all) out of a piece before. Granted, it wasn't assembled yet so it dried fairly quickly and I have noticed no damage to the leather itself. The color wasn't completely gone, but it did lighten the piece a couple of shades so I could bring it back up to a better color. Oxalic acid might be another route to go as it is leather/wood bleach. Might get you to a point where you can lighten it up enough to work with. To be honest though, it might be less work to do as the others have said and simply start over. Also keep in mind, any tooling will be damaged via the use of chemicals as most that will remove color will be wet chems and will raise a good portion of the detail.

Looking at round and head knives, they look freaking huge for cutting leather pieces accurately...am I missing something? I've never used one so now I am curious...

I just started doing the same thing this week and boy let me tell ya, the leathers I have cut with curves and such have never looked better.

For those that don't want to spend the money for a vector graphics program and will likely only use the basic functions (lines, curves, text, etc). You can use Raven at http://www.Aviary.com it's a free suite of graphics and image tools that will suffice for most folks. Aviary also has a photo editor, screen capture, music, audio and color editors and some web tools. For those wanting a more robust program than Corel at a lower price, check out Xara Designer. It has a vector graphics suite and full photo editing features like Photoshop in one. Been using it for 12 years now and still love it. http://www.xara.com/...ducts/designer/ For only $89 it's hard to beat. There is a trial download you can get for free to check it out before buying.

Found the particular customer that FHTomkins was making them for... http://www.timhardy.com/quick_release_belts.html

one method is to lay the two pieces next to each other and use a compass to transfer the hole locations from the top to the sides by hand. Takes a little bit longer but generally ensures you have the correct number of holes. You can also punch them as you go along and then tie the pieces together every so often to ensure the continue to line up.

I've seen a few queries about this book on the forum and while I don't have the scratch to buy it right now I thought I would pass on the info in case someone is searching for what is still an excellent priced copy. http://cgi.ebay.com/KEN-GRIFFINS-SCRAP-BOOK-1952-LEATHER-CRAFT-PATTERNS-/190427064963?pt=AU_Leathercraft There's about 5 days left on it.

Yeah, I am. Figured being a member of the section would open up the search function for it but doesn't look like it. Maybe a different search query would provide the results but I'll probably just browse through again so as not to miss anything.

Hey Ant, Are you using any other finishing steps or just dye + resolene? As far as I know and have experienced, Resolene is simply a sealer and will eventually wear off exposing the dyed leather to wear. My process is: clean with denatured alcohol > dye > resolene > saddle soap clean & burnish > lexol or neatsfoot rub > Aussie wax & polish. It's a couple of extra steps but I don't have any trouble rub-off anymore since I started 'going the extra mile'. The leather also ends up looking & feeling much more soft & natural and is more flexible.

Good thought and money saver Chris. Another handy item that you can make with one extra step is a radius cutter. Do the same thing, but instead of smashing it, use a metal saw or die grinder to cut 1/2 the sharp end off at an angle. Makes cutting rounded strap ends a snap. Making the cut at an angle instead of a notch out will increase the strength. I'm getting ready to make 2 variations to speed up the cutting (and accuracy) of the concho/strap holders for my custom motorcycle side covers.

Hey Johanna, Just an FYI the search box is coming back with some odd errors. Here are the two errors I got this morning: I understand the second error in it's essence, but my queries were, "pin-up" "Pin up" and then I added "Pin up style" knowing that Froghunter had just used this phrase in a post recently. (was looking for related posts/topics) only to find out style is a prohibited word. Might want to check the disallow list? Thanks, Chris

Hey Frog, The carving looks great. I've been trying to do pin-up style carvings as I would like it to eventually be my style of theme but it's not often that one finds such a good example of it. Most of the figure carving books focus on cowboy themes and cowboys and such. Thanks for offering up such a fine example. Do you happen to have any pictures of it in process? I'd love to see the carvings without color to get a better idea of your carving technique/placement as it seems the figures are a mosh of knife work, beveling and modeling tool work. You'd be my hero if you were to put together a step-by-step of the female form. Great job! Chris

Thanks DS!

Thanks Chris! -Chris

Here is my latest set of side covers that was a semi-custom request. I had a heck of a time matching the color to the other leathers on his bike. There are 8 other leather items on his bike that range from 6 mos. to 6 yrs. old and have all aged differently, not to mention being from 3 different makers (I'll be the fourth). After some experimenting I got them to the exact color he wanted (met up to color match when the first one was 1/2 done) and went from there. Aside from my normal treatment, he wanted the row of spots on the bottom and a half dollar concho that was larger than what I normally use. The first pic shows a set of factory covers untouched and a the new 'improved' set. You can see in the last photo that I am also adding storage pockets where there previously were none. The pockets are 4-5oz leather, molded to the inside curves and then I use contact cement to place them. Once positioned, I drill holes through the leather and cover and then saddle stitch the pocket in. Makes then extra tough and I don't have to worry about the outline of rivets showing up on the outside under the leather. To get the domed rivets to work on the bottom row, I had to not only drill and punch the holes but also had to recess the back of the cover as there just aren't rivet backs that work with domed rivets that are long enough. I add a bit of epoxy in the post holes to ensure they won't come loose with the motor vibration.

As far as your specific question Dwight, Search Engine Optimization firms for the most part are a joke. Their tagline is "To get your website ranked in the Top 10 listings for your chosen keywords on the top 10 major search engines!". What they don't tell you is: 1) Only 3 search engines really matter to 90% of the population. 2) Your chosen keywords may not be the best for your business and they don't provide keyword and/or industry analysis 3) they may combine your keywords to form 'keyphrases' that are easier to get ranked, yet not searched for as often 4) charge a ton of money to do something most hobbyist webmasters can do themselves. As others mentioned, the biggest things you can do are easy and done to your own website: * Keywords in your meta tags, alt-tags, photo names, and used in your website (i.e. content, links, etc.) * Update your content regularly - the more often your content updates, the more often a search engine will crawl it (one reason large forums and blogs are crawled almost daily) * Relevant content - search engine algorythms are getting smarter. Having content that is well written and relevant to your website (articles on leatherworking, etc.) with keywords used in a logical manner helps. * Cross-linking: trading links with related websites (like LW) that have larger followings will help as the spiders will crawl links from large sites outward * Submit your site to the search engines manually. This isn't a huge task. Half of today's search engines are either owned or fed by the 3 major ones: Google, Bing and Yahoo. Submit to those 3 at a minimum. * Use tools such as Google Analytics. These are tools the search engines supply to track web visitors and such. What most folks don't know is they also serve the search engines as a secondary submission - as traffic increases, spider scheduling increases. * Social Networking. Sites like Facebook now allow for Fan Pages where you can set up a Facebook page for your business. You can give updates, sales info, etc to your fans and if you leave the settings "Public", search engines can index the info. They also allow for more word of mouth as someone who sees your posting on a friends feed can share it with others without even being a fan of your page. * Sit back and wait. This is the hardest step in the process. Most search engines have a 1-6 week backlog for indexing new websites. Even with the process being automated and electronic, their priorities fall something like: News Feeds, Corporate Sites, Active Sites, index backlog, new submissions. The above is basically what you get from an SEO firm for their starter package of $800...now you have it for free. Do the few hours of legwork yourself and go buy some leather with the savings. Hope this helps. Chris

Since the majority of the topic is shipping, I just want to give props to Springfield Leather on this area. A few weeks back I ordered some of the pebbler tools and odds & ends from SLC, they gave me the price and all was good. I called back 2 weeks ago to order 2 extras of the tools so I can customize them into other shapes and when the girl gave me the total it didn't even equal the price of 1 of the tools. So when I asked why the bill was so low, she explained that the actual shipping charges on my previous order were less than what their shipping system estimated so they gave me a store credit for the difference. It wasn't a huge amount, but the fact that they were honest enough to give it back was enough to make me a very happy customer. That combined with the fact that I have had Kevin answer product question emails late in the evening, well after they are supposed to be closed, gives it a 'family business' feeling that I like.

+1 to 50's suggestion for Epilog. They make awesome stuff. The lasers are adjustable in intensity so you can burn/etch leather, wood, plastics, most metals, etc. They can also be programmed to do precision cutting on wood, etc (with minimal scorch marks on the edges). If there is a major woodworking show in your area they may even be there with live demos. A previous acquaintance of mine had one he used to engrave his co. name and such into his anodized aluminum tool handles. Edit: in the meantime, on brass plates, simply visit your local trophy shop or mall store like "Things Remembered" to have them engraved. Many times if you get a number of them done at the same time you can get a discount. They can usually turn them around in 1-2 days for decent prices.