JJLeatherworks

If I bought a $2 a s/f side, I wouldn't expect ANY part of it worth more than $2 a s/f. If a section had a 4 s/f section that was worth $10 a s/f it would stand to reason that it would be cut out and sold as a shoulder, back, bend or whatever at $10 a s/f. $2 x 20 s/f = $40. $10 x 4 s/f + $2 x 16 s/f =$72. As for Tandy, it is geared for hobbyists and part time leather workers. They are everywhere with retail storefronts; whereas places like Springfield, W/C etc. are usually only in one location with the retail storefront only a small part of the total sales. The overhead of having many stores is picked up in the prices for the convenience of the consumer. Because I have three Tandy stores within 50 miles of me I can go and pick though the leather. A lot of what we make uses small pieces of leather and the scrap bin at one store has some top quality leather from a local luggage company. Some of the scrap leather is better than what the store is selling. I can understand the frustration, but when you are buying something as variable as leather and you are getting it mail order, the piece on the top is what you are getting. If you have a working relationship with a company they might pick through it for you. However, just as in the store where the buyer is picking though it, eventually only the poorer pieces are left. When the manager decides that there is not enough good pieces left for that grade, they become the sales items. I would not expect that a top quality side to have made it all the way down the chain and have not been picked up. (Same thing with the scrap bin, when they get a new shipment, the selection is good, after a while not so good and sometimes not worth the scrap price.)

Toss the tracing paper and get some Vellum paper, available at Tandy and most hobby stores. It's tough, waterproof, has a surface that will take pencil drawing, reusable and can be run though a copier or lazer printer. Use the ball point stylus available at Tandy, never had a problem.

Boy I need to read the whole title. I thought someone unlocked the adult section.

It was the 45th. The history of the 45th Infantry Division can be traced back to 1890 with the formation of the Militia of the Territory of Oklahoma.[3] That militia was mobilized in 1898 during the Spanish American War but was never deployed. In 1916 the First Oklahoma Infantry Regiment deployed for border security duty during theMexican Border Conflict. In 1917, the First Oklahoma Infantry Regiment, redesignated as part of the 142nd Infantry Regiment of the 36th Division fought in the final month of World War I.[3] Before the 1930s, the division's symbol was a red square with a yellow swastika, a tribute to the large Native American population in the south-western United States. On 19 October 1920, the Oklahoma State militia was organized as the 45th Infantry Division of the Oklahoma Army National Guard and organized with troops from Arizona, Colorado, New Mexico, and Oklahoma.[4] The division was organized and federally recognized on 3 August 1923 in Oklahoma City, Oklahoma.[5] It was assigned the 89th Infantry Brigade of the Colorado and Arizona National Guards, and the 90th Infantry Brigade of the Oklahoma National Guard.[6] The division's original shoulder sleeve insignia featured a left-facing swastika,[7] a common Native American symbol[citation needed], as a tribute to the south-western United States region which had a large population of Native Americans.[2] However, with the rise of the Nazi party in Germany, with its famous right-facing swastika symbol, the 45th Division stopped using the insignia. A new shoulder sleeve insignia featuring the Thunderbird, another Native American symbol, was approved in 1939.[2]

Hey Andrew, Don't limit yourself to an either/or situation. Take generic items that are you can sell now, and be open for custom work. Don't take any custom work order unless you get a CASH deposit that will cover the cost of materials, you may lose a sale but you won't be stuck with item that would be hard to sell when they decide not to pick it up. Craft fairs, swap meets and gun shows can be good or bad, depending on where you go, and what the shoppers want. Go check some of them out before you commit to renting a space, do some market research of your own. i.e. Who are the shoppers, what are they spending and what are they buying? Are there other leather workers? Are imported leather goods for sale that would take away from your market? The costs of renting a space can be anywhere from $35 - 100 a day, and in some cases more. Have enough stuff to sell and don't give up, if the first few times you are out and can cover your expenses you're doing OK. Pricing: what you have on your web-site seems to me a little low. Are you covering your material costs and your time? Don't underestimate what it costs. Take a look at the prices for kits at Tandy and Springfield leather, figure that as a base price for materials minimum. Add a reasonable amount for labor and don't forget the overhead of renting space, transportation, etc. Set a price, allow for discounting if you have to, don't let shoppers intimidate you; they will try anything to get a cheap price. Marketing: if you can afford it later get a real domain and hosting for a website. A freebie turns people off (and are extremely hard to find), just as a freebie e-mail address does (G-mail not so bad; Hotmail, yahoo,AOL not good for business). They don't take you seriously if they don't already know you. Get business cards made that have your e-mail address and web-site on it, put them in your items that you sell. Have them freely available for shy people to pick up. Good luck! It may take years to become profitable, just like any other business.

Sorry Steven, you asked for it and you got it. If all you wanted was flowers and butterflies, then thats what you should have asked for. I am not one of your customers, and I'm not sure I can afford to be one. I am one of the small businesses that don't buy in large quantities, but would like to be able to as my business grows. I get your Friday special newsletters and have never had the impression that I have enough money to buy from you. If you don't want the business of the hobbyists and small businesses, then why not state it up front? "to establish an account with us, please submit your financials Minimum of XXX.$$ and request to establish an account, no exceptions", that would clearly tell us to go elsewhere. As to the quality of your leather, I cannot tell, having never seen it. The photos of your leather are of poor quality, is this reflective of your company? When you sent the side of "dead in the field leather" to a fellow in the U.K., his photo was much better than yours. If you took a little time, and invested in a better camera, the photos would be of more professional quality and would project a better image of your company, after all, you are a million dollar company! When I had a multi-million dollar electronic test equipment company (no joke, lost it all in the dot.com collapse), if my photography wasn't up to par, I hired professional photographers to do it for me. Never be so arrogant that you cannot see your failures. I hope you can take the complaints and suggestions to heart and benefit from it. It takes more than inheriting a company to run it affectively.

Springfield Leather sells it as an all purpose eraser, item number 153-1. Cost is a few dollars, works great on contact cement, rubber cement and claims it works on white glue too. For fingerprints, oils, metal stains and other debris Fred also recommends oxalic acid (wood bleach), works great in preparing leather for dying. If you can't fix it, USMC black covers EVERYTHING. (Doctors bury their mistakes, leather workers use USMC black).

Ellen, You and I are in the same boat. Hard times caused me to rethink my life. Only since last July have I been doing leatherwork. Now I have my own booth at Wimberly market days in Wimberly TX . I'm also selling on etsy.com. We all keep doing what we need to do to survive.

Get a 18% gray card and learn how to use it, it's not hard. Your blacks will come out black and whites white, and you get the full range of color in between. You can use two or three of the portable halogen shop lights (pretty cheap at Harbor Freight) and place at a 45 degree angle forward of the subject for lighting. For a softer lighting effect face them away from the subject and reflect them off of a white piece of foam core or stiff poster board. Product photography is not much different from portrait photography. Lighting techniques are the same.

Look in this forum under help wanted, "need tooled wallet maker". Member electrathon posted a beautifully made wallet with a two color loop stitch. I never seen anything like this, and was quite impressed. Maybe he could point you in the right direction? It is something that I would like to know how to do too! electrathon

I use Gum Tragacanth on the edges and a slicker wheel made of coco-bola wood. Others I know use bees wax, or bees wax mixed with paraffin. Rubbing the slicker wheel creates heat which aids in the burnishing. A piece of old denim (dye is washed out unless you WANT blue edges), or un-dyed canvas creates the heat too. The faster you rub the slicker wheel or the canvas, the more heat you get. If you are thinking if mounting the wheel on a drill, keep the speed slow or you can burn the edges instead of burnish them.

Oh yeah. The directions very on the contact cement. All of them tell you to rough up surface (flesh side is rough enough) and apply glue to both bonding surfaces. The drying time varies between the glues, but all of them have you wait until it is tacky. Should fell like the sticky side of tape. You must be careful putting it together, thats why it is called contact cement, it bonds on contact with the other piece. If not pushed together it still can be moved, but not easy. Rubber cement is similar but can be taken apart. Once aligned I just squeeze it with my fingers and hold for a moment. It doesn't come apart. Contact cement needs air to dry and set up, if you put it together too soon the solvents that need to evaporate can't because they are trapped between two layers of leather and it takes a long time to dry. They are completely opposite of super-glue and others similar glues that only set up with the lack of air.

I have used DAP Weldwood contact cement and did not have problems. I prefer Tanners Bond contact cement or better yet if you are allowed to buy it, Barges or Masters contact cement. Are you allowing the contact cement to set up before sticking it together? The glue should be dry enough not to migrate at all when put together. Putting it together too soon will also allow movement between the pieces and separation of the layers, plus it increases the drying time. I use the all purpose eraser for Springfield Leather (order #153-1) to remove dried glue that has appeared on the work. An art gum eraser works too, just make sure it has NO abrasives in it. After everything is stitched together and dried I trim the edges if needed and sand them lightly with one of those spongy sanding blocks, 220 grit. Finish with gum tragacanth (some folks use beeswax) and an edge slicker (wooden preferred). Fiebing's Edge Kote applied with a small piece of sponge held with a clothespin to finish it out if needed.

I was hoping someone has tried it with punches and would reply. Now I just need to raid the piggy bank and see if there is anything left! I think the Weaver board comes from Germany too.

My HDPE board is 1/2in thick 12 x 24. I set it on top of a granite slab, works great!

An old timer I know swears by the red die cutting surface sold by Weaver, it lasts forever and when it gets too scarred up he simply resurfaces with a sander. Tandy has now started selling a similar one. They are expensive from Tandy or Weaver. He does not use it for punches, the surface is too hard. (Tandy claims it works for punches, it may work well, I would try it at the store with their punches first. It won't work well for things like stiching or lacing chisels as these have to go beyond the back of the leather to get a complete hole.) He uses the Polyurethane board from Tandy for punching. I personally use a HDPE board bought from Small Parts Supply though Amazon for cutting and a LDPE board for punches. Works for me.

I hope your table top is not one of the hollow ones from IKEA, they truly turn your pounding into a drum. Here in the states we have a store chain called Tractor Supply, and they carry a very heavy, firm rubber mat for horse stalls, it's about 5/8 of an inch thick. It comes on big rolls that are four feet wide and they sell it by the foot, for about $12. (thats a 2ft x 4ft piece for under $25) I have one under a granite counter-top slab that I picked up for nothing, kills the sound and is firm enough to give a real solid feeling to your work table. Put some of this under your table legs too, and it will stop the transmission of sound to the floor. With this set up I actually got better tooling, a typical table top for the kitchen has some flex in it, which absorbs some of the blow from your hammer. For those of you out there that would like to test this, do some tooling on the table top in the middle, and then try the same tooling over the table leg. If the top was flexing you will see and feel the difference. Adding the granite and rubber mat gives you a top that does not flex.

Hi! Welcome aboard! I have learned a lot from these folks on the forum. I see that you are near San Antonio. Have you hooked up with the classes at the Walzem Rd Tandy store? Fred Pheil conducts the classes there on the 2nd and 4th Saturdays starting at 10 AM. $10.00 a class. Fred is a expert at making holsters and belts and you can learn a lot from him. I think he has about 60 years of experience.

Hey! Thanks for the links, its just the resources I have been looking for. Some thirty years ago I built my own Hawken rifle and always wanted to make the rest of the accouterments but never had the time. Resources like this seemed to disappear. I thought everyone moved on into cowboy action shooting, glad to see it is still alive. I prefer to shoot black powder, but the folks downwind of me at the range don't care for it much. Kind of limits my options sometimes.

Did someone say Burgundy?

Look at the MSDS sheet for Easy off oven cleaner. The active ingredient is sodium hydroxide (lye). It will burn your skin on contact, and would react the same to the leather. I don't know if I would try it, the lye will keep burning the flesh until the reaction between the flesh and lye are equalized or flushed from the surface. If that is the effect you are looking for you might try lye crystals that soap makers use or lye sold as a drain opener. dilute it heavily adding the lye to the water, not the other way around. I think you would have more control of the reaction. Be careful, lye burns hurt like h*ll. Keep the lye away from other household chemicals, severe reactions can occur and in some cases chlorine gas will be released!

As far as I know Tandy is the only one that makes it. I bought a used one on E-bay, and then quite looking. The imprinter is a rather simple design, and has a high retail price. Thinking out loud here, is it possible to make a base and guide area to use with an arbor press ( they are cheap at Harbor Freight ) or even using this to align the stamps and do the 4-point tipping? Someone that works with 1/4 inch plate steel could probably make it. A machine shop might also be able to modify the square ram of the arbor press to accept the ram foot Item #32426-00. I think the total price would be much less than the imprinter if you wanted to go to the trouble.

I use the gum tragacanth on the edges and use the slicker to get a nice rounded and burnished edge on my holsters. You might want to add an edge beveler to your list if you don't have one. A sanding block to even edges before burnishing is handy to have. When I use a cloth liner I apply Tanners Bond, Barge or Masters to the leather and let it set up. While it is slightly tacky put the cloth liner on. I do not put any glue on the cloth liner and the glue does not seep though.

I have both, the Tandy imprinter and the arbor press. The Tandy is set up ideally for belts, you can keep the centering and squaring of the stamp (letters, etc,) consistent for the entire length of the belt if you wished to. Removing the guides leaves a decent sized platform to hold your leather for other projects like wallets. A good even impression is made although I wish it were deeper. You really have to crank on it. I have considered getting a length of pipe to put on the handle, just suffer from 'round-to-it' syndrome. The arbor press gives a deeper impression because it is geared. Down side is you have to do some modifications, i.e. get an iron plate for your leather, make a guide if you are going to do things like belts and so on. I have gotten deeper impressions with the heavy duty handle and a plastic faced hammer. Hold the stamp handle firmly, and give it several blows while tilting the handle slightly to the top, bottom and sides. Works good using a single stamp, not so good using multi-stamps like letters. Hard to keep alignment and impression even between letters. Hope this helps!

We use brown packing tape that seems to be only carried by the U-Haul stores now. It sticks using only one layer and the leather does not distort, nor does it affect the stamping. The thinner the leather or the more coverage of stamping, (basket weave) the more untaped leather will distort or stretch. We don't glue or tape it to any other backing, just place it right on the granite slab and pound away. Haven't noticed any difference to stamping with or without tape other than the stretching issue.