Jovial

Yeah that is a nice one. Im glad I still had that link on my computer. I knew it would pop up again at some point.

This is the information I used to make mine a year or two back for the renaissance fair: http://www.houseofanoria.com/CaptainJack/Captain%20Jack%20Sparrow%20Hat.pdf

Ok, Thanks entirely to everyone's advice and pointers I have been able to get things looking rather nice, I think. I adjusted the foot pressure and flattened my stitches out with a smoothing tool, and tweaked my tensions slightly. For posterity's sake when I had made all of these changes I went back to the trial piece I showed pictures of in my very first post of this thread and stitched in between the two rows. The scrap was flipped so that i could properly show contrast without it being affected by the previous problem stitches. I do have a set of smooth feet to change over to then, I just wanted to keep the equipment the same for the sake of comparison. Thanks again! I will be looking into a set of smaller needles just to try it out (and because I currently only have one size, lol).

I didn't full case it. Just sort of took a damp paper towel and did a quick wipe along the stitch line i was going to test on. It was more than enough to mash up the leather though. I knew that it was something you suggested to see if it was the pasting and was the reason I did it. I was following your logic even though, now that I read back, it looks like I was taking it in the wrong direction. And no I have not been running any smoothing tools over the stitches. Is that normal to do? It makes sense now that I think about it and I feel like a newbie for not having thought of it.

Hmm I can live with it I just thought it was something that didn't belong in a finished product? I guess you could chalk it up to inexperience making a bigger deal out of something than it is. My main concern was that I wasn't doing something right. I tend to go a little nuts when my technique or methods are out of whack until I figure out what is going on. Too much "Procedure must be followed exactly or lots n' lots of money gets wasted" kind of thinking seeped in from my last job at a vaccine production place. If this is really a change needles and go with the flow kind of situation as it is starting to seem then I'll force myself to chill out until something blows up Between that mentality and a drive to try creating something as amazing as what I see here daily, I probably got carried away. If you guys wouldn't sell something with that puckering then I'll give it a shot. Otherwise I'll probably call this case closed and file that bit of information away in ye' old sieve. Thanks for that!

Ok. The samples in this picture are all from the same piece of leather, brand new needles, and using T135 Bonded thread. Needles: 135x16NW as per recommendation by Wizcrafts 135x16TRI *Both types in Size 22. Items marked Wet were dampened not soaked. Almost as if I was casing the leather for tooling. Links have been provided for convenience to both the products used and original forum thread here that got me on my way For what it's worth a friend was looking at my attempts to figure this out yesterday and couldn't see what was bothering me about the stitches.

Haha will do. Sorry about the picture size anytime I see a picture under 1mb anymore I tend to stop paying attention. I suppose I got too used to my SLR's RAW files which average around 10-15mb per picture. Well I suppose my obscene monitor resolutions don't help either. Well at any rate I'm going to go sleep off the last of my "guys night out". LOL I tell my friends I'm getting too old for this but they just laugh at me and say I'm getting boring. Sunday is a good day for experimentation, right?

Yeah for the consews 135x16s are all leather points the TW were actually a little worse than the RTW. They both do have the awl shape to the point. I'll do some experiments tomorrow and pull out my Digital SLR and Macro lens to photograph the stitching instead of using my phone. Hopefully I'll get to the bottom of this. I'll order in a pack of #20s as well and see if that helps out. Thanks for the help so far!

Thanks for the input TwinOaks but I think the pictures must be deceiving or something. The thread (T135) is pulling tight and stitching as it should be and locking in the middle in those pictures. My concern or question deals rather with the cracking/puckering around the bottom puncture (exit hole?) from the needle in the leather itself.

Anyone know whats up with my bottom stitches? I had a topic before and was told that a reverse twist needle would take care of my puckering on the bottom stitches but.... it doesn't really look any better. Since I seem to still be missing something I will throw myself upon the mercy of my betters and ask for help. I know I need to change out the feet for something without teeth to clear up those marks but I need to find a place online that sells them first. My setup is a Consew 206RB-1 using the 135x16NW size 22 Needles. Photo order is Top, Bottom respectively.

Have you considered one of their strap cutters to make cutting the guitar straps out a little easier on yourself? You could probably pickup the strap cutter and possibly some of their hardware with the left over cash on the certificate.

Same here, Access please!

Eh, I wasn't really concerned just curious. I think i just have bad luck with rubber cement is all. Thanks!

Fantastic write up! I vote this gets put up there with Kevin King's tutorial or something! In other news, a question: Do you find the rubber cement and getting stitched in at the sides enough to hold the fold securely? I tend to not trust rubber cement much at all any more.

The puller you are referring to looks like a three fingered claw with a screw in the middle. You clamp down around the pulley wheel and tighten the screw which causes it to pull the wheel off the shaft. I have one out in the garage I'll edit this post in a few minutes with a picture of one if I can find it while I'm running out there for some beer. :D -------- All right, apparently I can find my beer but not my puller. The kind used is generally just slightly hooked on the end instead of with the holes but same general principal, and enough to give you an idea. I would suggest checking if you even need it to get the pulley wheel off though. I just changed my drive pulley a few days ago and after I loosened up the retaining screw it popped right off.