TomG

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

Check this post out. It covers it. and has some other links to methods as well, if I remember right. http://leatherworker.net/forum/index.php?showtopic=56574#entry363071

Our local store has had a huge range of quality in specific sides. I bought a couple of Latigo sides that were beautiful. Others in the stack were absolute garbage. I also bought a couple of sides of their light weight saddle skirting a few months ago and it is almost impossible to split. Almost pulled my bench over trying - and that's with a newly sharpened blade and with the splitter mounted so I pull lengthwise down the bench. I'm really not sure why it seems to be getting worse. I like Tandy - if for no other reason that our local staff is fantastic (Atlanta GA) and super supportive. I'm about ready to start buying my leather on-line.

I'm not a pro by any means, but I'm pretty sure that square tab on the left of the hook assy needs to go under the plate, Take the 2 screws out and look under it. You should see a notch that it fits into. Rotate it back under and screw it back down and see if that works.

Check Rio Grande Jewelry: Look for End Cap Findings. I have used the solid sterling round ones and locked them in place with E-6000 glue.

I saw the photo and it looks like you might have rigged up a lawnmower throttle cable to the motor. I like having both hands free, as I'm sure you do. I sat down at my machine and was thinking that if you could somehow rig that assembly up so that you could use your forearm or elbow to press it, you could still use your hands to guide the leather in. With Wiz's setup, I'm not sure if he gets a lot of speed control range between off and the 1 stitch per second, or not. I know I have set my Singer up to do about 3 SPS and it's still a tad touchy at startup. I need to go in and set the acceleration on the motor. I use a Consew 500 I think. And I've put in the speed control improvement mod that you can find on the web and even here somewhere. Good luck with it. You're in the right spot for help!

I've only used black and brown on those colored shoes. From what I understand, neutral is for those other colors....

You should polish shoes before they even get close to looking disheveled. Take a rag and get a dab of polish on it. Put your other hand in the shoe to hold it. Rub that dab into the leather in a circular motion. Get another dab and rub it in, overlapping the first. Continue all over the shoe, then go back and start all over and repeat 2 or 3 or 5 times. You sort of want to slowly fill the pores. Let it dry for a while and then use a soft cloth to buff the hell out of it. In the service, we used a piece of nylon hose (pantyhose), and spit on the shoe, then polished.. hence the term "spit polish". It takes a lot of work to get a mirror shine, but looks great. The spit polish is optional, but once you have put on your initial coats of polish, usually a single coat rubbed in, dried and buffed will keep them looking new.

Or.. If you really want to make a career of it, a stitch spacing wheel and an awl Also, I've known people to use a drill press and a very small bit after the spacing wheel.

Same experience as Bill. Horrible smell and terrible coverage. I don't know this for sure, but I believe the only application for this crap would be to touch up factory dyed leather items, like the old style white Nurses shoes. But, maybe one of the more experienced folks will know for sure.

I've gone through a few of the kitchen style cutting boards. I finally settled on one of the black rubber type mats from Tandy. It holds up pretty well. One issue to watch out for on the kitchen cutting boards is that many have a texture to them. If you do anything forceful --- like setting rivets -- the leather will pick up that texture. Same with cuts on the black mat. The leather can pick up those cuts as impressions.

Hmm...are you referring to glove snaps or Segma's? I know Segmas come in those 2 sizes. These glove snaps are labeled as 10 mm I went by my local Tandy today to make sure I was using the right tools, which I am. The kit for the Segma's uses the same male snap setter for both. But I also have a deluxe set with a male setter that is a much longer and larger diameter. Same size hole though. I have an older set a friend gave me that has a plate with 2 holes on it. One for Segma and one for the glove. That worked much better. I still don't know why I am suddenly having issues after 2 years of using these for this item. Weird... But at least I have a work-around.