barra

http://www.leffler.com.au/saddlery/snaps_swivels.htm Hope this helps. Barra

An inexpensive method to assist in reducing the speed is to slowly depress the pedal until you hear the motor hiss and then give the balance wheel a flick. You are just trying to find that speed that us comfortable to you. Once you have it running at that speed, get a friend to shove a tennis ball fairly tightly under the pedal and fix it in that position so that it does not roll away when the pressure is taken off the pedal. Having said that I don't think anything beats learning good foot control. Barra

Pushing your awl through to the same depth consistantly every time will come with practice. Also you need to have the correct size blade in relation to the thread/needles your using. Once the blade is inserted into the haft to the correct depth, get a wad of scrap leather. I use a wad from a punch of the same size as my awls ferrule. Push this wad onto the blade up to the ferrule. This will act sort of as a spacer and also stop you marring the leather with the ferrule if you push in to far. This works like a carpenter wrapping tape around a drill bit. You drill til up to the tape depth. Same depth everytime. Barra.

A couple of things you can do. 1. Get hold of a heap of bobbins and when you wind bobbins, do lots in one hit. 2. If you have at least 2. Get another spool of thread and set it up so that the bobbin is winding as you stitch. When you run out on the machine, swap them over so again as you are stitching you are always winding a new bobbin at the same time. Barra.

I concur. I have a few of Jeremiah's tools, edgers mostly and his cantle pliers. I am in Australia and dealing with Jeremiah or Colleen via ranch2arena.com is easy. No muss, no fuss. I will definately be ordering more tools when the Aus dollar climbs out of the toilet. Barra

Yes and there is no havnagoodweekend.

A workable home made splitter can be made by cutting a tapered notch in a block of wood. The notch needs to be wider than what you intend to split. Mount a blade that is wider than the notch on top. by sliding the blade along the notch from the shallowest to deepest end you can adjust the thickness of your split. You then need to work out how to screw/clamp your blade at various positions along the tapered block. Crude but it works. Barra

Ian. I am in Adelaide South Australia and yes I'm in the Military and currently on a wee deployment. Barra

well here I sit miles from anywhere under a tree but due to the marvels of modern technology I have Internet access. I can now get my daily LW fix before the critters and bugs eat me alive. Santa never made it here. Maybe that is why someone gave our little Xmas tree with the one measily bit of tinsel a flying lesson. Barra

Oh God no. Done my time dixie bashing. That is why they invented Troops. Barra

Well I finally found a computer for 5 min. There will be a couple of hundred sitting at the table for xmas dinner. I bet the cooks go all out and do us proud. Barra

Thanks Johanna and Twinoaks. As suggested you can also pick up an apron faily cheap. Novelty BBQ aprons are a big no no. OMG the mind boggles. You all know the apron I'm talking about. Barra.

I just knocked this up out of an old pillow case. The length was perfect as I find a long apron a nuisance when stitching with clams as you have to hoik the darn thing up. Anyhoo. Measure between your shoulders (top of apron). Measure down the length of the pillow case to your hips. Join the two with a straight line. You can have a slight sweeping curve if you want. Get some cloth tape. One bit goes from your waist, over your head and back down to your waist. Stitch it on. Don't use the harness stitcher like I did (pucker city). And attach another cloth tape for the waist tie. I like it long enough to go behind your back and re-tie at the front for ease of tying.

Lets see if this works. I just knocked this up out of an old pillow case. The length was perfect as I find a long apron a nuisance when stitching with clams as you have to hoik the darn thing up. Anyhoo. Measure between your shoulders (top of apron). Measure down the length of the pillow case to your hips. Join the two with a straight line. You can have a slight sweeping curve if you want. Get some cloth tape. One bit goes from your waist, over your head and back down to your waist. The width apart as your shoulder measurement. Stitch it on. Don't use the harness stitcher like I did (pucker city). And attach another cloth tape for the waist tie. I like it long enough to go behind your back and re-tie at the front for ease of tying. Between the tape that go over your head I added a pocket. Barra

I appear to be having trouble posting to this topic. I made a simple apron out of an old pillow case. To me the length was perfect. Barra

Welcome aboard Clair. Barra

Something no worky. I tried to post a pick of my apron made from a pillow case but it appears I launched it into cyberspace. Barra

http://www.seattlefabrics.com/Structure%20...0a%20Zipper.jpg Look at the pic of the zip with runner attached for orientation. Now look at the pic of the chain zip. It doesn't matter if chain or teeth zip You can feed the zip into the runner and you should notice the teeth hit up against a bar. grab the tape at each corner and gently pull/tug. The teeth should now separate. Continue to feed the zip on. Barra

When you attach the runner, as you slide it along the zip, the teeth separate. As you slide the runner back to where you started, the teeth will close again. You can do the same on the other end of the zip by attaching another runner when you cut it to your final and desired length. Barra

How is that size??? Barra

Lets see if this works. I don't know how this explanation will translate in text. This is a bag I made and is my home away from home on deployments. I will try and explain how I put the zipper in, which was cut from continuous zip. The principal will be the same as a backpack If you look at where the zipper ends near the black webbing tab, hopefully you can see a seam (this is one of the bags ends). The zipper was cut the length of the bag and a bit extra. the zipper is sewn to a gusset and then this gusset is attached to the ends of the bag. The bag ends are sewn over the zipper. This locks off the zip. The extra length of zip that extends either end of the bag (remember it was cut slightly longer than the gusset) is locked off when you sew the bag end over the gusset and zipper. If the zipper is cut from a roll of continuous zipper you have raw ends. There are a few ways to deal with these raw ends 1. bind the raw edge with some material like a. soft leather b. a scrap of similar material to the back pack c. a scrap of vinyl 2. Make zip end stops like the little metal clips (for want of a better term) that you see on open ended zippers. These can be made out of the same type of material as for binding the whole raw edge. Just cut some little strips about 3/8 - 1/4" wide. Seperate the zipper teeth enough to sew one strip either side of the teeth. You can then overlap the teeth and with a gentle tap with a "little" hammer the teeth with again inter mesh. Do the same on the other end of the zip. Barra

http://www.nzmr.org/workshop.htm This is a UP (Universal Pattern) saddle. It is the Military saddle that has served Britain and It's Commonwealth nations for many years. Variants commonly get called Trooper saddles in North America. It was designed to be simple to repair in the field. I hope the Pic illustrated the suspended seat. Originals had leather tabs that went over the steel arches at the pommel and cantle, not the webbing (can't see that lasting too long). Barra

Place a scrap of absorbant cloth under the foot when the machine is not in use. I suppose the obvious is also avoid over oiling. Barra

Oooooooo Yeah. I have been known to make the script from Deadwood sound like rank amatuers in the expletive department. I can't say I have ever given a tool a flying lesson. The stuff up has never been the tool but always the operator. In my Office at work we have a large block of foam with a metal pipe next to it. This is known as the whacking foam. It gets laid into when the Troops give us the irrits. That whacking foam has been getting a flogging lately. Barra

Plain old vinegar will kill most moulds. Barra