Matt S

1.1mm total thickness with T135/V138/TKT20 thread top and bottom is pretty tight. That thread is 0.4mm diameter, so your lockstitch knot is going to be only a little smaller diameter than the thickness of what you're stitching. Any minor variation in material grippiness or thread tension will bring that knot into visibility, and even a minor variation would bring it to the surface. Very few actual makers of stuff (using a lockstitch) would use that combination of thread size in that thickness of material. To answer your most recent question yes that is acceptable quality but an unrealistic one to expect to be maintained.

Maybe beeswax is different on this side of the pond but I wouldn't call it hard at room temperature. You can push your thumbnail into it without much trouble. Rub a little onto the edge (with the bar), then a vigorous rub with a rag to remove the excess. Heat from a paint gun or from a burnishing wheel improves penetration but isn't necessary if speed isn't an essential factor. Heat is the key. @Leather20 it's not clear, are you using something after the gum trag to seal the edge? If you're using a resin like edge kote or tan kote that will prevent the wax from penetrating.

I admire your ingenuity and drive. I am curious in seeing the result, though I have an inkling what it may be. Before you spend too long trying to motorise that machine you might want to get it working the way you want. Depending on the state of whichever one the factory drops on you there might be a significant amount of fettling needed. What is your definition of "heavy leather", out of interest? These contraptions have some heavy limitations.

@Sheilajeanne Sorry, but 20 head of horse is no excuse, the place I grew up riding (and later worked full time at) was a similar size and composition. The owner and the place in general was cheap in every sense of the word but never would she tolerate such corner cutting any more than she would buy mouldy feed or have some random person have a go at farriery with carpenters nails and a pair of wire cutters. Some things you either do it right and find the money somehow or you don't deserve horses. I know what you're saying -- there's a third billet under each side so if one's too far gone just swap onto the other one and you're golden. Problem is, by the time one's unsuitable at least one (and maybe the third also, if the girth has been regularly cycled between different pairs of billets) is in the same state. I don't think I've ever seen an English style girth with more than two buckles per end, it only takes one broken billet to unbalance the tensions (maybe allowing the saddle to slip, or pinching the horse) and two on the same side to break at once (perhaps when the horse bucks or rears, or when mounting).

@KeriYokie I think that JCUK was rather reserved in his statement in the interests of politeness. English saddles are a lot more minimalist, exacting and unforgiving of defects than more robust styles, and the few dozen stitches which hold the girth points are all that stands between the rider and a half-day out with the undertaker. Far be it for me to discourage enthusiasm but indeed some hands-on training by a saddler experienced with English styles of tack would be well worth the cost. If you intend to do this for others you also have to consider your responsibility and liability to them, and even whether your insurance company would consider your policy valid in the event of a claim if you've not taken professional training. Of course what you do with your own saddles is your business but remember you may not have control over what happens to that saddle if it's ever out of your hands. I've known professional saddlers who hobble their junk/display/demo saddles to prevent them being used and I think that's pretty sensible.

I bought one a few years ago, partly out of idle curiosity, partly so I could do repairs easier, and partly so I could run it as a feed-up-the-arm machine for occasional use. I degreased and deburred the machine, cleaned the swarf and casting sand out of it, retimed the hook, found out which of the miniscule bobbins actually fitted the shuttle, put some half decent needles in. It worked, though not reliably enough to do neat looking repairs on. And every time I touched it or looked at improving it, a phrase about a silk purse and a sow's ear came to mind. My curiosity was sated. I continued doing repairs by hand. I found a real feed-up-the-arm machine. The patcher got sold on.

Dash it Chris, I've been very quietly watching that, wondering if I can justify a round trip for it! Now you've let the cat out of the bag Please somebody put a bid on it that makes me forget about it. I have 4 industrials already sitting in storage, including two 45Ks. It's a 45K89, last of the line for real Kilbowie-made 45Ks that I think came out in the 1960s. Jump foot drop feed and a reverse that had to manually be matched to the stitch length in the time where Adler had been making needle or triple-feed 105s with reverse as standard for years. A bargain if it goes for something like the opening price and it'll last a lifetime of use but frankly it was obsolescent when it was new 50 years ago.

Looks like @Sonydaze beat me to it! I ended up modding a cheap arbor press to hold my loop stapling dies, and it's dedicated to that job now. That frees my milling machine up for the very pressing task of gathering more dust in the corner. Thanks again to @BigSiouxSaddlery for her help pushing me towards the Weaver loop staples. Excellent product -- simple, solid, reliable, quick, smart and inexpensive. (Well, the staples are inexpensive. The dies cost more than the twin needle machine I bought to dedicate to sewing the loop strips. )

You're right, it can't. I call it a lap skiver because I use it primarily for lap skiving turnbacks, at which it excels. Mr Kildow calls it a splitter. Works okay for straps up to 2", but longer than a few inches it suffers from the same issues as any fixed-blade splitter/skiver without any outfeed support (diving and climbing depending on the angle of the output), so straps longer than say a foot need nursing. No good for edges. I used to use a Chinese copy of the Scharffix bookbinders paring tool for skiving edges but lost too much leather and claret to keep going and bought a bell knife skiver. No regrets on that.

I have a little lap skiver made by Randy Kildow. It takes standard utility/Stanley knife blades, is about the size of a coke can and only cost about $100. Would be ideal for thinning welts.

Spyros, great writeup. As the very happy operator of a Tormek I agree with your conclusions. Interestingly (to me at least) my Tormek is only rated for 50% duty cycle so while it is a great tool for professionals I would say it isn't great for those who intend to sharpen as a profession, more for professional users of edge tools to maintain their tools, of you see what I'm saying.

Excellent find Chris Average size is about 3-4ft by 2ft. If you take the legs off the table top you'll have no issue fitting it in an estate, I've done this plenty of times fitting them iny little hatchback.

Ah well my turn to translate I reckon: butcher's hook = look. A hidden/second meaning could be to catch the right thing. These repair buckles with the screw-in pins must exist, I can't Adam that there's no demand for them. Of course if there's some obvious other name that I've not tried searching, I'm going to look a right Brad.

I use the same machine (well, two of them) with TKT20 bonded nylon and size 22 needles (Schmetz LR, for the record). Definitely not a capability issue. Have you tried a fresh new needle and made sure that it's perfectly seated? Sounds obvious but it's often the "obvious" stuff that I miss! Next thing for me would be to increase the top (needle) tension a bit. Maybe half a turn or one turn. Then if that doesn't fix it completely unthread the machine and rethread it slowly and carefully, looking for wear and dirt buildup anywhere the thread touches. Just a thought, is that black thread? Are the "well behaving" threads black? Black thread often behaves a little crunchier than other colours, something to do with the dying process. How fresh is it? Do you use thread lube?

I've not had much success foiling deep, but found when foiling "shallow" that the dwell time is crucial to controlling bleed/spillover. While I like to dwell 2-3 seconds when debossing blind (to get a good deep, dark, permanent impression) with my foil I find that it only needs a half second of dwell to activate the adhesive. Any longer and I get bleed. The other thing is getting the temperature correct for your foil. Mine likes about 80 degrees C, which is about the same temp I use to deboss veg tanned leathers but significantly lower than that which works well for chrome tanned leathers. Experimentation and recording results, I find, bring about better and repeatable results.

Split can be handy for linings or fillers, but depending on how it's finished can be a perfectly valid top/outer leather too. It really depends on what you have, "split" leather can mean a lot of things.

Not all strap cutters are created equal, and the specific blades for them, I find, are absolute dog toffee. The typical cheap Chinese made cutters (including Ivan) tend to be hit-or-miss, whereas the one I got from Leather Works Prod Co is perfect. Far better blades are the ones designed for injector style razors. Thinner, sharper, last longer and are physically longer, which lets me slip a blade downwards a few mm when it blunts, exposing fresh edge each time. Of course you also need to adjust your cutter correctly to get good results. Ideally, adjust the daylight between the two bars to just smoothly pass the thickness of leather. Technique is simple -- pull the end of the strap slightly away from the rest of the hide, but not enough to bind or catch. I am fairly well practiced with a well set up cutter and can reliably cut straps no more than 0.5mm difference when glued together, which I think means +-0.25mm tolerance per strap. That's with 2mm medium temper chrome cowhide, FWIW. Of course the really efficient way to cut matching straps is cutting by die, or with a mechanical strap cutting machine. Maybe a laser, but then you get scorched edges and a long cycle time to deal with.

I have a vague recollection of seeing some half buckles like this, but not a Scooby where it was. Certainly you can get handbag loops in this style so the idea is out there. At a guess I'd say that such a buckle wouldn't be very strong.

You're very welcome Gary!

What about a tool cutter grinder, with the blade in a mandrel in the toolholder? I've never used one but they seem pretty ubiquitous in machine shops.

I would be interested.

TBH, I think that Aquilim as about as good as it gets with water-based contact cements. As you've found there are many applications where it's not suitable, and if there were some way of making a water-based glue that works as well as the high-VOC glues, Renia would be all over that like a rash. Simply put, the "nastier" the solvents the more effective it is as a glue. If you don't need such a powerful glue you might be able to find one locally with reduced fumes. Try DIY/hardware stores. If you like it (apart form the fumes) you may be better off finding new ways to deal with the fumes of the Barge stuff. I work with high-VOC glues in enclosed spaces a lot and find that simple measures improve things massively. The biggest single one was fitting a small extractor fan (like you'd get in a kitchen or bathroom) in the window behind my workbench. I wear a 3M respirator rated for organic solvents when using larger quantities, close the glue/solvent pot ASAP, and force myself to take regular breaks in the fresh air. If the weather were more reliable where I live I would have an outdoor glue bench for maximum ventilation. Even with the ventilation the fumes are still noticeable and I'm working from a dedicated workshop rather than my kitchen so how useful this advice is may vary depending on your situation but these measures let me use the super effective glues that I need for my business without much discomfort.

You're most welcome Spud, it came as a surprise to me too. Don't know why more people don't use it, it's been a common technique in the trade for years and works really well. It baffles me that so many people continue to use gum trag, but I suppose that's probably the Tandy/Al Stolhman effect! Thanks for the translation @Retswerb, it's so common over here it completely slipped my mind that it's a genericised trademark like Tannoy or Kleenex. Yes just plain liquid dish soap. Lynn, that sounds great. I thin I'll try Titebond 3 a go, that should be even more waterproof!

Has anyone tried Weaver's EZ edger on anything other than stiffer veg tans, specifically soft-medium temper chrome tan? I'm looking for something off-the-shelf that will take a consistent, neat smidgeon off the corners of multi-layer chrome tan dress and fashion belts prior to edge painting. Mostly backed with a fairly stiff chrome split but I'm using softer premium top layers and would like to be able to use a range of leathers with minimal tool changes. I'm having trouble getting a consistent and fast bevel with my normal/handheld edge shaves, even freshly stropped! I've seen Brian/@RockyAussie's ingenious automatic bevel sanding machine and while that would be great even the smallest version of that I can think of would take up too much room, and I'm trying to avoid airborne dust. The commercial offerings are very similar to Brian's contraption but come with a hefty pricetag!

No probs, Spud, always happy to help people where I can. I learned a lot from others, it's only fair to pay it along. I've come up with that sequence over the making of hundreds of bridle belts, always looking for a faster and longer lasting burnish. Always trying to improve. I also tend to use my burnishing machine for the donkey work of rubbing beeswax in, but have gone back to burnishing by hand as my machine runs so fast I sometimes burn the leather. Yep, it's the same idea as gum trag, except it's cheaper, water resistant and actually works. Essentially yes you are sticking down the fibres but only once they've been burnished down by the burnishing if that makes sense. Think of it more like sealing the fibres in once they're smooth. Certainly don't rely on a swipe with the glue-water to stick down fuzzies or to takea rough edge and make it smooth without work. I use it as an all-in-one, but I know that some people prefer to dye as a separate stage. If I had a piece of leather that was tricky to get the dye-glue-water combo to penetrate I guess I might do it as a separate stage (maybe with alcohol base) but TBH I've got this pretty reliable and fast, I can't remember last time I got my dye jars out.