TomG

How about a respirator like they use for painting or chemicals? Check Home Depot or a Safety Supply store.

I've actually done one of these. Do all of your strap prep work. Then take some upholstery chair webbing. Contact cement it to the back of the straps. Here's the rub. I used only 3 - 4 straps per direction and made them slightly wider than the webbing. I'm not sure how it would be if you narrowed it down. If I remember, it was 2 inches wide... Maybe a bit wider. But for construction, you staple one end under the bars on the inside. Then just clamp the other end in a vise grip upside down and use the chair bar to roll it under and pull tension on the strap. Staple in place. Sorry if it sounds confusing. It's really quite simple. They make a tension tool for the actual webbing and you can see one online at most upholstery supply shops. I don't think it would work for the web/leather combo as it has spikes that pierce and grab the webbing. But looking at it will help clarify how it works. If I can find my pics, I'll post them for you.

Also found at Harbor Freight $50 and up.

Harbor Freight has them on sale for $154

I use the 50/50 resolene and if the surface is flat, I use a scrap of tee shirt folded about 3-4 layers thick. Dab the Resolene and do a light swipe on the newsprint that I keep under my work to take off any excess. Then wipe on the leather lightly. Like Cyber - multiple coats with at least 2 hours between. But Fiebings, Black Oil Dye is the way to go. Very little bleed .

Didn't get back to see the responses, but thanks. In the meantime, thinking "soap".. Hmm.. Water. So I actually washed it in clear running water and did some hand rubbing on the stains. It dried nice and clear. Now we'll see how the dye comes out in the morning. So far it looks good. thanks for the input.

I am making some simple decorative straps for a project. Veg-Tan leather. 2" wide and anywhere from 30 to 72" long. The customer wanted them to be "natural" as for color. My idea was to just use my normal Leather balm with atom wax on the raw leather, burnish the edges and do the cutting and hole punching I needed to do. For some reason, I decided to do the burnishing first. I use liquid glycerin saddle soap on a small sponge to lightly wet the edges, then burnish with a powered Cocobolo (spelling?) burnisher. However, some dripped down the face of the strap at various points. The edges look nice, but everywhere the saddle soap dripped down on the leather, it looks stained. What's the best way to clean it off?

I really can't picture what you are trying to do. We've discussed so many different things, I've lost track <g> What's the product?

1) A 1 screen press will only do 1 color reliably unless the other colors do not touch each other.. It's a registration issue. 2) 1 screen for multiple colors has the same registration issues. Plus you may bot have enough adjustment range to line up the different designs. 3) Unless you pad print, you will want to print the leather as flat stock before assembly 4) you do not want the screen to sit on top of the item you are printing. You want the squeegee to push the screen down onto the leather. 5) Not sure about the laser cut stencils and airbrush. But unhinging and rehinging created alignment errors as well. 6) "Farm out" means to give someone with the right equipment the material and let them print it. 7) Pad Printers print directly on unevenly shaped objects directly. 8) If you want a good education on screen printing, go to Youtube and search for Ryonet and Catspitproductions and watch those videos. They are the most educational and consistent.

I'm not so sure about that. I'm not an airbrush person , although I've used one a time or 2. All the airbrush work I've seen are done freehand or spraying in or around a hard stencil. The mesh will probably have a pretty strong effect on the paint. Screen printing is a rolling, shearing process. The screen does not touch the garment except at the point that the edge of the squeegee pushes it down. You are essentially forcing a very thin layer of ink down through the screen mesh and out of the openings in the emulsion that are your design. Odd shaped items are printed most often with some sort of pad printer. In fact, that may be a better alternative for you... the drawback is that unless you invest in a very expensive model, 1 or 2 colors are your limit. Your other alternatives are DTG (farm it out at first), possibly heat transfer (320 degrees for 20 seconds and medium pressure), the Billy 2-Shews method, MAYBE dye sub, but doubtful. I'm surprised more folks have not chimed in here about the air brush idea. Do you have a photo of the type of design you are wanting to put on?

Thanks Trevor and BareH... If I get them, I'll need them pretty quickly, so out of country won't work. I've told my customer that we'll have to use the roller buckle I found on eBay here in the states. Later

I haven't seen youtube vids on printing on leather, except one. It looks like she's using one of those Yudu screens that you can get at craft stores. I did some more checking and called a couple of my suppliers. They recommended using certain ink additives. Bill Hood, who is a major screen printing consultant said that he has printed 10's of thousands of leather items and recommends NazDar's lacquer inks. He recommended a 230 mesh tightened to 25 Newtons, 70 Durometer squeegee, and listed specific emulsions and techniques. As for costs, that's like "how much does it cost to start in leathercrafting". You can buy a used 4 color, single station press on the used market for a few hundred dollars. Screens, squeegees, emulsion, press wash, reclaimer, tape, platen adhesive, will be another few hundred. A forced air dryer used can be had for under $1K if you look around. You can burn screens using a Halogen light, but it's a painful process and not so good for precision screens. Plus the ink... Check Craigslist and eBay, plus local ads. With a low-end setup, you are going to be pretty much limited to 4 color spot printing, No 4-color process (photo), no Sim process, etc. And yes, the platens that you put the item to be printed on can reused. We normally use adhesive to hold shirts and flat goods down. Not sure how you'll hold down the leather without affecting the flesh side somewhat. As for the Angelus paints, I would think the major issue would be the same as water-based printing inks. You have to constantly fight the ink drying in the screens. Only it would dry faster, I suspect. Your best bet is to find a local, friendly screen printer that can maybe give you some screens and stuff to play with.

I do screen printing on tee shirts and stuff, but have never tried leather. Since I have never tried to use any acrylic paints through the screens, I'll give you a brief (sort of) tutorial and maybe it will help you decide. Couple of issues.... 1) Screens come in a wide range of sizes. The higher the number, the tighter the mesh. So, the thinner the ink/paint, the tighter the mesh wil need to be. BUT, the tighter the mesh, the less ink you can force through it. 2) There are several types of printing ink and they all require different drying techniques. Standard plastisol that we use for garments has to be heated up to 320 degrees for at least 1 minute and cured throughout. Not sure what that will do to the leather, coatings or finishes. Water-based ink and solvent-based ink need high temps as well, Plus, they need forced air to dry properly. Some of the other inks require UV light, but those are pretty specialized. I have never researched it, but they make lots of specialty inks for a variety of fabrics and substrates, so there may be one for leather. Maybe one of the nylon or solvent inks. Personally, I would think if you used a mid-range screen with the Acrylic paints, they would air dry, just as if you used a brush to apply them I wished you lived closer.. I'd give you a few screens to play with. Check with one of your local screen printers and see if they have some older wooden framed screens you can have or buy cheap (like $2-$3). BTW, screens MUST be tight if you are going do multiple passes or multi-color jobs,. We're talking "bounce a quarter 2 feet or higher" tight.... Snare Drum tight.....etc. You can use a loose screen for a single pass print if you're careful though. You're going to also need a screen printing squeegee. Good luck and feel free to ask if you need help

I am in search of a couple of 2" solid brass, polished, square buckles. I have checked OTB, Tandy, Springfield, Buckle Guy and Amazon. So far, all I can find are brass plated and/or roller buckles. Does anyone have a source I can check out? Thanks

Not sure where you are, but Tandy have some economy sides for around $99. I bought a side of 8-9 oz and am surprised at how nice both sides are.... Of course, I hand picked it <g>... But the other 4 sides in the roll I examined looked decent for the price as well.

Hit some places that sell and install kitchen counters. Some of them just throw away the granite sink cutouts and will give you a couple. I've tried Melamine years ago and got too much bounce.

I bought a bolt of heavy white fabric - I think it's duck cloth maybe? Sort of a lightweight canvas with a tight weave. Paid about $5 and been cutting pieces off it for several years. I apply with that and when dried, I buff with a piece of wool.

Not sure, but note the $45 shipping charge... I bought the Tandy model a while back for $250 on sale a while back. I got the older model and it's pretty rugged, but needed the blade sharpened. But I understand that all except the Weaver model need sharpening...

Not sure on those.... Sorry

If it's the one that swings down and mounts to the rear, I believe it's 6mm, but I could be wrong. The model I mentioned has to have a hole drilled and tapped into the rear. Then you can use a short screw in the other hole... But be careful. That existing hole already has a screw in it and you have to be careful not to mess it up.

This was done with Fiebings Oil Dye diluted 4:1 with denatured alcohol. The lettering was resisted with 3 coats of 100% Resolene. It looked good but it did have some spots that the dye didn't seem to penetrate well. Probably from being heavily diluted.

The only issue I had with the Black River gauge is that I found you have to subtract about 1/64" from the width to fit many belt buckles and so the tongue will go through. The BL gauge sets to exact sizes.

OK. I went to the garage and did a couple of tests. Here's a strap... The strap is 1-1/4" wide. "MICHELE" is just over 1/4" tall in a block font. "TOM" is in a script font and is about 3/4" tall. If that script was any smaller, it would have been messy. As it is, the "M" is a tad ragged, although the antiquing fills it in a bit. Hope this helps. Tom

With that linotype lettering. you can make any number of jigs to hold them in and shape you want, as long as you are handy with tools. The only drawback is that the type can get quite expensive if you need a number of different sizes and styles. You can use a top plate and an arbor press to set them. And they look great. I have a couple of manual engraving machines (New Hermes/Gravograph) that I do metal plates with. One is a diamond tip drag engraver and the other is a motorized rotary engraver. Paid about $200 for the big one and about $50 for the small one. With about 14 font sets (some dupes) motor for the big machine, jigs, fixtures, etc. These also use a set of fonts. The fonts are brass plates that you drag a stylus through to do the engraving. The advantage over the typeset letters is that you can take 1 single set of 2.5" letters and adjust the pantograph down to about 8:1. Smaller font sets let you engrave smaller letters. Gravograph makes a computer driven, rotary engrave, the M20, that places like 6 flags, Disney, etc use to personalize leather bracelets. I have played with my rotary machine a couple of times but haven't gotten the font vs size vs cutting tip to use. It does great work except certain letters, like "M", tend to get sloppy at the points. But it's just a matter of time before I get the right set together. Advantage - fonts are on the computer. Disadvantage? Over $5000 and I'm not sure if that includes the required software or not. That's a LOT of bracelets!!!! You can find all of this stuff on eBay and possibly Craigslist. Make sure with the font sets for either, that they are complete. Especially the typeset fonts. Lots of folks sell partial sets for some reason. Tom

Do you have 2 buttons on the base plate of the machine? Sounds like you pre pressing the button to lock the shaft after the safety clutch releases. If there is a second button, press it while turning the pullet towards you until it locks down. Then while holding it down, turn the pulley back and forth to set the stitch length. Tom