Art

Think about how you would do it. The bargrounding (backgrounding) shrieks immediately as machine. Think about how you barground, overstamping is very common, and randomization of the pattern is desired. I couldn't do something with lines that straight even if I had a tool to do it (except the roller embosser), and I haven't seen that pattern offered in a tool by anyone, and defy most of us mortals to run it that perfectly. Art

I don't have one of his Head Knives, but I do have several of his other leather knives. Fit and finish is excellent, and his knives do cut, as evidenced by a "red" moment or two (before I gave them their due respect). Art

Tandy Leather was First and around for quite a while. Tandy Leather made all the money that was literally burned up by the other ventures. Tandy Leather flew into this downward spiral as Radio Shack and the others lost money hand over fist. Other leather stores started up, often with Tandy Leather employees and executives. Finally, a much depleted Tandy Leather divested of the others, but was in really bad financial shape and spiraled down till the late 90s when they closed many stores and tried to go with Internet sales. Too little Too late and they were sold to TLF for cents on the dollar, basically nothing. TLF merged the Tandy Leather stores into their operation and continues as what we know today, incorporating the Tandy name. Art

There are really good deals out there, even on new tools from prominent makers like Jeremiah Watt with his QC Line of Edgers which are basically 5 edgers for $45 or so. I haven't tried these, so I can't give them my blessing, but other tools of his are very good quality. Art

Hi Ryan, Leatherwork, like so many things, is an experiment. If it works, it is art, if it doesn't, it's a learning experience. Welcome Aboard, Art

The convex edge is attainable with a slack belt grinder with a short distance between the wheels, or many times with a soft platten. Andersenleather has a great design for the power challenged. I have seen the basic concept somewhere else, but not the same, it kind of looked like an elliptical treadmill when in use. There is no necessity for a convex edge. We flat grind the edges as the user is going to mess-up a convex or turn it into a flat grind or hollow grind so the convex is something we consider an exercise in futility. The flat grind is easier to find the bevel and establish a secondary bevel, which always happens when a flat grind is honed. So if you make a wedge of say 10°, and put the blade flat against it and present the edge to a moving abrasive, grind both sides and you have a 20° included angle which is where we generally sharpen head knives. Make the wedge small enough so the handle clears, and if you want, countersink a couple of Neodymium magnets in the surface to pull the blade into the wedge. Use the wedge as a guide on a stone, you will soon get the feel of what 10° or 15° is, but in our shop, we have so many things that sharpen at so many different angles, on so many different grinding machines (10), that we have to use jigs; add to that, we have stones up the wazoo too. If we freehanded, how do you tell the difference between 10° and 15° on each machine? Now, lets bring into the equation the fact that all head and round knives are not round. This adds other difficulties that just will make life difficult. Art

I know of viper's venom cutting oil, but it has nothing to do with a snake. It figures, Snake Venom to quench D2 (air hardening). I wish they would switch to Snake Breath. Salesmen. Art

Also if you have any skin lesions, horses are notorious for Clostridium Perfringens bacteria which can cause Gas Gangrene. I'd sure be washing those blankets with something besides soap. Art

Hi Jed, I looked-up Freud 15" planer blades, and it costs $60 for THREE of them, aka $20 apiece. I thought the Cobra splitter blades were made of D2, not unobtanium. Art

Hi Jed, You get the blade to me. Just Honing/Sharpening, 40 degree or whatever it is we use the same angle and grind $14 Taking out small nicks and dings with corresponding setback $30 Convert Hollow Ground to Flat or vice versa $30 Really toast blade, if it can be saved, needs anneal and heat treat $60 Shipping, usually $12 to $16 to lower 48 or APO Turnaround is the second day (usually) Note: The old Landis 30 used a hollow ground blade. Try to get the most out of your blade, use different sections of the machine to keep blade wear constant. Art

The steel plate is for automatic and semi-automatic shoe machines. If you have a steel plate on the bottom of the last, how the devil are you going to nail the insole to the last? The first thing you do after getting the insole wet is to nail it, in about 4 places ti the bottom of the last. Art

Like myself, a lot of folks are more than 2 hours (and a few gallons of gas, even at today;s prices a considerable amount) from their "local" Tandy/TLF. It is my impression that the Tandy/TLF tool problems have more to do with QC than design, so making the store demonstrate the tool to you will kind of enforce a measure of Quality Control. If the tool works for the folks in the store, it should work for the purchaser when they get it home. All those leatherworking tools and supplies in concentration are a boon to leatherworkers who, with a little demonstration can be assured of getting the product they need. You don't have to spend big bucks to get a good tool, just do a little QC before you leave the store. Art

FYI, Barnsley burned down years ago and is no longer in business. Hale and Company sells some old Barnsley stock it has at extremely high prices. A Barnsley edge beveler never was ever worth or sold by Barnsley for $200. The best edgers available now are those made by Bob Beard, Bob Douglas, Barry King, Ron's Tools, Weaver Leather, C.S.O., Vergez Blanchard,and Jeremiah Watt. None of these even approach the century mark as far as price goes. I have used Tandy edgers I bought in the '70s and '80 that were perfectly useful tools. I have not used ones made in the last 15 years. With a little skill and determination, you can make most leatherworking tools out of available materials, but it requires skill and determination in manufacture, which in my opinion Tandy currently lacks. They could change that if they wanted to and still produce product in China, but currently, I don't think they have the knowhow or desire. Art

With your truck, or at the Karaoke? The guys down here used to hang out in front of the local Karaoke during open season and wait for the singers to try and come in and shoot them right there till the game warden started writing citations right and left. The good ole boys were complaining that it wasn't a violation 'cause it was open season. The Warden replied that it was true that it was open season, but you still can't bait 'em. Art

Richard, I'm pretty sure Acer bought them in 2007 and AOL got the online part somewhere along the way. They tried a lot of innovative marketing stuff and blew a wad of cash and stock on eMachines (remember them?). Pioneers take a lot of arrows. Art

Who makes the illusive $200 edge beveler? You say there are worse tools out there, who pray tell is making them? Tandy (when it really WAS Tandy) used to make or have manufactured a decent line of tools. They also carried tools from other prominent makers. Now, the same tool I bought from Tandy before 2000, bought today does not work. I can get the same tool from Goods Japan and it works. Same exact tool, in every aspect, but the Goods Japan tool works, and the Tandy tools (I bought two at different times because I couldn't believe what was provided) do not. Actually can't cut a stitch line with either Tandy tool because the manufacturing is not right. Things like holes in the wrong place. Tandy is still useful, but you would be wise to do your own Quality Control. Make the store personnel demo the tool for you to make sure it works before purchasing. Art

They didn't want anyone to mistake your box of leather and tools for a Gateway Computer. Gateway computers get very special treatment during delivery. Art

Maybe because this has been asked and answered so many times, and a little search could bring up a lot of info. My suggestion is to take some of your type of work and sew on both machines. You obviously have experience in this area and don't need our help to do that. I have two flatbed 618 machines, I would trade one of them for a 227R machine in a heartbeat. I really don't need it as I have a post and other cylinder machines, but like I said, I'd trade a flatbed for a cylinder arm of the same size. Art

It is the only machine that will do what it does as well as it does. It will go through any leather (I have had no reason to throw a stingray skin in mine though). The cutters eventually go dull after you cut about a mile of leather. I sharpen them for $5 each, don't know if that is a good price or a ripoff, they are a PITA to sharpen. Other than that, an eyeball and a little grease will keep it running for years. Bob can get you parts, I don't know what the collars and knives cost, maybe Bob can tell us when he gets back and gets a little sleep as that is a long slow ride from Prescott in his truck. If you have a lathe, you can make custom collars (spacers really) in no time. If you make belts and don't have one of these, you are burning up a lot of your profit in labor. Honestly, that head is like a locomotive wheel, except awkward. Art

Most definitely. Bob is most likely traveling to or from the Southwest Leather trade show in Prescott Az. A fair haul from Ohio. Art

There are rivets all over the site, the ones I was referring to were tubular, or for really thick stuff, semi-tubular. Tubular rivets are what I call 104s. Art

This might seem impossible, but I have bought the same tool from Tandy and Goods Japan. They were the same tool in design only. The Tandy tool was poorly manufactured and obviously had even poorer quality control. The same tool from Goods Japan was a little more expensive but vastly superior in manufacture and finish, obviously QC too. How superior? Well, the holes were in the right places and orientation for the tool, the edges were sharp (not my level, but ok to use), and importantly, they worked. The Tandy, not so much. My experience (I once many years ago imported from Japan, Taiwan, and Korea: China wasn't even a blip on the radar at the time) Tandy may not know what happens when you go for the lowest cost over there. The business culture over there is to work to quality at reasonable cost, whereas here we work to cost and ultimately say yes or no based on the level of quality we will stoop to. You can tell a Chinese factory to produce something for $1, and they will, even though they well know that anything of reasonable quality will cost $1.50. They will do whatever you push them to do. Just my observation. Art

If you want hand selected leather, you better go someplace where you can hand select it yourself. Nobody will be as picky as the end user. Even at that, you need to have places where you can use the "less than your desires and specifications" parts that come with even the highest grade hide. This gets to the point of buying leather by the piece. Where do you think those pieces come from? They are the parts that the seller didn't want to use in his own production, or for small pieces, they may be perfectly fine but not big enough to make something out of. So either you TALK to the owner and let him know you gotta have the good stuff and holes, tears, cuts, barb wire marks, and insect bites just won't do, or you buy whole hides and reject anything that doesn't meet your criteria. You have to trust your supplier to give you what you need (and cut him just the tiniest bit of slack), or you need to go to a show, and buy a whole years supply, that you select, and best of all, there are multiple dealers there who don't want to pack anything home. Many are the $20 full hides (chrome tan mostly and often 2 sides) that really are looking for a home. I know guys who buy a whole years worth this way because they live in the boonies, literally, and like to pick hides themselves. As to sharpness of tools as provided by the factory; they do sharp to the level they think is sufficient for the job, or they don't put much other than a bevel on the tool, if at all. Of all the tools from C.S. Osborne I have either bought for myself or received to sharpen (most new in the box), nothing (including the knives for ghod sake) vaguely resembled sharp. My theory is that they were old school, and the apprentices at the end user's shop did all the sharpening, so why bother having a line worker do it. The tool and often the edge are designed to take abuse, and the lack of apprenticing and training raise the level of abuse. On machinery, there is no excuse for a dull blade. Most of the time, the blade is away from the operator and is only presented to the work by the machine. Sometimes the selection of blade steel defines how sharp blades can get. Stainless will not attain, and hold an edge like O-1 or O-6 tool steel, which will rust while you are looking at it. Everything is a tradeoff, but sharpening is a skill AND an artform, you can't just pass an abrasive over it and declare it done, finished, put it in a box and sell it. In fact careful appraisal in every step of the sharpening process is required to attain and maintain a superior edge. Why go to all that trouble and COST when the customer is very likely to buy with a large emphasis on the price of the product. Since I have retired, I have been doing a lot of scissors (barber, stylist, but I'll do anything) and the quality control and out of the box sharpness is the best I have seen in any industry. Sharpening these things is not for the uneducated or under equipped. The technology employed in the sharpening phase of manufacture is comparable or higher quality than the finest surgical instruments. Some companies actually vary the angle of a convex edge over the length of the blade, think about that. But their reputation depends on that technology much more than a head knife that the end user is going to put on a grinder before they do any serious cutting. Art

I agree with Thor. Even the Tandy tools are kind of iffy. Bends and breaks are not uncommon, and the impressions are rather muddy if you compare them to older Craftools. Better to buy older (should I say ancient) Craftool Co. stamps with just a number and no letter designation. These were made from decent steel and were hand carved. They will be marked Craftool Co. or RBS (you won't see many RBS stamps). There are folks on eBay that sell only these stamps in singles. They are worth the $9 they sometimes ask, but I wouldn't pay above that. If you are patient, you can buy groups or collections of these stamps for the $3-$5 range. You want the highest quality in basketweave stamps, and here the makers like Bob Beard and Barry King provide the best product, but the Craftool Co. basketweave stamps are in there a little behind. Basketweave stamps and border stamps take a real beating (heavy strikes and a lot of them) and need to be of quality steel or they bend and/or break. The Tandy and Chinese stamps appear to be cast from base metal (pot metal) including the business end (that makes the impression). After the first generation of stamps, they degrade rapidly into what they have today. Art

That is the same AK-20 strap cutter that almost everybody sells. It works. It is heavier than hell. Art