GlenH

The South Central Leathercrafters' Guild will be hosting a class by Kathy Flanagan on Saturday, April 28. The class will consist of tooling and coloring a Laughing Kookaburra bird. It will also involve plug embossing. The cost for this one-day class is $95. For more information (including a tool list) and to RSVP, please go to our signup page: http://www.signupgenius.com/go/5080c4aaba62aa1f49-kathy Thanks. Glen Harness President, SCLCG

The South Central Leathercrafters' Guild will be hosting Bob Beard as he presents a one-day class on Saturday, August 9, 2014. The class will be on carving a desert pictorial scene on a checkbook cover. For more information and to register, please visit our website at www.southcentralleathercraftersguild.com. The cost is $100 for the all day class ($105 if you register online). Thanks. Glen Harness President, South Central Leathercrafters' Guild

The guy who did Waylon's guitars lives here in Nashville. Here's a little video about that:

I created a mixture of parafin and bee's wax (at about 50/50) and I used that for a time on belts and other edges. It did ok with the burnisher on the dremel tool. I'm now using something called Ron's Edge Rub which gives me a much better look I think. As far as lace, I use Bick 4 on the lace before I use it. That seems to help condition it a lot better than parafin or bee's wax. (I've used both on lace before too).

How long are you letting the water stain dry before appliying the finish?

Ohio Travel Bag sells 3/8" dies that will fit the Tandy press.

I don't see why you couldn't use the acrylic ink they use for shirts on leather.

Perhaps you can add your own pigment?

Yes, they're that much better. I believe the vintage tools were all made by hand. I have a modern Tandy B701 and I could not bevel without leaving tool marks. So I'd have to go back and forth over the cut to get rid of them. I got a vintage B701 and the first thing I noticed was that the front of the toe was square, not rounded like on the modern Tandy tool. The second thing I noticed was that it didn't leave tool marks. Also getting a vintage A104 helped my backgrounding quite a bit (same deal with the tool marks). Those are the two I would suggest getting if you get any vintage tools. Glen

I took my 1/2 ton Harbor Freight arbor press to a machine shop and had them drill a hole in bottom of the ram. They also took one of my stamp handles and turned it down to fit the hole (they were concerned that making the hole big enough to fit the handle would weaken the ram). They put a set screw in and gave me a couple of pieces of 1/4" iron to use instead of that round thing that comes with the press. I also had them cut off the two bottom teeth in the ram. Now all I have to do to adjust the handle is raise the ram up and it "ratchets" where the teeth were. If I were to get another one, I'd get the 1 ton press so that I could have a 3/8" hole drilled in the ram and in the round thing; that way I could use the Tandy or Ohio Travel Bag dies to set snaps.

I just sent you a request to be added to the group. I also just went to www.learnleather.com and just got a server index page.

I used Tandy's bag stiffener. If I have a pattern that I'm going to use quite a bit, I get Black River Laser to make it for me.

It's kind of hard to answer this. I've only been doing leather crafting for 4 years, and I go to the occasional craft fair and sell items here and there. My gut feeling is that people who are "vegans" won't be my customers anyway, so when they don't buy something because I'm using animal products, I'm not losing business. I think the popularity of leather goods has probably died down some from when my dad did leather crafting in the '70s, but not beause of animal rights people. It's more of a style issue I think. But I think leather crafting is on the rise again. Springfield Leather just expanded, and Tandy seems to be doing ok. There are a lot of vendors out there that cater to the leather crafter, and it seems like there are new ones every day. Glen

And if you get the kits from Tandy, scan the leather pieces into a PDF or JPG file so you can use them to cut your own leather next time you want to make it. Be sure to measure the thickness of the leather as well (Black River Laser has an inexpensive thickness guage you can use), and the length of any lace. This has helped me a few times when people wanted purses that Tandy no longer sells kits for.