jwilson

The grading system is based on size, not quality. It goes 1-5 and a #1 is 2 square feet+, and a #5 is 1 sq ft I believe. And the pricing is based on size, not price per square foot. Example, I just ordered #5's for about $50 a piece and #2's for around $150 a piece. the size difference is only about .75 sq ft. Hope that helps Andrew!

On the baseball gloves, it looks to me like they are probably 3-4 or 2-3 oz in the main part, as it is lined it looks like. The lace has got to be cowhide. Since kip specifies a young cow, I don't think you will find kip over 4 oz, as its then a cow, not kip. Just my two cents.

Waterhouse has natural "english kip" sides in 2/3 and 3/4 for reasonable prices. Ive ordered a few and they are very clean.

yea Eric Frank is the man to deal with. Very nice guy, Ive ordered a few shells from them and had the same problem until I got in contact with Eric.

beautiful bag man! Bet your hands are hurtin after that one...

I typically make bags and things, and never really got into tooling. I ended up inheriting a bunch of tools from a customer and found myself with a bunch of stamps and a swivel knife. Been messing around for a bit, here are my first two pieces that are actually useful. The first is a cardholder made as a gift for a friend, the second is a checkbook cover for myself. This is extremely addictive... Heres the checkbook cover, needs a coat of oil... Would love some feedback! I came up with all the patterns myself, and I understand things are a little messy by traditional standards..

You can by an edge dying roller from tandy and put dura edge in it. I dont use this kind of stuff ever, but that seems like the easiest way to get that type of edge to me...

I second buckleguy, really good quality, good prices, fast shipping.

Yea horween makes a great product. Most of their leathers are chrome/ veg re- tan. They are just very hard to pin down and actually get leather to you, unless you are doing high volume. I just started ordering from Maverick leather in CA, they stock horween leathers at prices comparable to tannery prices (for small amounts, 100 sq ft or less). As far as others go, who knows. A lot of tanneries only do very large volume orders, so you need to purchase through a reseller unless you have a serious operation going. A pinned list would be fantastic though. As far as saddleback goes, they are pretty vague about their sources, and since their actual products aren't made in USA. and they state that it is the same tannery that timberland gets their leather from, it's probably overseas. I may be wrong though. Not knocking them btw.

I use a JUKI LU-563. Its great, but I would love to eventually get a machine with a longer arm for more clearance. I have to do some serious man-handling on larger items to get around certain parts. Thanks for the advice. I was thinking of putting a cross strap connecting the two shoulder straps across the chest on the next one, we'll see...

Thanks for the kind words! I think I will go with white zips once I start making more... I also want to make them in dark brown.

I figured I would post my first attempt at a leather backpack. I've never really seen anything like this on here. The body is all 3-4 oz. veg tan, and the straps are 6-8 oz veg tan horsehide. The blue zippers weren't my choice, but I kind of like them now. Dimensions are 18" x 13" x 4.5" Anyways, enjoy:

brettuns village (www.brettunsvillage.com) currently has horween shells for $125 a piece shipped, and sometimes they have chromeexcel. It's a hard one to find a regular source for though....