Spinner

Hey Boyd, I just happened to start working on a set of side covers for a 2007 VTX1800F last night so I took a few pics during the process that you might find some inspiration from. The first is post wet forming the face shells. I take them off to punch the lacing holes and then glue them when I put them back on. the second pic shows one cover with just the face glued on and one cover with the face glued on, the top made & glued on and dyed with Black Pro Oil dye. You can see the two sets of lacing holes waiting for the basket weave. I'll see about snapping a few more pics as I go along. Chris

Don't know if it matters for your schedule or not but double check their hours when you call, if I recall correctly they aren't open weekend and the shop hours are 8-4 M-F.

For thinner leathers you can also try using a Tri-point needle instead of a ball or knife. The advantage is the tri is still sharp so it will pierce nicely but it creates a smaller hole than a standard LR needle. Another thing I have learned from looking at other folks work is generally as you go down in thread size you should also consider shortening the stitch length for appearance & strength. The Tri-points aren't as easy to find but usually will have TRI or NW at the end of the numbers. Balls don't add anything and a bladed needle usually has a LR at the end. (ex. 135x17LR)

The Hidecrafter set is SOLD. Enjoy your new bevelers 2hole, thanks!

Hey Red, Give the folks at Goliger a call. They're good people (Cheryl usually answers the phone) and will pick some good pieces. I see you're in So. Cal, if you're anywhere near Ventura it would be worth cruising over to their shop to possibly pick your own. Otherwise I have never waited more than a week and it's usually only 2-3 days from phone call to delivery to L.A. Cheers, Chris

Hey Folks, I have 7 bevelers for sale, all brand new. I bought them earlier this month when I was in Springfield at SLC. Nothing at all wrong with them, it was just one of those things that in the store they looked different from what I have and once I got home I found that the impressions were close enough to what I have already that they were essentially duplicates...doh! So rather than let them collect dust, let's see if someone is interested. I'd really prefer to sell each brand as a set together rather than piecing them apart if possible. The Hidecrafters bevelers each retail at SLC for $6.91 including sales tax and the CraftJapan bevelers each retail at $26.58 including sales tax. Here's what I'm asking: CraftJapan 3 piece set: $75 shipped Priority Mail Hidecrafter 4 piece set: $25 shipped Priority Mail I can take paypal, credit cards or personal checks (prefer anyone using a check have been an active LW.net member for a while though). Thanks for looking, Chris Here are some pics of the tools and their impressions:

Thanks Mike & James. James, I know what you mean, the original artwork is still hanging in my shop 2 years later. Hey Boyd, Thanks. On the patterns, start with your center line. Fold a piece of posterboard in half and use painter's tape to attach it down the center of the tank. Now you can mark off the brackets, fuel tube, etc. on the top of the tank and cut those out. Reattach the pattern to the tank (still folded in half) so it goes around all the brackets, etc. Put the dash on and trace the outside shape. Mark the rearmost edge of the tank, mark the curve where the top rolls to the rear edge and make notes of the widths all the way up the center line. Now you can take that off the tank and use various tools like french curves to make the bib profile. with it still folded in half design the shape and cut the pattern out, unfold and you have a perfectly symmetrical pattern. The process for the whaletail patterns has a number of additional steps to get them just right but they stay in the 'safe' just like Coca-Cola's recipe. On the side covers, The ones with the pockets are specific to the '04-current Aero that I can tell so far. No other bike I have checked out, including the ACE and Spirit, VTXs, and a number of Zukis and Yamas have the same "dead space" behind the covers as the Aero does. To make them I had to drill about 30 holes in an Aero cover set and use a rod to do depth findings and figure out the pocket space. Once that was figured out, I made up a pattern for the hole placement and pocket sizes. From there I cut out the opening, attach a leather pocket from behind using contact cement and then drill stitching holes through the pocket & cover to sew it in permanently. With the pocket done, the leather is wet formed around the face. Make a top piece for it and then pull all the leather off to punch the lacing holes. Now the leather is glued onto the cover with Barge on both surfaces, dyed, finished and then the top and face are laced together using a modified "over only" mexican round braid. Make up the flaps, straps and buckle holds, attach with chicago screws (so they can be repaired or replaced if needed) and they're all done! Easy, right? Now, it is possible to wrap any side cover and exclude the pockets. I have done this for a couple of VTXs and they turn out pretty nice as well. Just skip to the leather forming part and proceed from there. Cheers, Chris

Two years later this thread comes up again so I figured I would update my recipe that has served well for the last 18 months: Pro Oil Dye > neatsfoot oil > Pro Waterstains > Resolene (50/50 cut) > Pecard Weatherproof Dressing Deeper colors, very water resistant and less fading & better abrasion resistance than the previous recipe.

Y-knot is definitely more consistent, higher grade lace. It's much thinner as well so it lays down extremely well. The drawback is that being thinner it stretches alot more than Springfield's does over a long run so I tend to lace with it using no longer than 4' sections. Makes for more splices but if you're good at them it won't matter. On the Springfield issue of thickness, you're dead right. I just bought four 50 yard spools of the 1/8" black classic and there is definitely two different thicknesses in batch. Fortunately, I ended up with two rolls of each thickness so I rubberbanded them together so I know which to splice to which when the roll ends! As for the back, they are a little fleshy but not bad. I usually condition and seal with Pecards anyway so it lightly burnishes the back smooth before I lace and the back is a non-issue.

Goliger Leather (CA) and Sheridan Leather (WY) are both great for Hermann Oak and carry other tanneries as well. Both have sent me great quality for over a year now (2-4 sides a month), just pick which is closest to you to help with the shipping.

Definitely Test it out first. Many lacquer type products and even some 'water based' like Resolene will dissolve or pull the pigment out of acrylics. Best best is to add an extra step in there: do a wash of flat varnish over the color and then proceed to do the rest as normal. All of my smaller color bibs are done this way and it works great. The other finishes don't bother the varnish at all so the color is protected and allows your top coat to be consistent throughout the piece. Use a flat varnish though as a semi or gloss under another finish will cause the area to have double the shine and will look out of place. Yuo can generally fins flat varnishes at art or craft supply stores for pretty cheap both in aerosol and brushable. I recommmend the brushable as the propellant in the aerosol cans can actually kill the pigment in transparent paints like hues and layer colors.

Those were a great idea by Coach. I've had at least a dozen requests to make them since they sold out (within a week or so of coming available). Here's an article on the wallets and how they came upon the idea for those interested: via PSFK: http://www.psfk.com/2012/05/coach-vintage-baseball-glove-wallets.html As to the OP's question, you're definitely going to want to spend the money on a good splitter for these especially if you go the route of actual vintage gloves. Nothing would suck more than to have found a nice 50-70 year old glove, cut it apart and then have it get ruined in a crappy splitter. Look into skiving, either by machine or by hand also as you'll not only need to thin the leather as a whole but will also need to bring some of the edges down to a feather edge to roll them correctly. I believe there are machines that will both split & skive up to 6" wide which would suit the purposes for these wallets.

Looking good so far!

Best answer is the one you discovered on your own. Use a fabric pattern as the basis and modify as needed. You can also convert saddlebag patterns to serve as a backpack. When I did my first one earlier this year I just made it as I went along using standard bag making techniques found online. Usually when someone views a thread and doesn't reply it means they don't know an answer, not that they're ignoring the post. Can't imagine 64 replies of "I haven't seen one" would have done much good. Good luck with your project.

Thanks everyone! Thanks Bobby, the answer is yes. Obviously the black background areas are dyed. Black Pro-Oil Dye. The pin-up was done with brushes and airbrushes using Golden Fluid acrylics and Golden Airbrush Medium to thin.

The LeatherBurnishers@yahoo.com email address is the standard one and usually works fine. Although, being a Yahoo email it's possible their spam filter is catching the request (had 2 calls in the past due to that so I re-routed for them). This can especially be the case if you're using hotmail.com, live.com or website specific (like @threemuttscustoms.com) addresses as I used to have the same problem once in awhile. I'd say give it another email and if you don't hear back in 1-2 days max (Beary's pretty good at checking the email) then either message Ed through here or on Facebook. http://leatherworker.net/forum/index.php?showuser=7175 I don't know of a phone number to call in orders, maybe if enough people ask about it...? Hope that helps...

Thanks for the mention Mike but I'm not the one making them anymore. Ed "The Bearman" and his son Beary have taken over the reins at http://www.leatherburnishers.com. Welshman, give them a try - there are a couple of different models for drill presses offered as well as ones for dremels.

20 psi is low for a siphon feed airbrush shooting paint. Here are a couple of tips that should help: It should be thinned to around 30/70 paint/thinning medium. The substance being sprayed through an airbrush should never be thicker than whole milk for best results. 2-3 light coats works better than 1 heavy coat. The air required to move paint (vs. dye) is going to be on average 25% higher. For standard airbrushing, a siphon feed needs 25-40 psi for paint, due to the heavy pigment bodies present you'll need more air to push it through otherwise it goes up a little, sits and then a dam is created by the air passing over the paint. (Side note, a gravity feed airbrush (little cup on the top) requires less air pressure) One other thing to note is Angelus Acrylic Finisher is an acrylic top coat, designed to dry to a hard, waterproof finish. It's not a great thinning agent even though it 'could' be used that way. Some companies state it's ok to mix their finishes with the paints but that applies to hand painting and is done to give certain areas more gloss or in the case of using a heavy body medium it can by used to build the paint up creating a topographical effect. I don't know which airbrush artists they are talking to, but most I know don't mix paint & finish steps. For acrylic airbrushing, it's best to use plain old water to thin or something like Golden Airbrush Medium. I know it's an extra step but you'll have better results and likely an easier time with the airbrush if you paint and finish in two separate operations...make sure to clean thoroughly in between! cheers, Chris

Here's another thumbs up for Bearman Mauls. I have 4 mauls, 3 of which are Bearman Mauls. The other is a 16oz. Stohlman, the first maul I bought and will be replaced as soon as I have the funds to do so. As for sizes, the 9oz BM maul is for detail work, the 16oz AS is for general tooling, the 21oz BM is for backgrounding and basketweaves and lastly the 28oz BM is for hole & slot punching as well as heavy stamping like large geometrics. On a side note, I also have a 1 ton arbor press for my maker's mark and Made in the USA stamp. The difference in action between the Bearman mauls and the Stohlman are night and day. While the Stohlman is decent and the most used due to it's weight, the Bearman mauls feel better in the hand and give a more positive hit with less vibration. The extra inch of head material (length) is also nice as well. Cheers, Chris Here's a pic of the custom 28oz Amboyna Burl handled maul Beary made for me last year. I'll see about getting pics of the two Lacy Oak handled ones Ed turned for me earlier this year.

Not sure how long CT waits but 10-15 minutes is usually pretty good. Lets the oil soak in as deep as it's going to get while letting the grain side air out. Makes sure to lightly buff off any residual left on the surface as it can cause the dye to bleed if left. Cheers, Chris

Very nice!

I use Peter's modeling tool daily. I have some of the King, Osbourne and Tandy tools and can say with confidence that Peter's is a nicer tool. I'm not quite sure what his formula is but that one double ended tool replaced literally 10 others once I figured out all of it's nuances. Only drawback is he makes them in small batches so there can be a wait to get one at times if he's in between runs.

Wow, that's a gorgeous knife. I do have to say, while utilitarian as you mentioned, the sheath is a little bit of a let down. A blade that nice deserves a good looking sheath to compliment it!

Just to be clear, I do understand Kickstarter and have supported projects I found to be worthwhile through it. And yes, I gave her a small earful in my original post but I never straight up called her a beggar or deemed the method as disgusting, I simply disagreed with the audience she chose to solicit. It is everyone's prerogative to make decisions whether they be from the heart or the head. Ferg's right though, I've been trying to discuss business scenarios and decision making using the thread details as examples to help enlighten those who may not have much business experience and you decided to bring it back around to "why does everyone have to bash poor Mia" so I'll just chalk this up to us having two different conversations and move on to something more interesting. -------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Funny enough one of my daily web comic reads touched on the whole Kickstarter theory this morning so for those interested, here's the link. Gutters - Issue 319 Warning, they don't censor the artist of the day's language, so if you have 4-letter word sensitivities here's the first line that sums it up: "With Boom, Top Cow, Zenescope, Image and IDW all using Kickstarter for projects they don't believe in enough to put their own money into, we thought..." <signing off> Cheers, Chris

Meh, no worries. It actually doesn't shoot it full of holes and it's not my theory. It was an actual test case at a seminar I attended a few years back just related it closer to home for the forum. It simply illustrates Jack's earlier point that some forms of sales wouldn't be affected by anything anyone else does. Or she could be working, in school, a sleep, in a country that is 12 hours ahead, etc. and just not have visited the site again yet to see the craziness that has ensued.