Northmount

Wood or leather, if it is too porous, it doesn't leave enough cement on the surface. So yes a second light coat helps. Tom G Ha ha! Two Tom Gs

Very nice, great work and colour. Tom

Check your machine specs and look at needle and thread size charts. Make sure your tension is adjusted right, then go make some more practise corners. Tom

Great job! Tom

Get Bob Park's book, Creating Western Floral Designs. It will help with how to do the layout and get the flow to work for you. http://s486.photobucket.com/user/hidepounder/media/Active%20Links%20file/Flyer2.jpg.html or search LW to find more info. Tom

When you lift the presser foot too high, it releases the tension disks, so you lose the top tension. Just lift the presser foot enough to allow you to turn the leather. And another thing, the needle should be down and starting to rise so the hook has grabbed the thread loop. Else it may skip a stitch. Yours hasn't skipped a stitch so currently this is not a problem for you, just keep it in mind for the future. Something I have found that helps me go around rounded corners and to keep a neater stitch line is to mark the stitch line so you can follow it around the curve. Guides don't always keep you where you want to be. Tom

Great looking dog! Tom

The red wavy line is your spell checker installed in your browser. Older slower machines have trouble when too many add ons and memory resident software is loaded. Firefox add ons are easily added and removed if they are giving you problems. IE explorer lets you decide what add ons, active x, and com components you want to run. Knock off the ones you don't need. If you get the stuff out of the road that you don't need, you will see improvements in your computer and browser speed. Note that wireless connections are slower than hard wired. Check your old hardware (switches, hubs, routers), see if it is limited to 5 or 10 Mbps. If you have one slow speed device in series in your home network between your ISP's modem and your computer, it is a bottleneck. Latest versions of IE aren't handling the enter key correctly on this site (on PCs obviously). For each enter key stroke (carriage return) hold the alt key down and type the decimal code 013 on the keypad, then release the alt key. Or easier yet, switch to a different browser. You need to do some hardware and software troubleshooting on your systems to see what the problem is, so you can decide where the problem is. When you find the trouble spot, then of course you will be able to fix it. And obviously this site is slow when overloaded, or when your ISP is overloaded, or throttling your throughput. Tom

It looks somewhat like the saddle tan colour. Tom

The gusset needs about 2" extra length on both ends (4" total). Mark the gusset at the mid point on each side. Unzip it. Mark the mid point on each side of the case. Use seem tape or contact cement and start attaching the gusset at the mid point on each side of the case. Work towards both ends. If your case is going to be 1.5" thick at the spine, keep that space clear on the case material, and bring your gusset/zipper down inside the case. Don't sew or glue the piece that goes down inside the spine. All glued in place, punch and lace, or sew it together. Don't sew the gusset piece in the spine. Tom edit ... thicker cases require longer gusset/zipper to be able to open flat.

Old singers will sew lightweight leather. May leave marks on the back due to the feed dogs. If you are serious about sewing leather, get a walking foot machine. Look at the dealer ads at the top of the page here. Each time you refresh the page you will see new ads, so you can flip through and see who is who. Tom

No problem here right now. Sometimes the site seems a little overloaded, sometimes it is your ISP that is slow. Tom

Get "The Art of Hand Sewing Leather" by Al Stohlman. Lots of good information. Available at Tandy and other places. Tom

8 oz is too thick for small items like wallet and iPhone case that will be folded. For larger items like iPad case, depending on your design, the fold should be gouged on the flesh side to make it easier to fold. For a lot of small things, not subject to lots of wear and tear, 3/4 or 4/5 oz is easier to work with and not so bulky. Tom

Lookin pretty good. Keep it up! Tom

How about the latest voice controlled system? Put a hand crank on the machine and conscript the closest "volunteer". Then train the system. Stop, needle up. Stop, needle down. Slow. Medium. Fast. Get me a coffee ... Should be able to do it for about $20. Tom

For 10 minutes of very slow speed stitching every hour or so! Definitely not for production. If you put a large pulley on to get the machine speed up, you lose all the high torque that came with the low speed. At $100 or a little less for a good 18 V 3 Ah battery, better off financially to get a servo motor. Reminds me of my dad telling me I would go to an awful lot of work or effort to avoid 5 minutes of work. Sounds about the same here! Tom

Reduce presser foot pressure? Lower feed dogs? Grind the teeth down? Wizcrafts has made many comments on reducing marks on top and bottom. Search his posts. He has provided a great wealth on knowledge and helps here. I see you are a fellow Calgarian too! Tom

Use lubricated thread, easier to pull the needle back out without lifting the leather. Hard and soft temper leather also behave differently. Your leather may have changed, different batch, different supplier? Tom

Interesting idea. Final product looks quite nice. Tom

Since the back side has glue on it, water won't soak through from the back either. Where the flesh side was accessible, have done just as you suggested, and it works. Takes longer to dry out after! Best do like Benlilly says. Acetone might remove the resolene but you may have trouble getting a nice finish again. Try it on some of the same scrap leather first so you can see the results before you inflict more damage. Tom

Gas torch, often acetylene, maybe butane. Bronze rod with flux coating to limit oxidation and get a nice joint. Check your local welding supply shop. Tom

Love it! Tom

I started leather work in 1961, so would have spent a lot of time looking at that catalog. PM me if you would like to scan and send me the whole catalog. Thanks again for posting. Tom

Thanks. What year? I'm wishing I had kept a couple old catalogs. Tom