Andrew Chee

I'm assuming you're using veg-tan tooling type leather? I had this problem when I first started out. If you want to use Neatsfoot oil and cover a large area without spotting, you're pretty much gonna have to spray it on. Look up something called Preval. It's an aerosol spraycan that you can use to spray the oil on evenly. I use it with Mink oil and it covers well without spotting. If you don't want to go that route, try Lexol (the brown bottle). It goes on evenly and darkens the leather slightly. Then finish with a coat of Leather Balm with Atoms wax. The wax in the stuff gives it a pretty nice, soft, natural sheen. Buff when dry to get the sheen. The attached wallet was done basically in this manner (sorry, for some reason, attaching the file flips the image 180). Give this a try and see if it works for you. Andrew

No but I take PayPal. I think you might be able to do credit cards through PayPal. Andrew

Hello all, I have a like-new Scharf-Fix 2000 skiving/paring machine for sale. I just bought a bell knife skiver so I have no need for it anymore. It is in practically new condition. Comes with 100 extra blades as well as all the different size rollers and original parts and box. Please see the pics attached. One of the pics shows it skiving a 6oz piece of horse butt. I am asking $325 plus shipping. Let me know if you have any questions. Thanks. Andrew

Hello all, I see on eBay these days a few splitters like this one: Skiver/Splitter They are link the skiver/splitters on the top of a 5-in-1 machine with a 2inch or so blade. I know that they were primarily designed for the shoe trade but will they work for thinner leathers (2-5oz veg tan). I need something to do turned edges and skiving edges for bags and wallets and bell skivers are a bit expensive and bulky for me right now so I would like to be able to use something simpler to accomplish my tasks. Anyways, would this work for my purposes? I'm afraid that these tools are designed for much heavier weight leather and may not handle the thin stuff very well. Thanks. Andrew

Hello all, I came across these that I'm now using for burnishing and I thought I'd share them with everyone. These are felt bobs that are commonly used for polishing stuff. They are made from wool and come in various sizes and hardnesses. The one that I am showing in the pictures are 2" in diameter (50mm actually) by 2" long with a 1/4" shaft that will fit right into a drill press or whatever you use to turn the thing. You can take a screwdriver or some other hard rod and file a groove into the felt to suit whatever size edge you are burnishing. These bobs generally come in three standardized hardnesses. Soft is .5g/cubic cm, Medium is .6, and Hard is .7. Hard is actually too hard so either get medium or soft. Soft, despite the name, is actually quite firm so it's not really that soft. I've used them a bit now and I like them a lot. I used to use the cocobolo burnishers and they were nice but I had two problems. I was limited to the radius that the maker put in the grooves. Also, in order to get more friction against the edges, I was covering the burnisher in canvas. I think the felt burnisher will solve both of these problems since they have more friction on their surface and they can be grooved to whatever size you want. Anyways, I bought these at http://www.feltbobs.com/catalog/index.php/. They have all sorts of sizes and shapes. The 2x2" ones are just under $10 each so the prices aren't too bad to try. Hope people find this useful. Andrew

Sorry, a correction here. Waterhouse leather has the renaissance collection, not RJF. I have never tried the RJC stuff and would be interested in knowing what they're like. Andrew

I've been looking around. RJF has something they called their "Renaissance" collection. It's veg tan, dyed, and soft milled. I got some samples and they feel nice but have a kind of a more pebbly grain and not really my taste. I have a hard time finding dyed veg tan as well. Especially if you want it softer. I bought a side of about 5oz veg tan (undyed) from Hide House in Napa, CA that was soft milled. Felt nice and should be good for bags but I'll have to dye and refinish it myself. I ordered a back of Wickett & Craig bridle leather. I had them split it down to 5oz thickness and buff the flesh side. They drum dye their leather but it's not "struck through" (the dye does not penetrate the leather completely) so they will respray the dye on the flesh side. Split, buff, and respray cost $1.1 extra per square feet. Splitting alone is $.75/sf. I think my piece comes out to be almost $10/sf. Expensive but I guess if you want the best stuff you have to pay for it. Andrew

Hi, does anyone know where I can get some in either Whiskey or their brown Color 8? Siegels is gone. Brettuns Village used to have it on their website but that's gone. Maverick leather has them but just in black. Does anyone know where I can find the two colors I mentioned above? Thanks. Andrew

Thanks for the info. I have been having a lot of problems with chopping. I did notice that it tends to happen at hard spots in the leather. I have a smaller problem with stretching. Sme of the leather I split from 8oz down to about 4 and since I'm taking off so much of the flesh side, the grain side starts getting a little stretchy. If I'm doing a wider piece, the force required to pull it is greater so therefore it stretches more. I haven't really had to spoilt much soft leather so far so I'm thinking that a crank splitter would help shove those two problems. How are these splitters in terms of repeatable thickness setting? The Tandy one is cheap and the adjuster is just a knob so it's basically trial and error every time I want to change the thickness. I guess I'll keep an eye out on your site to see when you have splitters for sale. Thanks. Andrew

Hi Bruce,how does this work? I thought overstitchers were for spacing and marking stitches for hand stitching? Andrew

I was at the hide house in napa CA and they had some ~5oz veg tan leather that was very soft. It looks exactly like regular veg tan tooling leather except it"s soft. I bought a side but haven't used it yet. It feels very nice though. I'm gonna make a bag with it soon. The guy told me that it's regular veg tan leather that they somehow process to make softer. I've hear of the term soft milled and now dry milled so perhaps this is what they do? I also got some swatches from Waterhouse leather of their " Renaissance" leather. They say that it's dyed veg tan that's been soft milled. It definitely is soft but I didn't really like it cause it has a more pebbly grain but you might try them as well. Andrew

I have some Jeremiah watt western edges sizes 0-2. For 4oz leather, you have to use the 0. For 7-8oz+ I use the 2. The 1 is for somewhere in between. The reason for this is because of the design of the prongs of the edgers. If you try to use the 2 on 5oz leather, the tips of the prongs hits the table before the cutting surface contacts the edge. I bought a set of those bisonette edgers on eBay that are made from silverware. They're pretty nice but don't work very well on thin leather at all. I don't think you can use it for anything thinner then 6-7oz. Same reason as the western edgers. The sides of the edger hit the table before the cutting edge comes into contact with the leather. Andrew

Can you post some pics of the top side and back side of your stitches? I'm curious as to what to expect. I have an artisan toro 3000 and the backside is not as nice as the too side either. The stitches look more pulled in to the leather. They're very regular but not pretty. I figure it's just cause of the way the needle cuts through the leather but I'm just curious what you're getting. Andrew

Taking price out of the equation, is one better than the other? I have a Tandy 4" high tech splitter. It works decently for small pieces of leather. I notice three problems though. Sometimes with really long pieces, if I am not careful, the blade will cut the strap in half because the leather wasn't fed in perfectly straight. Also, when I'm splitting down to about 4-5oz thickness pulling on the grain side will stretch the leather out and I don't want that. Lastly, although it's a 4" splitter, I don't think I can realistically pull a four inch wide piece of leather through there without pulling out my back. I'm thinking of getting a crank splitter because I think that it will solve the problems I mentioned about. Plus I'm thinking I want to split some bigger pieces so a 6" splitter will probably work better. It seems like to me that a crank splitter would be, in all ways (except maybe cost) superior to a pull through splitter. Is there a reason that one would choose a pull through over a crank splitter? Also, anyone have a Landi 30 type splitter they want to sell me? Thanks. Andrew

Very interesting. I have a Toro 3000 and I've been wondering where I could find something like that. Can I ask how much yours cost? Also, what weight and dimensions is the binding "tape" that you are using? Thanks. Andrew

Springfield has hard milled (stiff) veg tan horse butt as well as drum dyed brown and black (soft). I called them and they also have light blue horse butt too if you're interested in that. I was looking for softer veg tan horse butt and someone pointed me to Maverick leather. They have soft milled veg tan as well as something called chromexcel horsebutt. Not sure what that last bit is so I ordered some to try as well as the veg tan. We'll see how it turns out. Andrew

Called them up. Exactly what I was looking for. Thanks. BTW, do people know if Siegels of CA is still around? Andrew

Hello all, I'm looking for some soft rolled veg tan horse butt. I've purchased the drum dyed brown horse butt from Springfield's as well as the hard rolled veg tan horse butt from them. I like the drum dyed stuff a lot but Spring fields only has them in black or brown. The veg tan stuff is nice too but I want something softer (like the dyed stuff). Does anyone know where to get either drum dyed horse butt in different colors or soft rolled veg tan horse butt (I can dye it myself)? Siegel of CA's website was the only place I saw that but I tried calling them and the phone sounds like it's disconnected or something. Any other suppliers out there? Thanks. Andrew

I was trying to get a matte finish on my brass buckles so I bought a cheap rock tumbler and used that. I filled it with sand and water and let it run for a day or so. It got the lacquer off but it also refinishes the surface so it may or may not be what you want. Andrew

Hello all, I just bought an Artisan Toro 3000. I want to glue two pieces of leather together and then sew it so when I finish the edges, the leather stays together nicely. What's the best glue to use? When I hand sew, I use either Tandy contact cement, leathercraft cement (the white stuff), or rubber cement depending on the project. But with a sewing machine, what kind of glue should I use? Since I don't particularly need strength I would normally use rubber cement but would that gum up the needle on a sewing machine? Thanks in advance. Andrew

I didn't lower the inner presser foot but rather raised the feed dog a bit so it makes solid contact now. It still doesn't track well with canvas mainly because the material is so thin that it slips around under the leather feet. I spoke to Steve about it and I'm waiting on the blanket foot set. It'll come with a feed dog with teeth which according to him, should grab the material much better. Hopefully that'll solve the issue. Andrew

While I agree with you that one should get the right machine for the job, the truth is that I can only afford one machine. I decided to go for the heavier class so I have the option of going to heavier materials if the project calls for it. I don't plan on sewing too many canvas liners but I have to do one and my wife's dinky home machine can't handle the materials (especially near the zipper). So that leaves me with trying to do it with the Toro. Hopefully someday I can afford something like a Consew 206 class machine but until then, I have to try to make do. On a different note, I would just like to give a note of thanks to Cobra Steve. I was having problems because the machine was sewing slightly different stitch lengths on the forward vs. backward stitches so the backtacks were slightly off. Steve spent some time on the phone with me and helped me diagnose the problem and now the machine is back stitching perfectly. I originally contemplated going the Craigslist route to save some money but decided to buy from a reputable dealer like Steve precisely for the better service and responsiveness. Thanks Steve.

How much do you want for them?

I guess using a 92 thread is not that big a deal but were you able to sew something as thin as two layers of medium weight canvas? I notice that the inner presses feet, even when fully down, still have a tiny bit of clearance which isn't a big deal with leather since leather is thicker, but with thin stuff like canvas, there is a point in the stroke where the material is not held down, therefore causing inconsistent stitch length. Also, I notice that with the thin thread, the know was showing up on the two of the material. Turning the top tension way down and the bobbin tension up helped a but but perhaps a thicker thread would be better. The thin thread doesn't really grab the tensioner very well at all. Anyways, too bad about the binder attachments. I'll see what I can rig up for that. Andrew

I recently decided to get a leather sewing machine cause I wanted to make some bags and hand stitching was just taking too much time. I looked around a lot and didn't find anything that fit what I was looking for and within my budget. I called Cobra Steve in LA and asked about used machines and he had a used Artisan Toro 3000 for sale. The price was actually higher than I had originally budgeted for but the machine would come with the flatbed attachment as well as all the leather presser feet and plates as well. So since I would be getting the machine set up right and based on Steve's reputation here, I decided to go with the purchased. I also wanted to sew some canvas on that machine so I added the blanket feet set to the order as well. The machine arrived today. It was in very good condition. The machine was supposed to come with all the different presser feet and feed plates as well as the flatbed platform but I guess someone missed those during packing. I gave a call to Steve and he said he'd send them out next week when he's back in CA. This is a bit of a pain but no big deal as long as everything gets sent out next week. Setup was fairly easy and straight forward. I tried the machine out and it sews very nicely. Just tried some 5oz veg tan leather with some 138 thread and a size 23 needle and after adjusting the tensions a bit, the stitches came out very nicely. All in all, I'm very happy with the machine. I tried putting in a size 18 needle and some size 69 thread because I wanted to sew some medium weight cotton canvas (duck cloth) for the bag liner (my wife's cheapo home sewing machine can't handle that, especially when I get near zippers). The Toro came with the left toe foot attached. I found that this set up did not sew canvas well at all. I'm thinking it's cause the inner and outer presser feet don't come down far enough. There are times in the stroke where nothing is holding down the canvas so the canvas can wander a bit and the stitch length consistency suffers. I had ordered the blanket feet set but that was one of the items that was missed in the shipping mishap. Can I sew canvas with the leather feet or do I have to use the blanket feet in order to sew canvas? Also, I was thinking of splitting down some leather to about 1oz thickness and using it as a raw edge binder tape for the canvas liner. Do any of the edge binders sold out there work for this machine? I'm also interested in fold-over (single or double) edge binder attachments as well. Do any work for this type of machine? Any help would be appreciated. Thanks. Andrew