Matt S

Well it's actually made by pressing cods' livers. Very common nutritional supplement for humans and other animals, been used for centuries. Can find it in any grocery or pharmacy over here. Being a traditional Scandinavian fishery product I would have thought it common over there too?

Depends largely on which "knife subculture" You are catering to -- large game hunters, trappers, stockmen, bushcrafters, tacticool, collectors...

If you're Swedish, should be some good leather treatments available. Wilma's springs to mind, but I have never tried it. Pure cod oil is good and you should definitely have some of that!

Butts are big and rectangular. Backs are longer butts, including the shoulders. Bellies are stretchy and not worth using. Shoulders have to be cut sideways, which makes em a bit too stretchy. Butts are what you want, they will make straps about 48" long. Remember they are sold by the pair -- two half butts of about 24x60". That's a lot of belts. You may want to ask if they will mix and match different colours.

Spud is also a sort of scraping/prying chisel on a long handle for removing tree bark.

Gum trag works... sort of. Glycerine soap works better. Gum trag works... sort of. Glycerine soap works better.

Twist them together.

Once you know by experience (yours or someone else's) that a certain thread will stand the strain it's a matter of looks, tradition and what you can obtain. Items like horse tack are different though; I leave well alone if a person's life, limbs or livelihood depend on it. As for needles, use the smallest that you can thread the eye. I use James Joyce no4 for almost everything. Yes, they are tiny, and no, Tandy doesn't sell them or anything that doesn't look like a crowbar in comparison. That makes stitching much easier. The trick to getting the thread to fit is to taper the ends. Takes a minute but makes stitching incredibly easy. Or, as I now do, get some linen yarn and learn to roll your threads by hand. You get beautiful long, slender tapers and can make a thread as thick or as thin as you like, without having half a dozen different rolls lying around. I stitch most of what I make with a 12/3 linen thread, hand rolled and waxed with stickywax (beeswax/rosin in equal amounts). It's surprisingly strong, but looks thin if I stitch at lower than 7SPI and borders on too thick at 10SPI. For me, thread size depends on stitching rate and rate varies according to leather thickness.

I use tandy for one thing: Stohlman books when they go on sale. Between Abbey, Le Prevo and Bachelor's everything else is covered - at better prices for Ivan/Craftool type tools or better quality if we are looking at Dixons and Barnsley.

Simple, cheap and effective? A boxcutter utility knife, we call em Stanley knives over here. The kind work the trapezoidal "disposable" blades. Strop the new blade and you won't imagine the difference. Don't bother buying new blades, just keep stropping the first one.

A thin bladed knife, a diamond harness awl, two harness needles, wet&dry paper for sharpening. Those are the essentials. A pair of steel dividers between 4 and 6 inches have a lot of different uses. Many tools can be improvised, but I would advise sticking away from Tandy, even as a beginner. I can get professional-grade or near-professional-grade tools for not much more than regular Tandy prices, and they actually hold resale value. Probably your best choice of reading material is the Al Stohlman books. Case making vols 1-3 are great, and you will want to have hand tools and hand sewing also. These are all available from Tandy and some of the few items from them worthwhile. If you (as I suspect) saw the Alfred Dunhill video you will want a pricking iron of at least 8 stitches per inch (Dixons tools are excellent), needles no larger than no2 (no way you will get em from Tandy) and a small awl (again don't bother with Tandy). Watch Dangerous Beanz' excellent vids on hand stitching and awl sharpening.

Chisels are for wood. Pricking irons are for leather, then an awl when stitching -- this not only cuts the bit of the hole which may not have been cut by the awl and also temporarily reopens the hole (which will have closed up).

Fascinating.

If you cast your stitches the back will have nearly the same appearance as the front. Best thing for consistency is practice -- so much you don't think about each stitch, just let it happen. If you're pulling your stitches too tight, try pinching the thread between your fingers rather than wrapping round your fingers then pulling. This gives an upper limit on how tight you can pull em... bit like the clutch on a battery drill...

I like powdered turmeric mixed with alcohol but it is not a glowing bright yellow by any stretch.

White unwaxed linen and a blue permanent pen (6 for £1), then wax when dry.

1 yes the hole will close around your stitch 2 you need to taper the ends of your threads, as described in stohlman's book. Makes life much easier. I still don't understand why people don't bother doing this "to save time" and end up having to tug every stitch with pliers. You can even go one step further and hans roll your threads from yarn, makes lovely long tapers on any thickwithness. I can roll a 12/6 thread and stitch it a no 4 needle if I want. Yes sharpen and polish your awl until you think you are done, then polish some more. You will be amazed at the difference. Stabbing a piece of glycerine soap every now and then helps too, as lube.

Layout with a pricking iron then use a proper harness awl. Sharpen the all until you reckon it'll pierce your thumb before you realise... Then sharpen some more. Oh and practice. Then practice some more.

Just to throw my dog into the fight I use number 4 needles and number 2 when using an unusually thick thread. Using as small a needle as possible really does help, which goes hand in hand with tapering your thread or even hand rolling, which not only allows the use of a smaller eyed needle but also makes pullingstitches through much easier.

I think JT Bachelors of Islington carries them. I've seen them on their wall.

The French have not used inches for centuries. They have to express these things differently than Dixons or Osborne.

Ahhh no, if I'd been telling you off you'da certainly known about it :-p First I need to point out I'm no saddler, and I don't even portray one on TV. However I have been around horse tack a while, and learned to work leather from saddlers both in the flesh and on paper. I don't like shortcuts when it reduces quality and saddlers can't afford to take certain shortcuts when the lower quality will endanger a horse or person's life so I learned how they do certain things in the English saddlery tradition. Puts me at odds with some people but that's just the way I like it :D The thing with leather is that it's obviously not woven. As I understand it fabric (did I say it right?) doesn't get weakened by stitching since the threads pass between the warp and weft (yarns?). However every time you put a hole through a piece of leather it weakens it. If the hole is big, it is weakened a lot. A small hole weakens just a little. So you see a seam will make a line of weakness like the perforations on a roll of paper towels. But if the line of stress is parallel to the seam, the line of stitching holes doesn't 'see' quite so much stress. That's why in saddlery you shouldn't ever come across a leather strap that is stitched straight across like this: Now on something like a belt just to hold up a pair of trousers ("trow-sers" -- pants are what goes underneath) you'll probably get away with it and the risks are pretty low even if it does break. But on a gunbelt or a toolbelt or something else of high stress (like a piece of horse tack) it's not a good idea and certain tricks are employed to spread the stress over as wide an area as possible. To get to my point, a single seam on the join of each panel of a leather corset could well be better than multiple. It's a balancing act between many factors, and probably more important than number of seams is the direction from which the stress comes and the area over which the stress is spread. Thinking about corsets (and trying not need a cold shower), I think that the main direction of stress for each panel will be horizontal with the seams vertical. This is not ideal but I can't think of any easy ways around it. If you want to make a flat felled seam that would be much better than simply overlapping for both strength and appearance. If the bulk is excessive the flesh side of the leather can be shaved down at the seams without reducing strength too much. My, I can waffle on can't I! Smartass I may be, English I may be. At times I may even be rude (though in a devillishly delightful and charming manner). But if I could make saddles I would quit my dayjob tomorrow. Any time you are over to our green little rock I would be very happy for you to look me up so long as you don't mind the damp weather and very drinkable beer. (Still very interested in this BTW.)

Dixons has produced quality leather tools for over a century I believe. They will also make custom ones. Good steel, hardwood, brass. Their pricking irons are excellent and I consider them better than what you can get from Goods Japan.

Sorry yes, I thought I'd quoted you but apparently not.

If your first post is to sell an item, you are not a contributing member and your second post is to slag off the moderators, don't let the door hit you on the way out.