Matt S

@Rickard Sorry for the late reply. A few thoughts occur to me. The 205 was designed when synthetic rather than linen threads were common. I've not tried to sew linen thread with such a modern machine (having several older ones available which do the job very well). Nothing jumps out at me to say that a more modern machine can't sew linen, it's just that I've never tried it if you see what I'm saying. Perhaps there is something subtly different about how more modern machines are constructed that make them unsuitable for linen. A 45K would do admirably, linen is what they wre designed for! If your linen is very close to 1mm diameter a 205 probably isn't going to like it. That's pretty common for modern, hobbyist hand-sewers but way off the heavy end of machine threads. I've got one of the heaviest closed-eye-needle harness stitchers commonly available, which maxes out around 18/8 linen, roughly metric/TKT 5 (v554), and even that's only 0.8mm diameter. I've just looked at the original prospekt, 205s are/were designed for needles in the range nm160-230, which indicates a thread size range of roughly TKT20-TKT8. In linen this would be roughly 25/3 to 18/5 (0.4-0.65mm). Also you mention wax. As I'm sure you're aware sewing with dry linen is a tough row to hoe. It has a lot of friction, fluffs and frays, doesn't stick to itself in the stitch, absorbs water in use, and is quite weak. Sewing machines setup for linen either wet the thread with a liquid wax solution as it's being used, or has a heated wax bath for the same purpose. Prewaxed thread is generally too "sticky" so what few machines were ever designed to use it heated the thread as it was being used. If it sounds messy, that's cos it is. A 205 isn't setup for any of these arrangements, though you could add a solution box and fill that with liquid wax or thread lube. They stick on the top of your machine with a magnet. Linen can be a real hassle to machine sew with. Get it all right and it looks beautiful. Core-spun looks very similar for a fraction the ballache! ;-)

Well put! Then you should be used to it, and as you know there are workarounds. I'm always a bit leery about painted machines, especially if I don't know who did it or how carefully. On the plus side if you want to strip and restore it a 45K21 is an excellent machine to cut your teeth on. Depends entirely on your local market, any work you'll have to do on it and what is your budget. I think that may be the 45K25 that came with a roller presser. AFAIR the 21 was a plain presser foot. Clutch motors are solid, reliable, and an acquired taste. One that I've never managed to acquire. If you're not used to you may wish to budget for swapping to a digital servo motor, unless you enjoy using both feet and all three hands at once.

45Ks are very solid, simple, reliable machines, popular in Britain and its (now former) dominions for over a century. The 21 subclass has a cylinder arm and a plain presser foot with drop-feed and no reverse. Like all drop-feed machines they can have issues climbing up and down large changes in thickness, and will leave dog marks on the back side of your leather. The permanence of these marks will vary depending on your leather and application, but on a belt or a sling I find them to be insignificant. Indeed many vintage pieces will exhibit dog marks on close inspection. Certain later models came with a jump-foot to make feeding easier and some with a slightly clunky reverse feed. Max thickness for 45Ks is usually around 1/2" or 13mm. Some will do a smidge more. Thread size is probably 18/3 to 18/5 linen, or TKT13/V207 to TKT8/V346 nylon. Max speed 900 SPM. There is/are Chinese clones of the 45K21 being produced still today, sold as the GA5 or CB2500. (Really it's a clone of the Adler Kl5, which was in turn a very good copy of the 45K21). This should give you a pretty realistic idea of a 45K21's specs: https://www.tolindsewmach.com/cb2500.html I believe the 45K21 to be well suited to sewing belts and slings, and with a little careful driving should work for your holsters providing they aren't any thicker than 1/2" and you're able to make do without reverse.

Is that a Durkopp--Adler 205-370? 1mm thread should be fine in that machine, but is towards the upper end. Most leather was sewn with linen before the middle of the 20th century. I have sewn a fair bit of linen by hand and by machine, and would say that it's only "weak" when it's dry or old. However few machines are designed or setup for sewing linen these days, and all my experience machining it is on machines designed for linen from the beginning (Singer 45K, BUSM #6 etc.). You might need to get fresher thread, change your needle size or adjust your tension to sew with linen. If you're looking for more of a linen look that sews a little easier through modern machines we have something called "core spun" cotton/poly over here -- a polyester core with cotton spun around it. Readily available, works well and cheap. This chart is useful, it gives a largely accurate cross-reference for thread sizes in various measuring systems (including millimetres) and approximate needle sizes to try with each size of thread. https://www.tolindsewmach.com/thread-chart.html From that chart we can see that a TKT10 nylon thread is roughly 0.6mm diameter, equivalent size to a 18/4 linen thread (English lea system) and recommends that you start with a size nm200 machine needle. You may need to go up or down one or even two sizes from there depending on results in your leather, with your particular thread and machine, and depending what effect you want.

I have one, I find it good for doing larger batches of stuff, especially if it's from softer leathers. It's capable of chomping through some surprisingly tough leathers and can be setup to do some very precise edge trimming. I'm not entirely sure how useful it would be to someone who "does a few belts". The standard ones are only 100mm/4" wide so you can only get a couple 38mm/1.5" belts through it at a go. $300 will get you a very nice manual strap cutter, a pile of blades and a lot of change left over for leather. One word of warning, the electrical and finger safety on these is absolute dog toffee, as usual with direct-from-China industrial style machinery. I found an unearthed steel case, a very dodgy moulded plug on too short a crunchy cable, a self-destructing direction switch, a chassis completely open at the bottom (with exposed live contacts) and no provision for an e-stop or "unexpected digits dragged into the

You're very welcome! I get them from eBay.

This. Like Billy I've seen people who know what they're about sharpen knives and other edge tools in just about every direction -- push, pull, little circles and parallel along the edge. Even Tormek acknowledge that sharpening into or away from the edge is perfectly acceptable and design their machines and jigs to work both ways. How you establish and maintain that consistent edge angle is the thing. With practice it's perfectly feasible to do it freehand -- millions of carpenters, saddlers and luthiers have been doing it since the Iron Age. It's not cheating if you use a bought or DIY jig though. Assuming that you're not deliberately reshaping the edge of the blade just maintain that angle while honing both sides until you bevels meet (it will develop a consistent wire edge all along), then go up a grit size or strop and a slightly steeper angle on something gentle like your palm or jeans just until the burr comes off. Then strop to polish the bevel and get cutting. I've found that the edge is only part of the story when it comes to cutting tool effectiveness, especially on something like a head or round knife. The bevels leading up to the edge are crucial too, especially with thicker and stiffer materials. While you might be able to get away with a straight, flat piece of steel a couple millimetres back from the edge if you're cutting a piece of basil you need a long, smooth and well polished taper if you're cutting bridle back or tooling shoulder. The reason should be obvious: a steep bevel gets jammed into the cut on thicker leathers, and an unpolished one drags more than a polished one. Grinding long, smoothly tapered or convexed bevels is a time consuming job, so a lot of knives these days don't come like that from the factory. Many head and round knives are overthick too. My favourites are all 2mm max thickness at the ferrule and taper gradually to the main cutting bevel.

Ffion has made exactly one post on this site two months ago and has zero profile content so I wouldn't hold my breath waiting for a reply from them. I wouldn't be surprised if they're a shill or plant. Likolly appears to be a Chinese site selling run-of-the-mill tools from that nation's factories as available from AliExpress, Amazon or eBay so if you have a particular tool in mind you can likely get an opinion about it somewhere. Prices appear pretty much in line with those other sites, which have very good consumer protection. At risk of making a sweeping statement Chinese made leather tools can be "perfectly serviceable" or "good", and often "innovative", but tend to be more in the "barely adequate" to "poor" range. Their electrical machines are often downright dangerous as-shipped. Edge tools like knives and edge bevellers are often not properly honed from the factory, especially if you want to cut tougher leathers. This tends to apply no matter where in the world you buy them from, though notable exceptions apply. They will need periodic or constant edge maintenance in use dependant on your use, so just like with hand-tool woodwork at some point you just need to learn how to sharpen.

[my bold] :shrug: Maybe, but that's not my interpretation of what he typed.

I have splitters and I wouldn't bother pulling them out the drawer/setting them up to do the turnbacks and keepers on a watch strap, I'd just got at it with a knife and be done in no time. Granted hand skiving is a skill and a perishable skill at that but it's a fundamental skill in leatherwork and the minimal investment in a decent knife, blade maintenance, a pile of scrap/offcut and a bit of swearing is well worth it. Lisa Sorrell is the queen of skiving and gives decent tuition for free on her Youtube channel:

I use a wooden strap cutter for this sort of leather. It's one of the now discontinued ones made in Stockton rather than the Far East. The Stockton ones are superior, but yours should work okay. First ditch the "proper" blade and get a pack of injector razor blades. Similar cost, half the thickness, sharper and long enough to use at multiple "spots" on the blade. Just put some tape over the exposed part so you don't accidentally cut yourself in half. Then set your strap cutter with the parallel bars a little further apart than required for your thickness of leather. You don't want it dragging or snagging, but neither do you want it rattling about. Start with a straight line. Mark it with a straight edge (ruler, aluminium angle, selected wooden batten, whatev) and an awl. Then cut that line by hand with the leather hanging slightly over the edge of the bench. I use a small round knife or wharncliffe knife or utility knife or pair of shears as the mood takes me. If your knife line is a bit wobbly set your strap cutter for 1/4" and cut it straight with your strap cutter. It's not waste, it's a useful piece of lace or thong. Then set your strap cutter for your preferred width. Measure it with a steel rule rather than relying on the dimensions marked on the gadget. Hang a little leather over the edge of your bench and engage the blade to the leather with the gauge in firm but gentle contact with the straight edge. You should be standing with the bench to your left side and the cutter in your right hand roughly 18" away from your belly. If the leather mushes up rather than starts easily put the cutter down, make a 1" starter cut with a knife and start again with the wooden cutter. Use your left hand to pull gently on the hide and the cut strap immediately behind the blade as you're pulling on the cutter. If it tries to move away from the bench (narrowing the strip) pull harder on the strap and push the cutter slightly to the left. If it tries to dive into the hide (widening the strap) pull harder on the hide and push the cutter slightly to your right. When your left and right hands are about as far apart as you can comfortably move them while keeping it all straight move your left hand down to where the cutter is, step backwards and start again. Sounds like a lot of palaver but it literally takes me a few seconds to cut an accurate 8' long strap from a side of this sort of leather. It helps that I've done it hundreds of times. Remember that your strap may not finish straight, even if it is the correct width. A large piece of leather, like a large piece of wood or steel plate, has internal stresses which are balanced against other stresses. Sometimes when your cut a piece off these stresses are no longer balanced and the strap starts doing an banana impression.

Scratch awl, soft pencil, ballpoint pen, silver pen, sharpie... depends on what will stay or show up on the leather and whether the mark will be visible on the finished item. Mostly I use the scratch awl. Why the awl? Because it doesn't leak, run out, go blunt and has a multitude of other uses.

Cutting dies are great, but to make them pay you have to balance the cost of production against the labour and mistake/wastage costs of doing them by hand. For me that breakeven is usually around 100 pieces if they're for my own production work but every person must work that out for their own. I have to say though that it doesn't look like a particularly complex or close-tolerance part, nor does that leather (~2mm?) look very difficult to cut. Take you some scrap, mark them up with your template, strop your knife and try cutting a few dozen. It'll be great practice for a very fundamental skill in leatherworking. At the end line them up in order that you cut them. Compare each piece and look for any differences in accuracy of cut-to-line, in cleanliness of the cut (and snagging/stretching/tearing) where the knife got blunter or the leather changed). Figure out what worked best and how different input variables altered the results. What you could get away with and what you couldn't. Then pick the best/strongest/prettiest/neatest/most consistent ones that you need for your bag and chuck the rest in the circular filing cabinet. You will have invested an hour of your time, 0$ and a little scrap material to increase your knowledge and skills and you'll have enough strap attachments to complete your bag in less time than it'd take for the die manufacturers to respond to your email.

Maybe. The bigger balance wheel usually fitted to hand-crank machines will certainly help. Cranking by hand rather than a small motor of unknown age and condition may help, but sewing machines tend to work by storing the energy in the balance wheel (having it spinning earlier in the stitch cycle before the needle hits the material). I have a 99K that came with a hand crank from the factory in 1936, it's got a 3:1 gear reduction and if you have to lean on the handle to pierce what you're sewing you're doing something wrong. I don't know what you consider "heavy leather" but a 99K or any other domestic machine can't be expected to sew more than 2-3 millimetres total thickness of medium-temper leather with a TKT40/V69 thread, using a NM100-110 leather point needle. For firmer leathers like tooling veg, less thickness. You are likely to get foot marks on the top, dog marks on the bottom, will have layer slippage if not pasted, may encounter inconsistent stitch length, and will have issues climbing up and down thickness changes. Some individual machines and operators may be able to do more due to a combination of luck, skill, modification and selective reporting but don't expect it as the norm. Whatever exaggerations may be read on the internetz these are domestic machines intended for occasionally running up cushion covers, shirts, dresses and the like. Hemming trousers and basic repairs. The heaviest work they were expected to do was sewing a pair of curtains or perhaps making an item of clothing from soft, thin suede. On leather I'd suggest them adequate for sewing wallet internals, small pouches and maybe watch straps so long as the above limitations are accepted and the owner is aware of the increased likelihood of early wear and catastrophic failure (something going PING that's no longer available). Interesting as entertainment in and of itself, and a possible start on machine sewing for those on a very tight budget but not something that should be relied on to produce large quantities with professional levels of quality or reliability.

The height that the foot lifts at each stitch is adjustable on most 111-derived triple/walking foot mechanisms as @Constabulary says -- usually by adjusting a locking screw through a curved slot on the back of the machine head. I've never had or used a machine with one of those handy top wheels but assuming it makes that adjustment it would be a useful thing. Normally on my W/F machines I just set and forget it at maximum, and if you're just making a few items a day that's fine -- especially if you sew slowly. However I've found that when sewing larger batches it can be handy to reduce the walking for the working foot height. Set it to just a little above the minimum you need to clear/climb what you're sewing and you reduce the amount of metal crashing up and down. Also I think it reduces the amount of bruising/marking the feet leave on the leather if the pressure's a little higher than you'd like. Makes a difference when running your machine >8 hours a day pedal to the metal >2000 SPM, which I have been known to do.

The colour of "natural" veg tanned leather (we call it "russet" in the UK) varies by all sorts of things, not simply quality. One of those is exactly what single or mix of tanstuff is used -- certain barks give different shades. I'll see if I can dig out some books on the subject but IIRC mimosa and willow gives a particularly light or fair tan, and hemlock and oak darker ones. There's also the matter of what dressings are used after the hide has been tanned and dried. Even tooling veg gets dressed with a little oil (often fish or neetsfoot) or grease, and again what it is and how/how long it's oxidised for, including "tanning" in the presence of UV light, can affect its shade. Then different hides react differently to what we put on it once we're done "making". I've had some really nice milled russet veg that was very pale, like oat porridge. Intended for shoe linings. Unfortunately it looked like wet cardboard if you put any oil on it.

Excuse me being nosy. Is there a particular reason why you're buying leather from the US? Seems like a lot of bother and expense, unless you're really keen on something not available more locally.

Sailrite are largely aimed at the amateur/hobby market, perhaps edging into the "sell enough to make a few bucks profit a month" level. Professionals don't tend to need to be advertised at -- if they're a small concern individual workers tend to have institutional knowledge from wherever they studied, and if they're larger concerns they either have an in-house technician to know these sorts of things or they go to a dealer and say "I need X number of machines that have Y capability. How fast do they go and what are your financing options?" Amateur/hobby leatherwork is a vanishingly tiny market for sewing machine manufacturers. Some dealers (such as Weaver) spend considerable resources to cater to that market because they reckon it's worth it. Most don't, and I can't really blame them for that. Same for manufacturers -- I bet Juki sells 1,000 industrial machines to manufacturers for every one they sell for someone to use for a hobby or one-man-band craft business. Juki turned over $657 million last year, and I doubt if even one tenth of a percent of that was selling industrial sewing machines to amateurs or hobbyists. I certainly don't call it laziness if they think they have bigger fish to fry than spoon-feeding Bill from Thraxton on the nuances between a pendulum and parallel feed.

A 555 or other similar garment-weight industrial will probably do better than a domestic/hobby machine on leather, though I expect it to be still rather limited regarding feed positivity, material thickness, thread size and climbing ability. As you say $200 is "try it and see" money. The servo will certainly help with controllability, but you may have issues with the oil pump because you won't be running at full speed 99% of the time (what garment machines are optimised for). I'm not familiar enough with the 555 to say for certain. Wallets and watch straps (well, certainly not the good ones showcased on this forum) aren't typically made from garment leather -- which is not only very thin but has a soft handle and relatively loose fibre -- but a variety of thicker, stiffer and tighter fibre leathers. A domestic/hobby machine will not work very well with these sorts of leathers. That's why I was analogising to dolls houses and model boats, garment leather is the light extreme of leather work, just as thin strips of balsa and bass/lime wood is at the light extreme of woodwork. And you probably won't be happy with a watch strap or a wallet made from garment leather. Wallets, watch straps, belts and thin belts live squarely in the "furniture and cabinet making" region of our woodworking analogy. Upholstery too. Bread and butter stuff for most leather workshops. Leather condoms, now that's a market I never considered! You can get them made from sheepgut still. Invented by the Scots centuries ago but it took an Englishman to cotton onto the idea of removing them from the sheep before use...

Yes, to an extent. Essentially you've gone into a hobby shop and asked them for a table saw for cutting wood. They've recommended a £400 Proxxon FET. It's a well made, easy to use machine with a lot of handy features. Unfortunately it's a model maker's wood saw and you want to build furniture. Does it cut wood? Yes, it's great for ripping floorboards for a dolls house or planking for your Bluenose model. However try to cut a bunch of chair legs from 1.5" stock and it's going to struggle and break. Same as "your" TL2010 when sewing anything heavier than a couple millimetres of soft leather. Your Dewalt jobsite saw is a far better option -- it's got fewer fancy features, it's heavier, bulkier and probably would make a mess of those dolls house floorboards, but it's far more powerful, robustly built, and is actually capable of the job you want to do. The sales person in the hobby shop either mostly thinks of wood as little bits of basswood that come in handy packs in aisle 3 (and therefore their experience says "the Proxxon is entirely suitable for cutting wood") or doesn't care -- they don't sell professional power tools and don't get their commission/hit their quota by sending customers down to the builder's supplier round the corner. At the risk of being very blunt, no it's not and I think every person in this thread has tried to explain why it's not and offer alternatives that are a bit more like what you want. Unfortunately the options are limited. Out of interest, is your friend's wife a dealer in industrial or domestic/hobby Jukis? I believe that Juki keeps those two things very separate. No, I'd refer to the man on the street as "the average man on the street". Compared with a furniture maker or cabinet maker he would know very little about wood. He might think of wood as the flat things Ikea furniture is made from. Nobody on this site looks down on people who use thin leather for watch straps, wallets or bags. However if you went on a woodworking forum and asked "what can a Proxxon FET actually do? I've seen videos of it buzzing through bits of 1/8" masonite" the experienced forumites there might say "maybe 3/4" of real wood with a struggle. Get a contractor saw at minimum to cut anything heavier, here's a few options.". That's what has happened in this thread but with leather. It is, admittedly, towards the top end of what is commonly done. Many of the active participants of this forum tend towards the heavier side of things. Mostly the "hard" leather trades like holsters and saddles rather than the "soft" ones like shoemaking or bag making. As you say -- cabin building or shipbuilding type stuff.

I love that folder @Ozarksleathersmith! Looks great. Do the two layers overlap each other at all, or do they just butt up?

You're welcome! Honestly I think it's ignorance -- most sewing machine dealers, even those who focus on industrial machines, have very little idea of what's needed for leather. Your dealer may have very well thought that the TL2010 was plenty enough gun. Unless the person comes from a background in farming, horses, safety gear, historical re-enactment etc. the average man on the street thinks is leather is a thin material with a soft handle used for making shoes, wallets and bags with multiple layers. The thickest, toughest leather they've probably come across is a 3mm/1/8" thick single layer belt or maybe a leather sole on a fancy shoe. I've had very skilled tradesmen astounded that I can make 6mm (1/4") thick belts. It's just two layers of bridle leather glued and stitched together, a very basic task for the heavier side of the leather trades, either by hand or machine. My 100-year-old harness stitcher can do an inch of that stuff all day. Agree with you on this point. I've got a variety of non-leather-working "stuff" that supports the leatherwork. A fabric/garment type machine can be a handy thing in a leather workshop. A domestic is a cheap and low-bulk way of gaining that capability for occasional use. I tend to gravitate towards the older ones (like my 1930s 66K) but acknowledge that the more modern plastic fantastics do have some useful features, like pattern stitching at the press of a button. Not knowing what you said you wanted to sew I would give that dealer the potential copout that whether you're doing 1 bag a week or 100 that $10K Juki might be the minimum viable machine to get the capability you asked for. Let's say you wanted to be able to sew heavy leather holsters but also adjust down to sew lighter wallets and bags. They may not have anything else capable of the job that isn't a $10K TSC-441 or DNU-243. No matter how often you use it you still need to buy a machine with the same capabilities, and industrial/leather machines don't appear to be in enough demand to become a consumer item engineered to be cheaper with a similar quality of output but shorter lifespan than the professional equivalent like we're used to seeing with other things, like domestic appliances, DIY tools or consumer electronics.

Ah, I meant the reverse side! Old-school reverse ;-)

Looks great! How's the reverse? I'd love to see a video of your machine running. Not a huge number of 97s around, certainly this side of the pond.

Size is sometimes laser etched on, but you need keen eyes or magnification to see it. Class is rarely noted on the needle. If you're really keen you can measure it and compare it with manufacturers' drawings to make an educated guess. Tip is simply a visual check, most common are round blunt, round sharp, ball point for knit fabrics, LR/RR slanted cutting for leather etc, straight cutting for leather etc, and a few other odd shapes like triangle cutting. Run the tip down a piece of leather. If it cuts rather than scores or dents the surface it'll probably work to sew leather though it might not give you the look you're after. Yes, if you have the wrong class of needle your machine will not work. Too short and your hook won't form a loop, or maybe the needle won't even reach the leather. Too long and you'll get needle strikes, which can damage the machine or send bits of needle in a random direction. If you want to try a needle turn the machine over by hand a few times before switching on the motor! Probably. Quality industrial needles of this common sort are £5 per pack of 10. Wrong/worn/damaged/rusted needles can cause a lot more than £5 of damage to your machine, work, person or sanity.