Mijo

Nick, if you can't find a vendor over there and your willing to pay the additional custom fees let me know and I can post some links for the hardware suppliers that I use. Some of the vendors carry snap clips that are used for livestock, which is overkill for what I need but may suit your needs. I noticed a couple of local companies that have started using these same livestock snap clips for bully breed leads. These are not your traditional snap clips (i.e. trigger, bolt or lever) and the ones I've seen are the all brass. Good luck...

several months ago i was at a dog event, as a vendor, and i met another vendor that was selling these travel water bowls that i'd never seen before. it's essentially a flat square pliable piece of plastic with two snaps per corner, when you snap each corner together the flat piece of plastic forms a shallow square shaped bowl (if I was home I'd take a picture of it and post it). the design in very simple and it's easy to keep in your back pocket when your out walking your dog. i thought about making one out of leather but never got around to ordering snaps and essentially forgot about it. two days ago I walked into a hermes store, b/c i'm a huge fan of their design and craftsmanship (i wish could afford their leather products), and i see the same travel bowl made out of leather. the hermes bowl isn't for dogs but for travelers who want a small bowl to keep their keys / change in when they're at their hotel. It's definately not the same type of wet formed bowl you guys are talking about , but it is a leather bowl. after seeing the hermes bowl, i'm going to order some snaps and make some for holiday gifts for friends and family. i'm kinda kicking myself for not following through with making one earlier since I did purchase one of the plastic ones, when i was at the dog event.

Thanks for the comment. my dogs don't appear uncomfortable in their latigo, upadded harnesses. I've made a smaller versions of the posted harnesses for my 3.5 lb and 5 lb chihuahuas, but I'll elminate the lower strap that connects the chest and neck strap. My 5 lb chihuahua is almost hairless and she does not appear to be suffering from irritation from the straps. I was also concerned that the screws might cause some discomfort, due to rubbing, but that hasn't been the case either. I figured that if my hairless chihuahua isn't bothered by the unpadded / unlined harness, than it should be fine for other dogs.

Here are two harnesses that I made for my 9 pound chihuahua. The first one is based off of a standard walking harness design that's widely used. I like the design of this harness but i've gotten a lot of feed back from people indicating that it's too complicated and has too much hardware. Most people that have tried it on their dog can't seem to figure out how to put it on, but i have made a couple for some people and once they figure it out they really seem to like it. the second harness is a revision of the first harness, i tried to address the issues people seemed to have with the first harness. there are two less buckles on this version and the bottom section that connects the neck and chest straps is not fixed and can slide about freely. I have since removed the leather bow on this harness, i put it on there just to see how it would hold up during normal use. the bow worked out well, as i was looking for ways to use scrap leather, and the only reason I removed it was b/c people were mistaking my dog for a bitch. This harness is a lot easier to make but since there is only one buckle per strap, i feel it's slightly unbalanced when compared to the first harness. In addition to two less buckles this harness also requires nine less brass eyelets, which reduces the overall weight (slightly). I'm still testing this harness but overall I don't like the asymetrical look of it, but my intention was to offer a harness that was more user friendly. Both harnesses are made from the same 10 - 11 oz latigo leather and everything is held together with custom screws (machined in CA). the first harness was made over a year ago and the edges were finished with just trag and a drill mounted wood burnisher. the second harness is a couple of months old and the edges are finished using Hidepounder's posted techique (thank you very much, Bob!). Any feedback (negative or positive) is greatly appreciated. Thanks for looking...

I tried using a 5/8 rounded strap punch on a 1/2 strap and it didn't look right. you might be able to get away with it using an english point strap punch but the curve of the rounded strap punch looked off to me when I tried it. I ended up purchasing separate end strap punches for each of the different strap widths I use. If you haven't checked ebay yet for strap punches you should, there's some good deals out there.

I wanted to bump this thread and thank all of the people that posted tips. I ordered an osborne 86 pull through splitter and it arrived early this week. the instructions that came with it were next to useless and I struggled with it for a couple of hours before I gave up. After than I started going through some of the threads and found the information in this one to be the most helpful. Once I got the blade / roller adjusted correctly it was smooth sailing, I didn't have enough of the roller directly under the blade when I first started. Thanks again guys...

JHayek - Is your splitter still available? If so please PM me or post back to this thread, as I'm interested. Thanks...

I second Rite On Screw for chicago screws as I've been ordering them for years. Rite On machines their products onsite and they are located in CA. The only drawback to their screws is that they cost more (but you'll notice the difference in quality immediately) and the heads for the screws are slightly bigger than average screw. Rite On does offer serrated chicago screws, where the head for the female part has ridges on the underside which grip the leather and help to prevent the female end from turning. They also offer smaller chicago screws, called flat head screws on their website, which are considerably smaller, both in head size and post length / diameter, than regular screws. The only drawback to the flat head screws is that there are only three standard post lengths available, which limits their application considerably. I have custom ordered the flat head screws so that their serrated and the posts are longer than their standard offering, which required a minimum order and set up fee but I'm extremely pleased with what I recieved. If you have the means and want to support US jobs / manufacturing, I highly recommend checking out Rite On Screw.

Hey Anna, I've actually met you before as I'm Christine's (of Mijo and Bambi) husband. It's funny b/c Paco Collars helped inspire me to get back into leather working, and also the fact that i couldn't find a vendor that offered handcrafted leather harnesses specifically for small dogs. This forum kicks ass, lots of very friendly members willing to share their knowledge. I'll probably see you next week at Super Zoo...

Kris - There's another thread posted about square. my wife's been using it a while for our business and it works great, if you are in an area that has good cell reception. It definately helps streamline the transaction process, as you can email or text reciepts to customers instead of handwriting an invoice / reciept. I know that the credit card swiper that attachs to your smart phone used to be free but i heard recently that they started selling them at the apple store so they might be charging people for it now. Square is definately gaining ground as I'm seeing even roach coachs in different states using this system. If you already have a smart phone than square is definately the way to go. Thein - what you described sounds like a smoking deal. before we starting using square we were using a different iphone app that had higher charges than what you described.

I've been noticing a trend with small independent manufacturers (mainly in the pet industry) that the pricing for products of different sizes is ussually not the same. Example: Custom made dog collar in size xs is priced less than the same dog collar that's in the medium size. It makes sense since the smaller sizes use less materials and potentially take less time to make. I also noticed this last week at a local annual flea market where someone was selling handcrafted belts / cuffs, the larger sizes were priced slightly higher than the smaller sizes. I don't do this personnally, b/c I'm too lazy to figure out how much each square inch of leather used will cost the end user. My prices do flucuate based on how much I paid for the leather and how many products I estimate that I will be able to make out of each section of hide. But to answer your question, I would have no problem paying $45 for the belt that you posted (if I couldn't make my own).

That's kinda what I was thinking as I couldn't really see a horizontal blade in the pictures. Mike59 - I plan to go with a bench pull through splitter if I can't find a hand crank style one. Do you have a specific brand that your partial too?

i'm bumping this thread b/c I'm in the market for a bench mounted splitter for splitting small scraps for latigo and bridle leather. I've reviewed most of the threads regarding splitters and it looks like a splitter with a hand crank would be the better option. I came accross this splitter on ebay, http://cgi.ebay.com/Leather-Splitter-Skiver-10-Inch-Good-Condition-/230659946692?pt=LH_DefaultDomain_0&hash=item35b46778c4 . Is anyone familar with this type of splitter? Is this a pull through style splitter or does the operator rotate the large cylinderical type attachments to feed the leather through? It looks very different from the splitters I've seen from Landis, Osborne and American. Here's a hand crank splitter currently on ebay, http://cgi.ebay.com/VINTAGE-A-ALLEN-ECLIPSE-LEATHER-SLITTER-CUTTER-TOOL-/180710666484?_trksid=p3286.m7&_trkparms=algo%3DLVI%26itu%3DUCI%26otn%3D3%26po%3DLVI%26ps%3D63%26clkid%3D2127390190670289959. Is anyone familar with this one? It's listed as missing some screws, so I'm less inclined to even bid on it. It's listed as a "slitter" but I'm thinking that's just a typo and the seller meant "splitter" I've sent messages to both sellers but I'm wondering if anyone on here has experience using either. Any comments or responses are greatly appreciated.

Hidepounder - Thanks for the clarification, that's exactly what I was thinking (leaving the glycerin soap wet) but I just wanted to be sure. I use mainly latigo leather so I'm curious to see if my results differ when I substitute the saddle soap paste for gum trag.

Hidepounder - I've been using your posted techique since i found it and up until this point i've been using gum trag in place of saddle soap. well i'm almost out of the eco flo gum trag and decided to give saddle soap a go to see if there was any difference. In addition to fiebings saddle soap paste I ordered a couple of bars of their glycerin soap, b/c i've been using a natural plant based 100% glycerin bar soap. Well I received the package with the fiebing's glycerin and saddle soap last week and when i looked on the instructions on the glycerin bar soap I couldn't help notice that it stated that users should wet the leather, apply the glycerin soap and then let the soap dry on the leather before wiping it off. When I finish edges should I be allowing the glycerin soap to dry in Step 3, of your posted instructions, before I apply the saddle soap in Step 4? I haven't been allowing the glycerin soap to dry and have been apply the gum trag to the glycerin soap while it's still wet.

You don't need to a hand held skiver to skive leather you can do it with just a regular knife. I used to use a regualr leather knife (not the rounded ones) to skive but it definately takes alot more skill / control to do it that way. IMO the hand held skivers, with replaceable baldes, makes skiving much easier and I tend to make less mistakes (i.e. over skiving) Hellfire - I never hought about using a gouge for skiving before, probably b/c I don't own one. Is it easier than using a hand held skiver? It seems like it would take longer but maybe get better / more consistent results.

I not sure this will work for you, as I've never made a bag or pouch before, but have you tried skiving down the leather where it folds / bends. I only make dog harness and leashes but when I have problems with the leather wrapping around a buckle, b/c of the thickness of the leather, I'll skive the leather down a little.

My wife uses twitter to let people know about events that we're participating in, new products added to the line and when she's posted additional pictures to the company's FB page. Intially the idea was that twitter would be used to help increase the traffic to the FB page, which in turn would increase traffic to the website but for whatever reason we seem to be adding followers at a faster rate than friends. That's not say much though b/c we still have less than 200 friends and just slightly more than 100 followers. All in all the use of FB, twitter and our website hasn't generated a lot of online sales (most of our sales are through events or wholesale to pet boutiques) but these avenues are a cheap form of advertising.

I've been ordering my herm sprenger scissor snaps from henssgen hardware corps (their website is currently down otherwise I'd include the link), and they offer them in a brass finish (but it's not solid brass). According to Herm Sprenger's website, henssgen hardware corps, is one of the only distributors in the US. I checked pineo falconry's website, just to compare the cost, and henssgen's scissor snaps are a few dollars less per snap (which is still considerably more than just trigger or bolt snaps). Thanks for letting me know about pineo falconry, I can use them as a back up if I'm in a bind. I've had to wait a couple of times on henssgen b/c they didn't have the scissor snaps in stock. I haven't ordered anything from Ohio Travel Bag yet, as I only recently found them after joining this forum group.

Yes, and that's one of the drawbacks. I inquired as to whether they had a distributor in the US and currently they don't. But they are one of the only vendors I've been able to find that carries the herm sprenger type scissor snaps, but they don't offer them in a brass finish. I'm sure shipping isn't going to be cheap if you order from them, but they do offer somethings I haven't been able to find domestically.

I thought i would post this here since there were a number of threads in this subform looking for these type of collar loops, http://www.pethardware.com/en/fittings/collar-loop-1172/. CDWplus offers something very similar except the female end is not threaded, you have to tap it yourself. I'd order these ones from pethardware but when i contacted the company they stated that they only come nickle plated, which won't match the all brass hardware that I use. I really like that the spilt ring is already included with pethardware's collar loop.

I'm in a slightly different postion with the leather products (dog harness / leashes) that I make, in that these products are only a small portion of the total product line offered by my wife's company. That being said, we take every free opportunity that comes our way in terms participating as vendors in various events. This will include rescue events, routine small dog meet ups, locally made fairs, etc., in addition to the pet events that we pay to participate in. Even when we don't make any sales at these free events it still pays off in the long run. We'll run into customers at other events that will recognize us from the free events, this happens a lot. IMO doing free events or setting up in a parking lot is just another way to get your name out there. murse - you mentioned facebook but I don't know if you have tried twitter yet. my wife recently started using twitter more and it seems to be working better than facebook. She mentioned that she's been able to add more followers to twitter than friends to facebooks. Just throwing that out there...

i've also been looking at embossing machines as well (both on ebay and manufacturer's websites), and they are definately pricey. something I stumbled onto recently was that osborne makes "hand embossing wheel carriage", http://www.csosborne.com/no459.htm , that seems like a affordable alternative to an embossing machine. Granted the osborne hand embossing device does not look like it's going to deliver consistent results time after time, since the straightness / depth of the embossed image or pattern is dependent on the user's skill with the device but it's cost is peanuts compared to an actual machine. I'm not sure this will work for your needs but I thought I'd mention it as a potential cheap alternative.

50 yrs - That's what I'm currently doing. Step 3 in hidepounder's posted guide is the application of the glycerine soap and Step 4 is burnishing with saddle soap, bees wax or gum trag. I sort of glossed over Step 3 in my post b/c this thread seemed more focused on Step 4. I'm just wondering if saddle soap would work better than the gum trag in Step 4, since King's X suggested it.

i've been using eco flow's gum trag since i started, do you guys notice a difference when using saddle soap instead of gum trag? In hidepounder's instructions he states that you can substitue bee's wax or gum trag for saddle soap, I'm just wondering if there's a noticeable difference in the finished edge if you use one over the other. I work with pre dyed leather and I don't dye the edges as part of the edge finishing process (I like the look of the lighter colored edges). I went with hidepounders technique of wrapping canvas around the drill mounted burnisher and found it saves a lot of time. I'll wet the canvas with gum trag and also apply some gum trag dirrectly on the leather edge as well (as hidepounder suggested). Its worked well thus far but I'm wondering if saddle soap would work even better.