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.

Could you start with a scanned image? When I get a kit at Tandy, I usually scan it as a PDF/JPG so that I can print it out and cut my own leather from it (that's saved me a few times when people wanted purses that Tandy no longer sells).

I had some shapes I wanted to use as Christmas ornaments, and I sent Joyce a scan of them. I then had Springfield send her a couple feet of 4 oz leather and she not only made templates from my scan, she was able to cut out the shapes from the leather. That's a big time saver. I just sent some leather for her to use to cut out the guitar pick cases (living in Nashville I hope there's a demand for those). She cut a couple of those from the ornament leather that was left over and those worked so well I figured I'd get a dozen or so (whatever she can cut out of a foot and a half of leather). On your video you said that you always use round holes for the Mexican round braid. That's a good idea. I did a knife sheath a few years ago and had to drill holes with the drimmel tool because of the thickness. Hmm, I wonder what the maximum thickness you could punch a hole into with this die set is? Glen

That's good to know. I've bought quite a few templates from them and have had them make a few custom for me (including having a maker's stamp made), so it's interesting to see them branch off into tools. I bought the hand press from Tandy when it was on sale a few weeks ago, so it'll be interesting to see what else they come up with for it. When I got the press, I only got the rivet setter dies. Been looking at the dies OTB sells, but they're about as expensive as Tandy's. Have you used any of their templates that use the new flexible material?

I've got a 1/2 ton arbor press that I use for stamping. It's really amazing at how well the impressions look; there's just no way to get the even impresson all around by hitting the stamp. I use the maker stamp that I got from Black River Laser with the press. I thnk they sell them for well under $50.

Red dye over black won't work; I've tried it. Your best bet with the letters would be to use acrylic paint (e.g. Cova Colors). Then apply Tandy's Antique Gel Black over the whole thing and wipe it off. That'll fill in the areas around the red and help with any of those "grey" areas that you get with USMC Black.

The new Tandy knives have a ball bearing. I was at a store Saturday and we gave it the spin test. It spun for a whole lot longer than 10 seconds. And I see people saying that these tools are made in China. Do we know that for a fact or is that just a guess?

This is what I use: http://www.misterart.com/scrapbooking/tools/trimming-tracing-tools/fiskars-circle-cutter.html

That's what my maker stamp is made from. I use it with either Tandy's hefty handle or an arbor press.

if you used USMC Black, then it's probably just the dye not penetrating completely. Check out Springfield Leather's video on dying things black on Youtube.

On the piece of horse butt I got from Springfield Leather a few months ago, I found about a six inch incision, complete with stitches where they'd apparently operated on the horse at some point. Still trying to figure out what to do with it.