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hi noob. welcome and hope you enjoy it here.

welcome. hope you have some fun with your new hobby. i made many brow bands that were fun in the short term, but a person wented me to make thousands and my life is worth more that that. I did have fun making and trying different techniques to present the beadwork. im not sure how the horsey industry is down there, but up the flashy brow bands has slowed in the dressage arena. most dresage judges dont like the blingz. i do see that a company is now offering them sort of custom. whatever you do have fun and dont be afraid to make mistakes or ruin some leather.

+1 this is how i do my dyeing. ive never tried the shoe polish tho.

Ariet uses some on their half chaps and some other mfg do to. ive been looking for some for several years now but havent seen anything out. im not sure if the OEM has a special agreement with the mfg but i would hope that someone would have access to the material. iac, im just waiting.

buy bigger then you need. you never know what you will be wanting or needing to make.

just like Nalpalm sticks to people so will synthetics when burned.

IPA will clean up some of the stuff. ive found that over a week of washing your hands, it will come off. you can try some other stuff, but i just wash my hands and let time and washing work.

welcome, at least you have the Sheridan show to go to once/year. its a great place to learn and see whats going on. i hope to make it there one of these days.

welcome, hope you find what youre looking for and enjoy it while youre doing it.

if you have any libraries near you, you can check what they have in terms of reference material on the subject. if not, they should be able to do a search of the whole system to see whats available and have it brought in for you. im not sure if there are any u tube vids of one being used. i found most of my info via books.

im no expert on such things and is one of the reasons i try to keep a good relationship with the few repair people around. if your friend can get it running, its worth keeping. IMO, i would try to find a repair person that has some knowledge on the older units and see what he/she finds. IMO i believe those older machines are worth keeping running since they were over built.

custom will mean different things to different people. also, just because someone makes something (custom) doesnt mean they will have the same skills as you or I. most of the time poeple want "custom" but arent willing to pay for the work so they keep on asking/looking until they find someone in the ballpark of what they are willing to spend.

Greetings. Hope youre having fun with your new hobbie. I havent made any watch straps (yet) but one never knows what one will be asked to make. btw, what is: "haute horlogerie" ??? have a great day.

Id do more practice with stamping. its free other then the scrap you use. if you use a press, you would have to get one large enough and one with a throat deep enough to reach into the center of the work. You can roll up the leather to get in further into the work space, but the throat size will dictate how much you can get into. if youre handy with metal tools, there no reason you couldnt fab something up.

ive learned alot by reading and done most of my leather work by trial and error. there are loads of books out there on the subject. just google it. look at your library. you know those places with books. Look at used book stores too. check your local community colleges for leather classes. if they have community ed classes check there. also keep on checking. they may not have a class today or tomorrow, but maybe a year or so down the road. As mentioned, try your local tandys store since they sometimes offer classes. another place that needs to be mentioned. Look for saddle/tack shops or places where "leatherwork" will be bought/sold. check out their forsale board or bullitin board. some may or may not have a board, but ask anyway and look what they have posted. google is your friend. use it. also, try googling for leatherworkers in your area. see if they teach or take on apprentices. you maynot be making saddles or tack, but the idea is the same and you should be able to think outside of the box to apply what you learn to what you want to do. i mented about the trail and error since you will find out that sometimes its not in the book. if you have any leather shops in your area, get some scrap leather for doing prototyping work. its usually sold by the pound. sometimes you have to make some prototpyes several times until you get it right.

heres my .02 i do my leatherwork as an expensive hobbie. but ive bought/sold many machines and have probably paid for my current one several times. this is what ive leared, but YMMV. Buy as big/large a machine as you can afford. especially when it comes to what you are going to try to run under the foot. if you get one that can handle 1/2 inch of material, you will eventually find out you need 5/8". you wont now, but there WILL be a time. if you dont know the ins/outs of a sewing machine and are just a "user" then find someone that can hold your hands and talk you thru it while youre TS/fixing the issue. also, last hint. you know what you want to make/sew, so bring the material w/you and do some demos on the material with the correct thread/needle setup. if its 1 layer, bring it and sew it. If its 5 layers 1/2" thick, then bring it and test sew it. You will find out real fast if the machine can handle it or not.

when in doubt, burn it. if its real leather or some other form of animal skin, it will smell like it when burnt. shave off a sliver and burn it. if you dont know what it should smell like, try taking some known leather and burn it. btw, be aware of sole leather. its treated with some chemicals.

did you try Oregon Leather down there? i have some of this elastic. I dont consider it lt gray tho. maybe you can compare the pic.

congrats on working with leather. i dont have any ideas for you, but when you do your fancy stitching, you may want to watch out what type/size of patterns you do since it more or less perforates the leather and could weaken it. good luck and have fun

it will depend on what your goals are for the hobby. Leathercraft is like reloading. it allows the user to taylor make his own holsters, belts or whatever he wants to fit his needs. Shooting isnt a cheap hobby anymore either. your initial investment of 300ish for your single six is expensive now and trying to find inexpensive ammo isnt happening anymore either. if you want to shoot 22 Mags, then its more expensive. if all you want is a cheap holster, it appears you found one. btw, if you buy it, dont forget how much you paid for it when you get it home and see what your $30.00 bought. with the global economy and such, its not that difficult to find "cheap" products. you can do the leatherwork inexpensively if you choose to do so. if you want to tool the leather then, you will have addtion time ($?) into the craft. i dont do any tooling, so its just plain jane stuff for me. i do have alot of $$ into the craft since i found its nice to have the right tools to do the right job. you could get away with less expensive tool or to make them yourself, but i dont have a shop at my disposal. i have access to Oregon Leather so i can just drop in and buy some "scrap" pieces to make what i want. they have loads of "scrap" there and you should be able to find something that will work. I also have some hides that i have purchased a while ago, so i can use those to, but if im doing a quick holster/project and am not sure if its going to work out, i will use some scrap pieces. also, any hobby will have an entry fee, its just the way the game is played. but once you have paid that price, you can do as you please. it can be an expensive hobby, but so are my others, but it allows me to spend some quite time and to do something i want to do when i want to do it at my own pace.

i have both. probably will for a long time. i was broken in on PC and learned on MACs later on. I like MACs better then PC cuz THEY WORK. yes i do have some issues from time to time, but not like a PC. It took me about a year to get win 2K to work w/o any issues and then all it took was 1 game to screw it up again. I will say that i also have built ALL of my PCs too and that is about 4 so far. I will probably end up building another one since my latest PC has the Intel Prescott in it and it can heat up the whole house if i use it all day. also, most newer games need more processer speed and i will have to upgrade the OS to (puke/barf) Windows 7 for any of the newer games. i use my MAC for eveything other then my CAD programs since they dont offer them for the MAC platform. My current MAC platform is a G4/1.25 Ghz mirror door unit that has been working for 5? years now. i have both connected to a KVM that shares a printer, external DVD burner, scanner, speakers and monitor. I dont dare use my PC on the web since i dont have any virus SW. The last time i did, it crashed my HD with more viruses in 5 minutes then i could have believed. that was when i found out W2K doesnt have any virus protection. its was so thoughtful of MS to offer that feature. im sure you can get a virus on the mac but i havent checked mine recently and anyway, i dont have any virus SW installed so what could i check?. i guess i should get some virus proteciton one of these days. but ive been on the web for 10+ years w/o any issues. i believe my ISP provide does alot of blocking. i also dont open anything from anyone i dont know. fwiw, i have a good friend that was a diehard PC person although he was anti MS. He had built his own PCs and used Linux/Red Hat and such for as many years as they have been out. the only issue with those shareware is that alot of HW he used didnt have drivers for them so he ended up writing his own or hacking something similar. IAC, he actually bought one of the mini macs and loves it. No one could have told me he would buy a MAC and i would have belived them, but its there. i asked him why? his response was, "it works. you turn them on and they work". i think if youre unhappy, you may want to look into a mac. my curent mac, the 1.25 ghz i got used btw. im not sure i would buy a mac just to run a windows emulator. im sure they are great, but youre taking up process power to emulate something. If you do get a mac and emulator, let us know how it goes. if it works, may just dump my PC and do the emulator route. of course i would upgrade my mac.

welcome, i would have to ask tho. What Type Of Leatherwork Do You Want To Do?

im not sure how you are dying your leather, but i try not to use the swab method unless they are small parts. ie, like keepers. i do all/most of my dye jobs by dunking them in trays. Go to your local thrift shop/goodwill/garage sale and look for some backing pans and such. i have several sizes on hand depending on the size of the project. to me, dunking is better since you can almost always get a good uniform color. now sometimes, depending on the color, you can get some streaking or light spots but for the most part its not bad. fyi, if you use a dark color in the pan like black, make sure you clean it good before you put in a lighter color. i use IPA Isopropyl Alcohol to clean my pans/containers. you can try/use whatever you want tho. on my leather i havent had any issues with having to clean it before i dye them. for the most part my supplier, keeps their leather area clean. with regards to the conchos, there arent alot of choices out there. you can look at your local shops for close out and such. i really dont use them that much, so i dont pay that much attention. if youre really handy, make/design your own. i know our local community colleges offers classes in jewlery making and such.