Northmount

I wear plastic high refractive index to get the weight down. Glass would be 1/4" plus thick at the edges. Also need them to satisfy safety requirements. Too thin in the middle, and they won't meet the required standard. Used to wear hardex, but my nose doesn't like it! My glasses are around 10 years old now, and just beginning to show some scratches. I never use micro-fibre. Always have a clean cotton handkerchief in my pocket. Use it to clean my lenses. Wear safety goggles or face shield when grinding or other stuff (both for eye protection and to help protect the lenses). If splashed with concrete, or such, I don't touch them until I can carefully clean them off. Plastic does scratch easily, even with the so called scratch resistant coating you pay extra for. I got one scratch recently when I set my glasses down, and they flipped over against a sharp tool. Need to be more careful since my hands are sometimes shaky and unsteady now. At least it's not in my normal field of vision. Also have been wearing glasses for over 50 years. About the past 25 has been with plastic lenses. Took me a while before I would agree to try plastic lenses. My nose and ears sure appreciate them, so I wouldn't go back to glass. Glasses are sometimes a real pain, but I wouldn't want to be without them. Tom

A lot of the scratches in plastic lenses are due to people using the same micro-fibre cloth forever without cleaning it. Anything that rubs against the lens needs be soft and clean. Tom

Depends on the style of case. Fancy formed case with hinged lid would definitely benefit from a nice lining, cloth or nice leather. For just a simple pouch with a flap, it's not necessary. However, if you put a snap on the flap, there should be something glued in to protect the glasses from the metal snap. A small patch of thin leather will do the job. Tom

Moved the thread and approved your post. Tom

Moved to "How do I do that" Tom

Seems like a bit of confusion here. Arbor presses are a lever with gear to a toothed ram.. Usually in the 1 to 3 ton size. Shop presses are typically hydraulic presses, often in 10 or 20 ton size for the small shop. Most are actuated by the operator pumping a hydraulic jack. Also available with a electric pump, or with an air over oil converter. Tom

Nice Job! Tom

Gently use a pencil eraser to remove the pencil marks without damaging the surface. Lemon juice does work for bleaching leather, so does oxalic acid. May not work on pencil marks. Try it on some scrap and see if it does. Acrylic floor cleaner/polishes will clean pencil marks and other marks off leather. Mop and Glo is a brand used in North America that is being mixed 50:50 with water and applied as an acrylic finish. Lots of threads here about oxalic acid, lemon juice, mop and glo, cleaning leather, deglazer. If you need more info, search for them. Deglazer may remove pencil, again, need to experiment on some scrap to be sure you get what you want. Tom

Also buff it well to removed excess pigment that is laying on top of the leather. Sometimes it is the cause of a metallic appearance. Tom

Looks like it was done with a dauber, in straight lines. Do it in a circular overlapping motion. Use something larger than a dauber, like a 2" or so piece of sponge or sheepskin, or even some wadded up rag. Buff it well after it has dried. And yes, you can add another coat to it. Good luck, it should work out away for you. Tom

Some people will try to take advantage of you once they find you are sympathetic to their cause. Offering to help them learn how is a good solution. Give a man a fish, and you have fed him for a day. Teach him how to fish and feed him for a lifetime. Tom

These wallets look really great. I'm trying to figure out how the pockets in the 4th picture work. Can you show us a picture with some cards or such the we can see how it works and is fit together? Tom

Versa Tool 25W with inline temperature control (SCR like in a light dimmer switch) $30. Low cost, reasonable selection of tips. At least good enough to see if you want to go further with a more expensive set. Tom Edit: added instructions for Versa Tool Versa Tool Pyro.pdf

Nice job. Keep it up now you have such a good start. Tom

Interesting. Makes sense. Tom

Frog tape is what painters use for masking. Works much better, can get a crisp line. Something in the tape reacts with the moisture (if I remember correctly) to provide a better seal. It's about 4x the price of masking or green tape. The green and blue tapes are supposed to be easier to remove than masking tape, without pulling paint or paper with them. That is their selling point, not good masking. And yes, make sure no residue is left behind. When spray painting with a stencil, use very light coats so there is no liquid buildup on the edge of the stencil. Needs to dry at least to very tacky or dry state before the next coat. Brush painting with a stencil uses very thick paint. So when you compare the application, you can see that any liquid buildup will run between the stencil and the article you are painting due to capillary action. Tom

There was a post a couple months ago about stock articles going moldy before being sold. http://leatherworker.net/forum/index.php?showtopic=52533&hl=%2Bhumidity+%2Bmold#entry335536 I'd be more concerned about improper storage causing problems rather than so-called simple deterioration. Customers need to be careful about how they store their purchases too. Tom

Any quilted material/batting will absorb moisture/oil. So matters not whether it is fleece. +1 for Dwight. Tom

Looking good! Tom

I have a few. How to Carve Leather by Stohlman is 53 pages, 33 MB, pages are 12 x 18" as are the originals. At 200% magnification! the lines are sharp. At 400%, the lines are getting some fuzzies. The scan is in colour. So the quality is very good. And you can print any part of it at what ever scale fits your purposes. Looks like 600 dpi if I've done my math right. Tom

Where are you getting your numbers from? You are assuming an MA of 100. How did you derive that number? Tom

You also need to identify to yourself what type of work you want to do. If you are including carving and tooling, that's a whole additional lot of tools beyond producing belts, bags, cases, etc. You can get along with very minimal tools if you aren't going to do tooling. There are a number of posts of what is needed for each type of work here. Here are a couple threads about getting started with sewing with minimal outlay for tools. http://leatherworker.net/forum/index.php?showtopic=31797&hl=%2Bsewing+%2Bsaddle+%2Bstitch+%2Bfork#entry198270 http://leatherworker.net/forum/index.php?showtopic=49575&page=2&hl=%2Btable+%2Bfork+%2Bknife+%2Bawl#entry323766 Tom

Figure Carving Finesse and pattern pack are downloadable as eBooks from Tandy. Tom

The mechanical advantage (MA) of a class 2 lever is the length of the long arm divided by the short arm. The eccentric in this case is the short arm. So for example, if the lever is 24" long and the eccentric is 0.5", then the MA is 48. So if you are pushing down with 10 lb force, the force on the die will be 10 lbs x 48 = 480 lb. And yes, this would be easy to build and take up much less space than a hydraulic shop press modified for clicking. Other than the upper and lower plates, I likely have most of the parts required in my "junk box" (several bins). I have a 20 ton shop press, but it is an hour's drive away. Might have to think about this a bit more! Tom

The lever operates an eccentric, so substantially multiplies the force applied to the cutting die. For those that can remember some of the science they did in grade school, this is equivalent to a class 2 lever. Looks like a good idea. Would like to hear from anyone that has purchased it. Tom