BIGGUNDOCTOR

Get some Stop Rot. It is used in taxidermy / tanning to stop rot in hides-it also kills skunk odor instantly. One guy on the taxidermy forum told us his husky went from staying outside to sleeping n the bed with an application. Van Dykes taxidermy supply should have it, or if you have another supplier closer.

Mlapaglia, I had forgot about that, and some kids TRY to see how deep thay can drive the punch into the leather. Another thing that I did was paint the tools so that they were easily found if droped in the dirt. If I was going to do it again I would use the high vis yelow/green instead of blaze orange. I also took my metal detector up to camp to find buried tools. The ground was so soft,and fluffy that tools easily became covered. Found a couple of Mercury head dimes in the process of looking for tools =) Electrathon, the deadblow hammers I had from Harbor Freight were the black rubber ones, are the ones you posted different. The rubber ones would split if hitting hard skinny items, so I only use them for wide objects. Sandsquid, one resource that we used at camp were the dads that came up. Most of them loved to be put to work building things, or helping out in some way. You may even have a dad who has a woodshop that could crank some mallets out for you. We would do an announcement during breakfast for volunteers, and we always had plenty ofhelp. Just let them know what you need, and see what they can come up with.

Watch Craigslist in your surrounding areas. I have picked up 2 Adler patchers that way. One guy also had a beautiful 441 clone-for IIRC $1,200.

Try contacting Belleville, or Wellco boots. They make military boots, so they may be willing to sell you some. Then you can say you use Mil-Spec parts =)

Th eproblem I would see with the dead blow hammers is that the surface gives too much, and they do not take well to hitting small diameter items that are hard. I was going to suggest a mallet as opposed to a maul, as that is all I have ever used.

I missed out on a 10 gallon sized fibre drum of granulated beeswax that got tossed when I worked at Jelly Belly. They use it to put the final shine on the Jelly Bellies. Someone deemed it scrap, and out it went.

For more tips , search noise, or noisy on the forums. There were a couple of threads not that long ago that covered most of the problems, and ways to quiet them down.

Ironpounder, are you on iforgeiron.com? They have some good info on selling the blacksmithing items. There are some metal horse items that you could make like hoof picks, horse headed items like BBQ sets etc, and others. Some of my srtist friends have gone with the Square on their smart phone for CC's and love it. Rates lower than banks, and the unit is free. I don't do PayPal due to their anti-firearm policies. Friends have also had accounts frozen for no reason, or what was thought to be suspicios activity-which wasn't. Don't overlook the internet for sales. I have friends who do well with Facebook, blogs, and websites.

Welcome to LW from the desert of Southern NV. Lots of info here, so start using the search feature, and have fun.

The link you posted does not allow guests to see the pic. Better if you just post the pic directly to your post here.

You need to post where you are located because Leatherworker.net is a worldwide forum, and wild pigs are found all over.

Check with your Tandy store for the J stamp. I know that Dee in the Las Vegas store keeps incomplete stamp sets to replace missing ones.

they don't run well in Florida weather. Constant over heating issues. Have them look at the water jackets, as a lot of them still have a coffe cans worth of sand casting mold sand in them. This was pointed out years ago in Hot Rod magazine. It is packed in pretty tight, and may require some persuasion to remove it all.

Try contacting them, and ask that question. It may be a simple answer, or it may be very involved. You won't know till you ask.

OOOOh , don't think for a moment that if something did happen, and the person who handed it out was staring down a lawsuit that you wouldn't be tossed under the bus. They would find you easy enough. I agree with Chancey77 in principal, but in reality, Chavez could lose everything in a lawsuit. I believe it was Shakespeare that said "First thing we do is kill all the lawyers." I have a Libitarian side of me that believes that we should be able to make our own decisions, and accept the consequences of our actions. I for one would like to see a large scope of all types of government, from federal to city, regulations done away with. The problem is the victim mentality ( it was someone else's fault) that many have, and the lawyers that are all too willing to take their case.

looked like a lot of the basics are there. Close to $50,000,000,000 a yer, so even if you do just part of a percent, you can do good.

There is a college in Michigan that sells heirloom type wood products. Mom used to get their catalogs. I believe that Oak was in the name, but don't hold me to that. Is this what you are looking for? http://www.prweb.com/releases/luggage_soft_hard/backpacks_business_bags/prweb4570874.htm

She does not have a problem selling them from what I saw, in fact they seem to sell themselves pretty well. Nice to see someone making a living doing what they like to do.

1/64" = 1oz

Welcome from DaBoonies of Southern Nevada

Ceck with Zander insurance, they may do liabiliy. 1,000,000 general liability is around $300 a year. Automotive related safety item = yes , you can be sued. It may even require a certification to be sold in the USA. I cleaned out a warehouse that had thousands of child restraints that were deemed illegal to sell in the USA due to their design.

I taught handicrafts at BSA summer camps for 4 years, and had a great time. I taught woodcarving, leatherworking,and basketry. Getting supplies was always fun, and we did get donations at times. We got several old USPS mail bags for the leather one year. I saved a couple that were too nice to cut up. Depending on the projects to be made, a thrift store may donate some purses, jackets, bags, etc. that are too rough to sell. These can be made into many other things once disassembled.You may be surprised at what kids will make from a pile of scraps. We made a lot of lace out of scraps using the black plastic lace maker that Tandy sells. Tooling leather was the toughest to get. The plastic lacing was a favorite to braid into various lanyards, zipper pulls, key fobs, etc. Probably the most made factory kit was the pocketknife sheath. Have fun!

There is a magazine called Leathercrafters Journal IIRC that has industry news in it. Look in the for sale listings, as I have seen some listed. A lot will depend on what info you are specifically looking for, and what you are making. Care to offer any more details, or do you want to keep them close to the vest at this time?

NIce tree. Jim is probably one of the top 4 bladesmiths in the country, and he was recently finishing his 4th book on knife making. As to dead blow hammers, they work good for some applications , but not everything. For something like this it would be fine, but a punch with a narrow handle , no. They are usually made with rubber, or plastic faces that can be easily damaged from the force of the blow on a narrow hard object. Since you like sculpture , go to the iforgeiron site, and search for a member called scrapartoz. He does beautiful scrapmetal sculptures, really world class stuff. He has one thread that has gotten fairly long with his various projects. You can make the die without nailing the blade to the board (which requires punching holes first), by cutting the pattern with a scroll saw that has a blade kerf as wide as the used blade's thickness. Cut the shape, form the blade around it, and slide the other piece of wood back onto the pattern trapping the blade. Finish it by attaching a backer piece to the blade holding assembly. Some blades will bend, some will snap if bent too sharply, so be careful.

This is a site that will show you some fantastic pattern welded blades. Jim lives down the way from me in the big city. www.atar.com Clay tools would be fine, you don't have to worry about the rust as long as you dry them off when done. That would be a good application for this. Depending on the size of the blade, it could be used for rule dies.