Northmount

After seeing the different options for roller guides here, I decided to try my hand at making one. I used some 1/2" keystock I had plus 1/4" and 3/8" rod and a piece of 1x1/8" flat stock. Picked up a few screws at a local hardware store. Also a collar for a 3/8" drill bit. The roller bearing is a replacement for a router bit. It is attached with an 6-32 screw. I chucked the screw in the drill press and shaved the head on a taper to a wedge fit inside the bearing, so the bottom of the bearing can be right on the arm or ride on a piece of leather when the item you are sewing is off-set from the bottom piece. The blocks used to support the guide have to be drilled with very little clearance, else any free motion is amplified at the roller end and it flops around. (That's why that piece of rod is now 3/8") Since my "maching" skills are less than perfect, there is enough misalignment with the support blocks and the 3/8" rod, to produce enough friction to hold the guide where ever you set it. If you manage to have perfect alignmnet, then you will need a spring between the collar and left block (looking from the front) to hold it in place. The other holes for the 1/4" rod all have set screws to take up any sloppy fit. 1/64" oversize makes a sloppy fit. If you bore the longitudinal holes in the blocks deep enough (mine are 7/8" deep), that will allow you to adjust the length of the rod so it can line up with the presser foot. I thought the larger diameter bearing was a good idea, but if you have some small radius inside curves to sew, then a smaller diameter bearing will follow the curve better. Tools you will need include drill with bits to fit your rod size and for screw holes, tap for threading the screw holes, hacksaw, file and wrenches to suit. Drill press is nice but not necessary. Try to keep the drill square to the keystock while drilling. Things will fit better and look better. If you have a need for a roller guide, and have some disposable time, you can do it yourself and save a few dollars. Else keep selling goods and buy one from your sewing machine vendor. All depends on how much you make per hour! Have a great day. CTG EDIT: Trox ... I see your post the same time I posted mine. Very nice guide!

There are 96 items in the forums when you do a search for oxalic. Do a search and enjoy! One of the ones I read a while ago is Here In place of oxalic acid, you can use vinegar or lemon juice. Good luck with your clean up. CTG EDIT: From a book "General Leathercraft" by Raymond Cherry, 4th Edition © 1955, comments about cleaning leather after tooling and preparing for dye and finish. "Dissolve 1 tsp oxalic acid crystals in 1 pint of water to make a cleaning solution. Apply the solution with a cellulose sponge. Let the Leather dry completely." He doesn't say anything about rinsing the acid off after application. It's a pretty weak acid, so the leather will neutralize it anyhow if you don't want to rinse it. By the way, this is an excellent book for beginners. I used it in 1960 when I was starting leathercraft. I did a web search for it a while ago. ABEBooks.com and Amazon.com had copies available for a very reasonable price.

I mixed about 1/2 tsp in a cup of water. Swabbed the leather with a sponge full. You could see the change immediately. Then immediately rinsed it off with running water and wiped / blotted it off. So I think this was a fairly strong solution. You could try 1/2 this to start with. The whole surface needs to be treated, not good for spot cleaning. Really does a great job evening out the surface color. CTG

There's a video on YouTube of George Hurst doing a demo with 3 different antiques. One is the all in one. The photos look like the dye wicked in from the edges. As Kevin mentioned, try with dampened leather so it doesn't wick the dye in from the raw edges. CTG

The one on the right looks good. The others are skewed too much.

I think it looks really nice. I did a pattern on a narrow belt a while ago and found it difficult because everything was so small. You can repeat your pattern as needed to fill the space you want to. (just need to do a little transition, like add a flower between the segments) At each end of the pattern area, you could bring the side borders together in a semicircle. Then you know where to stop the backgrounding. If the background is matted, and you don't want a border, then taper the background off over about a half inch (12 mm). I like what you have done. Someone is going to have a real nice collar. CTG

Great work! And a coverup is often the easiest and best fix. Keep it up, you have done really nicely. CTG

Tree Reaper's router idea is probably the best and easiest to do. Once you have your burnisher mounted on your shoe finishing bench, you can true up any eccentricity and cut your grooves. No lathe needed. Make sure you use a good quality glue so it doesn't blow apart when it is spinning. CTG

Really nice! Keep it up. CTG

If you have a spade bit the right size (or forstner bit better yet) and extensions to fit, a center steady rest and of course a lathe with long enough bed, you can drill from both ends and meet in the middle. If you drill only from one end, chances are the hole will wander to one side and not come through the middle on the other end. I have used this technique to drill through stock for pepper mills. Drilling from both ends reduces the length of drill bit required, and you can add the extension after the bit reaches its maximum depth. As ususal, when you switch ends, take your time to make sure the stock is centered in the chuck. If you need a center rest, you can build one with a piece of plywood and wheels from inline skates. My center rest was commercially made, but the rollers are too small and have no tire, so tend to mark up the wood. One of these days, I'll make one using roller supports I salvaged from a clothes dryer (they support the drum). They have nice tires instead of a hard surface. CTG

Try oxalic acid to bleach the dye. Make a test 'project' first to simulate the accident. Same leather, same everything. If it is contact cement, there was a post during the past month. Pour some cement into a plastic cup or such, just a little. Let it dry for a few hours, peal it off and wad into a ball of gum. Use it to dab against the cement to pull it off. Kneed the gum ball to get new sticky surface, and keep dabbing away. I got some off that way, and also used a strip of packing tape to lift some off. If it is white glue (general purpose stuff), you may be able to peal it off carefully. If you catch it while still wet, wood workers use a wet toothbrush to scrub it and wipe it dry. But with leather, that is going to leave a stain or color change. You might be able to bleach it out. Or work the whole piece so it has the same stain over all the surface. With both of these problems, you may have to lightly dye the whole surface to hide the remaining stains. If you have abraded the leather under the cement slightly, you may be able to hide it with a coat of acrylic or lacquer based finish. Test it first on another piece of the same leather, same simulated conditions. CTG

You like my soaking wet bluejay. I was really surprised to see how wet they get in the birdbath on a hot day! 2 cm of snow overnight, about 0 C here right now, so not as bad as your snow. We have hardly had any snow this winter in comparison to normal. Most will melt off today or tomorrow. Your snowflake is interesting, just not my style, but so what. Lots of different interests and viewpoints out there. I'm stuck in the middle of trying to figure out why a piece of software I'm building won't load a resource, so it's gong to be a while before I get back to leather and wood. Have a great day everybody! CTG

Awesome! I need to try it out too. CTG

Great and beautiful work. CTG

There are 2 that I think of, time hh:mm:ss, also related, angular measure ddd:mm:ss. Unless you consider grads, 100 grads is a right angle, but it falls apart with a full circle being 400 grads.

I thought you would rise to the bait! I'm very familiar with SI (metric). Canada went metric many years ago. I taught using it in various branches of engineering for 19 years. I have used it in the engineering firm I work with for 13 years. Often flipping back and forth between SI and English units as demanded by old and new facilities. I think it's past time the US adopted SI, the same as the rest of the world has. You buy a supposedly American made car and half the parts are metric, half English. So factories are tooled to use both. The mechanic has to buy 2 sets of tools to work on the car. The the stuff that is imported from China has metric threads and English heads! What a crazy mixed up world we live in. According to SI standards (European), the base unit of length is the metre. Meter is a device used to measure something, like voltmeter.

They are licensed to the party that paid for and signed an agreement. Commercial usage by others that are not party to this agreement is in contravention of the registered trademark and copyright laws. In other words, you could be sued. Great find for collector items. CTG

Must be a 10 point one, just like metric stars!

I didn't have to use Google, but isn't Google just great for finding many of the details we need. Even finds LW!

Remember that snowflakes have 6 points. Not 8 as you see in many commercial graphics. So simply folding a square of paper in half 3 times won't work for your basic pattern. Fold in half, then fold in thirds to get your 6 points, or use a protractor, 60 degrees. CTG

You may be able to remove the lacing, re-align the edges starting in the middle, counting holes like others have mentioned. Then see how you can finish off the spare holes at the end. You may be able to punch a couple additional holes in the side where you need them. CTG

Try letting it dry naturally, make sure there is good air circulation on both sides. I had forgotten to put the makers stamp on an item, remembered after putting neatlac on. Had not assembled it yet so dampened the flesh side to case it. Let it soak through so would have roughly the right water content, then stamped it. Let it air dry for a couple days and no stain or blotch. Maybe just lucky, but gradual air drying might work for you, even with the stiffener being wet. Good luck. Hope it does well for you. CTG

If tooling (stamping) on your lap is difficult due to how low the work surface is, try placing the slab on 2 to 4" of high density foam like for chair cushions on top a table or desk to get some height back. CTG

Looks like wood. That's really great. CTG

I love your work! Really outstanding. CTG