Ferg

This is an impression from a stamp Ron made for me. It is exactly what I wanted, it does a perfect job. This was pressed into dry Lisarda Leather from Italy. I done it with my Arbor Press. Ron is very good with the laser and is prompt with his work, check him out! ferg

I can relate to your story and possible results. You may be interested in a somewhat "short" recollection of my wife and I work in somewhat the same direction. Almost forty years ago we went to craft shows in our state mostly. Some small and some large. Basically we starved. On returning from one show our car was losing oil. We stopped at an old dilapidated service garage, bought two quarts of oil for $.95 each and hoped we had food for the evening when we got home. Attended a very large Christmas show in Indianapolis where we done quite well. On the way home we visited a shop owned and run by folks of a religious order. We manufactured wooden products mostly and had some leather products thrown in along with my wife's Art. We presented the folks with some of our wooden wall hang-ups. One early morning we were awakened by the phone ringing. It was a representative of the "Order" asking for 350 of a rainbow we made, he needed them the following week. We told him of course we could do that. We didn't have enough material to make that many nor the money to buy more. Went to some friends of mine who happened to work in a lumber yard. We made a deal to buy material and pay within 30 days. To make that story short, we made 5600 of those rainbows for that company for that Christmas Season alone. I built machines to make the rainbows. The spray painting of them was more of an endeavor than we anticipated. We visited a Very Large Craft Show in Cincinnati, Ohio. A man and his wife were making Puzzles. The puzzles were of children's name, numbers, and alphabets. I told my wife we could do that! We had a lead on a large over arm jig saw that a public school was selling. Bought it for $100 if I remember correctly. We made our first puzzles on that saw. We were lucky enough and ignorant enough to think we could make a living at making puzzles. Had a 2500 square foot store front for one Christmas Season, we done pretty well but not great. We sold the puzzles for $7.95 each with a child's name. Folks remarked they were too expensive. In the almost 39 years since we made the first puzzle, we have semi-retired, still manufacture 15,000 of the name puzzles at Christmas. Our list of past and present companies we have and still do business with, includes, Pot-Por-Ri, Sears, J.C. Penny, Childcraft, Neiman-Marcus, Harry & David, Horchow, Current, and the list goes on. We have been very fortunate. Our days even now require 14 to 15 hours of work in our shop seven days a week during the Christmas Season. We spent many nights into the wee hours developing ideas for new products. Our workforce peaked at over 20. We now have our woodshop added to our beautiful log home my wife and I built. I still work with leather in our youngest daughter's bedroom, she flew the coop three years ago. I have three industrial sewing machines, a skiving machine, hundreds of leather tools and knives along with about $6000 worth of leather inventory. I have equipment to transfer photos/images onto leather and most every other material. I have a Stained Glass shop. I am presently working on making my own Steel Rule Dies. I write almost all the computer programs for our business. Have my own Hobby Greenhouse that we grow several thousand plants for our landscape and still maintain a 1/4 acre vegetable garden. I write this not to brag of our successes and failings but to encourage anyone who truly wishes to have a home grown business and enjoy it as we have, can do it if you really have the desire to work harder than you can possibly imagine. Also: I will be 82 years young this coming January. Have so many things I want to try. Maybe I can get some of them done if I live to be 100. lol ferg

Hmmm. Never has bothered me. lol ferg

You will love the control you have over your sewing with a servo. Everything I have has one. ferg

Refine your work before trying for the price range you are looking at. I am not trying to be too critical. Your edges need work, tooling as well. Nothing practice won't fix. ferg

I have a 29-4. Very good condition. I done a few things during refurbishing but essentially it was good. I can get 7 spi in thin leather, it will do 5 spi all day long in a quarter inch. The 29-4 leaves presser foot marks in veg tan and any soft leather. You can release the pressure but doing so is questionable because that is half of what enables the material to be fed under the foot. I haven't used mine very much, just haven't had the projects that required it. ferg

Definition of Cut Rate: Junk Thickness: Same thickness/weight throughout the hide. If you feel the less than great leather hides are okay for what you fashion, that is fine with me. I was simply giving my opinion. Something that doesn't seem to be allowed much on here anymore. ferg

I buy very little on Ebay. I trust very few folks with cut rate no matter what it is. If it is too cheap to be true it probably has multiple problems. Holes, as in bullet, improper use of skinning knives etc. Processed so the skins are the same thickness over all, not often with the cut rate. Buyer beware as far as I am concerned. ferg

I have a large one that is over 60 years old, I bought it new. I also have two others. My favorite is one made by Terry Knipschield. Small with a slightly curved handle. I use it to skive thin leathers. I also have several skivers including a powered one. Indispensable to me. ferg

I use a pair of 3.0 diopter reading glasses for close work. Haven't tried any that are actually magnifying glasses. ferg

If I was going to build a prototype of what you speak....... I would buy stainless steel tubing the size you need for your holes, grind the outside diameter perfectly. Use a stainless steel channel the correct size for the OD of the tubing. Drill holes in the channel over each tube to place a screw that would thread into the end of the tube to hold them in place thus making the tubes replaceable/sharpened. You would then need a fixture for the channel that could be fitted to what ever machine/press you desire. You would also need a hole in the side of each tube for dispensing the leather divit. Just my .02 lol ferg

I remember when I was a small boy,long time ago, I watched men shearing sheep. The difference? they done it by hand. The clippers looked like grass trimmers. Those old guys could fly with the shearing. Wonder if they sharpened with a stone? ERIC, Some day I am going to make a point to come to your area to see your shops. ferg

Just a heads up: There are a number of leather stores selling hides without stating exactly how many sq. ft. they may contain. When I buy these hides I enlighten myself as to the average size of which ever animal hide I am ordering. ferg

Your diameter of the "half circle" is more than the width of the straight portion of the body of your bag. Match the two and everything will work. ferg

Nice and clean. One Caveat, you need to clean-up your radius where it meets the straight line. As you know it makes your stitching "wonkie"also. ferg

I like the harness but I love the horse. lol ferg

I have been doing quite a lot of experimenting with this product. There are several different edge paints on the market. I began with Fenice because it was readily available to me. Basically most seem to be relatively the same. Close grain leathers are the easiest to make a nice rounded edge. Open grain/soft leather, is more difficult. I done some edges following directions of several folks who have used the edge paint with less than desirable results. Most require you to apply anywhere from 5 to 10 applications, waiting to allow them to dry between coats. That is very time consuming and costly if you are trying to make something for sale. I used the rounded portion of a very good solder iron with a temperature controller to smooth the edges between applications. It is okay but takes too long. Fenice has a product called "GLOSS EDGE AGENT". It has the consistency of water but is real sticky. I applied one coat of it to a two layer kangaroo and Italian cow hide and one coat to a two layer with kangaroo and upholstery leather. Allowed them to dry for about 15 minutes. I used one of my modeling tools with somewhat of a curve to the tool end, and "slicked" the surface of the AGENT with it until there were no bumps or dips in the edge. Probably took 5 minutes of little pressure. I then applied one coat of GLOSSY EDGE PAINT PLUS, this is slightly heavier in consistency than standard. Allowed to dry for 20 to 30 minutes, used the modeler again. Required little work. I then applied one more coat of the same "GLOSSY EDGE PAINT PLUS". Left to dry overnight, it has a beautiful edge. I tried applying with a fine bristled artist's brush to apply the AGENT, that worked for me. As I mentioned it is like water so brushing it on was easy. I bought the little stainless steel edge tool from Tandy to apply the paint. That is a piece of cake. Without the AGENT as a first application the paint wants to run around a curve and puddle, definitely diminishes that problem. I believe the Agent being less than completely dry when applying the finish paint helps to keep the paint consistent in depth without running over the edges. I also waited just 25 or 30 minutes for the first coat of finish to dry before applying the second. Directions says a couple hours if I remember correctly. The FENICE product is a good product. You have to shake the bottles for several minutes and then set them down to allow the bubbles to disappear before application. Heavy product collects in the bottom of the finish coat bottles. If you do not shake well, consistency of the product is not there. Photo included is the tight leather. Forgive me for the poor photo. Difficult to capture with light reflecting off that gloss edge. lol ferg

When you work with shell cordovan almost every other leather is just a little less pleasurable. ferg

Doeskin, baby calf, goat, and I use Kangaroo for everything. ferg

Robert, I am not interested in your leather. You might have a problem with this since some of the pieces you have cut the best parts from the hide. Nothing wrong with that, you just might have a problem getting $120 for them. My .02 ferg

Change your routing of the thread after the post on top of machine. From right to left through the top hole, left to right in middle hole,(don't wrap thread around this),the right to left through the bottom hole. I don't know how you have your thread coming off this three hole piece for sure, this is the way it should be. From the bottom of the three holes go over the top of the adjusting discs, pull the thread between the discs and out the right side of same then down under the bottom adjuster, between the discs up on left side. When you pull the thread up to go into the top "Uptake" make sure the thread hooks over the little pointed piece on the back disc. The remainder of your thread route looks okay. After doing this do not change any tension before trying to sew. If the thread is still pulled out to the bottom you need to loosen the tension screw on the bobbin. One/eighth of a turn each time before testing again. If you need to do this more than 3 or 4 times you have your top tension messed up or the wrong "Bee Hive" spring on your top adjuster. ferg

Bought some skins from Pergamena. They were okay. My biggest concern was how "floppy" the Goat skin is. Would be okay for lining but not much else. ferg

Monica, Hide House has the American Bison. I believe that is where I bought my last hide. Seems they have Baby Bison also.Both are great leathers. If you google "American Bison Leather" you get a whole list of dealers. ferg

Save your money a little longer and get a cylinder arm. You can do a "Fast Attach" for a table. You then have two machines for the price of one. This scenario isn't so great if you have lots of business. If you get busy later you can get another machine that doesn't require you to go to the bank for loan to acquire repair parts. Just my .02 ferg

I do not join any of the social sights. I cannot view this without becoming a member. ferg