Northmount

If you have The art of Making Leather Cases by Al Stohlman, take a look at page 50. If you don't have it, it's probably time to get it. You can purchase the eBook from Tandy. Use either 1/8" Masonite (hardboard) or 3 mm plywood paneling. Your local home centre should have them. You may be able to get off-cuts from a builder or smaller panels at the home centre. Tom

LePages or 3M contact cement, either water based or toluene type solvents should work for you. Follow the directions. Roughen the surfaces to be joined if they are smooth. Apply to both surfaces. Let dry until almost no tack, them carefully position the two parts together. If you accidentally get things misaligned, they may stay like that forever. Pulling it apart will damaged the surfaces. Press or use a roller to ensure full contact adhesion. There is another thread about contact cement that you should look at too. http://leatherworker.net/forum/index.php?showtopic=46282&hl= Tom

What type of dye are you using? I was using some Tandy Eco dye, timber brown and had spots like this show up. I had bleached the leather with oxalic acid to even out the colour somewhat before dyeing. I've also found that having the leather slightly damp helps even out the dye, and reduce the amount it wicks into the adjacent leather. Anyway, on this piece, it still had some problems with even absorption. After several coats, the "hard" areas closed in and disappeared. So I think the above advice to lightly oil the leather and let it soak in overnight should help a lot to reduce or eliminate the problem. Also, look closely at the leather before you cut into it, and avoid areas that look look like it has wrinkles. Tom

See this article for more info http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/CE_marking#Product_groups Tom

Contact Bob Park. He has an excellent booklet on Sheridan Design. http://leatherworker.net/forum/index.php?showuser=7682 Tom

Some materials, leather included, may absorb the glue and dry too fast. If the material is too porous, run a second coat over the first one a few minutes later. Try another experiment and see if this helps. When gluing large areas, some people run a second coat around the edges to help make sure the edges won't separate. Tom

Welcome. Used to live there for a short time. Tom

Wow! Really, really nice work you are doing. Even with the difficulties you are having, it is turning out really great. Tom

For that height, should be able to wet form a square piece of leather. Make a plug the size of the candle holder (or use the candle holder, cut a couple pieces of plywood, laminate together to get at least your 1" height, drill or cut a hole the diameter of the candle holder plus 2 thicknesses of the leather you are using, sand it nice and smooth on the inside. Dampen the leather, a little more than you would for casing, but not saturated, lay the leather on top of the form and press the plug into it. Let it dry for maybe an hour, pull it out and let it finish drying. (might want to trim the excess off the leather before you pull it out of the form.) I have formed 8 oz over 3/4" so I'm sure you can do 1" with no trouble. You will likely get some wrinkling. Worth a try though and after the first one, the next dozen will go quickly. Then it is all one piece with no joins. Tom

I thought so. It looked like one of mine! The gel antique doesn't behave the same as other antiques. The first project I used it on did not turn out as it should have. It did the same as yours, except I used Saddle Tan and it turned out very red. The instructions on the bottle are much less than adequate. There is a video by George Hurst that shows how to use it. The link to the video should be in the instructions! It would certainly help anyone new to this product. In George's demonstration, he is doing a relatively small project. By the time you get the antique worked into all the cuts and depressions, you don't have much time to wipe off the excess. Have paper towels and a wet sponge ready before you start. Start with your leather slightly moistened too. I don't recall if that is in the video. For your existing project, you may be able to improve it somewhat if you haven't applied any finish to it yet. If you scrub it with mop 'n glow, you can remove much of the overall colour. Since the gel antique is water based, the mop 'n glow will lift a lot of the surface dye. For other types of antiques, there is a video on use of various Tandy resist type products at Good luck with fixing your project, and with future projects. Tom

Read post 98, and several earlier Tom

What was the antique you used? Gel Antique? Helps to know what you are using to be able to answer the question. Tom

Prior to this problem starting, have you had the plate around the feed dogs off? I don't have the same machine, but had what sounds like a similar problem. When I put the plate back on, the bobbin carrier was not in the right position. A tab is supposed to be trapped and held by the plate. When it was in the wrong position, it would sew but would break the top thread. As the thread came across the bobbin, it would get tight, could hardly turn the machine over. Hope you figure it out soon. Can be very frustrating! Tom

When I read this post this morning, just a quick look at it, I misinterpreted it and thought he bought 2 shorter belts to make up the total length! It reminded me of a story about my great great grandfather. He lived in North Dakota, ranching. He was a large man, took size 14 boots. He ordered a pair of size 14 boots from the Sears Roebuck mail order catalog. When the parcel finally arrived, he opened it and found some smart aleck had sent 2 pairs of size 7 boots! Tom

Is the needle in correctly? The scarf in the end should line up with the hook. Tom

This shouldn't need much belt tension since there is not a heavy load on the belt. If you are pressing hard enough to make the belt slip, you will be deforming the edge of the leather. That said, you probably burned out the other motors due to overloading them (1/10 HP is not very much power). Also a lot of used motors have been run without being oiled for years, oiled with the wrong oil, etc. so the bushings get sticky, overloading the motor. If the bushings are an oil impregnated bronze, oiling them may actually wash the oil out of them. Tom

Sure. If your don't use a shorter liner, it will bunch up in the fold. And for the typical billfold, the more cash a person stuffs the bill section with, the liner bunches up even more. The liner needs to be shorter in the direction perpendicular to the fold line. To accommodate the difference in length, a one piece liner should not be stitched or laced to the back in the fold area. If the liner hasn't been trimmed back in the fold area at the bottom, then cut a notch in it about 1/4 x 3/4". Match the ends up, glue in place, punch the holes and lace it up. This will force a natural fold in the wallet (won't lay open flat, so don't attempt to display it that way). Some liners are an expandable type that accommodate the difference in length flat versus folded. The centre piece of the liner fits into slots cut into the two end pieces and "floats" between them. Again, this floating centre piece is not stitched or laced to the back. Tom I see Chief answered at the same time, so you got it from 2 directions!

Here is another good tutorial on bookbinding. http://www.johan-potgieter.com/bin02.html Tom

Very nice and neat work. Tom

I have noticed that during casing, if the color is inconsistent, it will be when finished too. So I often treat Tandy leather with oxalic acid to even out the colour. I decided recently to do it early, as part of the casing process. It doesn't fix all the evils, but certainly helps. Tom

Yup, the leather flap reminds you there is something under it that you need to watch out for.

Here are the pics. So if the blade sticks out, either cover it to protect your fingers, or do as Bruce says and snap off the excess so it will be buried below the top of the bar. Tom

The blade is just slightly over 1", maybe a 64th if I could read it! When set to cut a 3 to 4 oz strip and with the blade flush with the bottom side, the top of the blade is proud by 1/8". When adjusting for thinner leather, if you accidentally place your finger or thumb above the blade (when the end is buried, not visible) and squeeze, you suddenly have a nice clean cut when the blade rises above the surface. Possibly the newer models have thicker guide bars, then there would be less chance of cutting yourself since the blade would be fully buried. Any how, it hasn't got me since adding the little leather flaps! Tom

And be careful how you handle your strap cutter. The exposed ends of the blade are hard on your fingers. I glued a small leather flap across both ends of the blade. Can still replace or move the blade by folding the flaps back. A little less blood on the strap too! Tom

Agree with Particle. You need greater depth of field so the object is in focus from front edge to back edge. So with a tripod, you should have no trouble using an f-stop f16 to f22 and slow your shutter way down to what ever it takes to get enough light. Nothing wrong with using shutter speeds from 1 sec to 1/15 sec. See also this thread for more related comments and links. http://leatherworker.net/forum/index.php?showtopic=45745&hl=+tent%20+camera%20+light#entry287926 Tom