Northmount

After some searching on the web (I'm not a sewing machine or needle expert) I found this information. I looked at a number of charts with needle point styles and no "H". Then finally found this info and assembled it into a PDF. "H" appears to identify the needle has a scarf. Hope it helps. Needle Style.pdf

I used their Gel Antique Saddle Tan. By the time I had an even color across the leather, it was more red than tan. Since then I learned a little about how to apply it. Take a look at George Hurst doing a demo with 3 different products. With the gel, he uses a damp sponge to remove excess coloring. So I did one a few days ago where I wanted really light saddle tan. Scrubed a lot off with the damp sponge and it turned out okay. I also tried a resist with Resolene. It was lighter but gave it a yellowish tone. Not too bad, but not what I was looking for. Definitely pay attention to how long you leave the antique on the leather. The longer it is there, the deeper and darker the color. Take a few scraps and try out different ideas on them to see what works best for you. (And write it down for futur reference, label each sample you do, type of leather, type of antique and any other product info and how you treated it.) Good luck, experiment, practice and keep learning. CTG

I assume that where you said you have tried reducing the tension that you were refering to presser foot pressure. If not, reduce the spring pressure on the presser foot. CTG

The first train ride I remember was a steamer in the dead of winter, colder than heck. The train consisted of the engine, tender, 1 passenger car, baggage (and mail) car and caboose. Wasn't a long distance, about 60 miles. There was a pot bellied wood/coal heater at one end of the car. It was glowing red hot. You toasted on one side and froze on the other. I must have been about age 4. I remember the toilet was open to the track, so you could see the ties whizing by below. Pretty cold seat, worse than an outhouse. During the summer, the engineers used to stop the train during luch hour, get out and eat their lunch along with anyone else that wanted to stretch their legs. The engineers would shoot gophers for a little target practice. No one worried about thw schedule on this lonely side track. In the 1920s my grandfather road the rails (free unless you were caught, then a few days in jail) looking for work across Canada and norther US. CTG

Nice. So often hard to get a good contrast between black and blue. Yours is great.

Your train photos are great. I used to live beside the track and saw the transition from steam to diesel, much to my disgust. When are you going to start on it? We need a pressure welder and good machinist too. Maybe we should get this guy on board too. If I was any good at drawing cartoons, I would do one of you on a 3 wheeler with a boiler spewing black smoke and ash. But I guess my imagination will have to suffice. CTG

Image 2, captioned brake ... Is an automatic oiler for delivering steam cylinder oil to the steam admission valves and mabe to the cylinder as well. The tubing coming out of the bottom goes to each point that needs oil. CTG

Mop&Glo triple action is the only one we could find here. I was testing some dyes and finishes, as well as assembly technique for a special binder I have been asked to do. The cover is lined with a 3-4 oz leather. I had been using some newspaper to keep the bench clean. The lining had picked up some black from the newspaper type. I sprayed a mist of m&g on it. It wiped right off and has left a nice sheene after drying and buffing. So 2 things learned, don't use newspaper where there is any risk of picking up the ink and that m&g will remove some surface grime, etc. if needed. CTG

Put your finish on in very thin layers. Let it dry well between coats so the finish stays in layers. If it doesn't dry between coats, then it is just one thick layer and cracks. Thin your finish to 50-50 mix or so before application. Look up other recent posts on finishing. Some are using 50-50 mixture of mop-n-glow which I am trying out on some scraps to see how I like it. Looks good so far. Depending on the finish you used, you may be able to use its solvent to remove most of it and refinish it. Feibings deglazer might work to help remove the finish too. Might take several applications and lots of rubbing with soft cotton cloth to remove the old stuff. CTG

You have some great work and ideas. I need to look at doing something similar. For your next cover, the spine text should typically be right side up when the book is closed and placed on the table face up. Don't stop work on this one though. I'm sure a lot of people won't notice, and the new owner will love it anyhow. CTG

Have you looked at using glass? Tandy

Absolutely beautiful! A friend was given a light 2 horse buggy a couple years ago. Every bit of leather on it needs to be replaced. It sat in an old barn for many years, until the elderly lady gave it to the young man that was helping her with odd jobs. Now it sits in a garage waiting for someone to get around to it. A lot of the wood has dried out. Shrunk and cracked so will need a lot of replacement. Wheels are the worst. Restoring ancient things like this takes a lot of time and commitment. Congratulations on a job well done. CTG

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