Jacobite

You can make your own "Gloden Mean" calipers, which I suppose you could scale down to make a set to allow you to lay out your Sheriden patterns if you were working freehand rather than from a template.

Hi GunNut; I've got one stored for a traditional sporran, pretty much full instructions. Modern sporrans are pretty much a Victorian invention, whereas traditional one tend to be made of one piece of leather with maybe some reinforcing added. Anyway hope it helps. Gus P.S. Not sure how to attach a pdf so 'll give you the link to the document online: Sporran Instructions

A Mil is 1/64,000 of the circumference of a circle. It's exclusively used in the military as far as I remember from training. Pretty sure it's used because a degree is too rough a measure when dealing with artillery and the like. I still have a prismatic compass that is in Mils rather than degrees. However we would still use degrees when navigating as it's more than accurate enough for that. Even though everything is in metric over here most of the standard pack weights in grams are actually direct conversions of the imperial measures that things used to come in. You might buy a pack of meat that has 450g in it but that is actually a pound and so on. I seem to mix and match metric and imperial as well, it's a British thing, if I want plywood I'll ask for so many 8' x 4' sheets but ask for it to be 12mm thick. I was taught imperial and then had to change over to metric though, my kids do things in metric because they never came across imperial measures.

That has to be one of the best money saving ideas I've heard in a long time! I'm always loath to use "scraps" to practice on, thinking they could come in handy somewhere until they are so small you can't really do anything with them. In fact I should be going past our local craft store later on so I'm going to swing by and pick myself up a slab. I wonder if they do it in a sort of veg tanned shade.

Welcome to the forum Zigger; I'm from a bit North of you near Glasgow and strangely enough also have a couple of Basset Hounds! Nice friendly bunch on here and so much to see and learn about.

Thanks for posting those Tim, very informative. I knew nothing about shoe making but I'm a little better informed now. Next time I see some cobblers tools on ebay I may be able to work out what they are meant for now.

There is currently a set of four stamps including a version of that one going on ebay here: 4 Stamping Tools They are from a seller in Scotland and are currently £ 15 for the four with almost three days left.

Hi Steve; Welcome to the Forum, only been here a couple of weeks myself and come from a bit North of you near Glasgow. I'm still reading as there is so much to take in, makes you realise that what you thought of as decent work before actually wasn't. Nice friendly bunch and plenty to see and do. Gus

[/url]I always use Pixresizer, it's free...so the price is right and does everything you would expect to be able to do. You can find it here: Pixresizer In addition to resizing your pictures, either single or in batches, you can change formats ( I use it all the time to change gifs into jpegs). Very easy to use and runs on any version of windows up to 7. Gus

What an elegant design, I loved the incorporation of the bike parts as well. Looks more like a piece of furniture than a work item. No wonder you're pleased with it!

I'd never thought about using Lino or vinyl flooring for doing patterns but it would be ideal. Enough thickness to make marking easier, also light and isn't ruined by being bent or rolled up. Nice one Blake!

I like DC's point about starting off with an introduction to Leather types, weights, uses etc. Speaking for myself when I first started out that would of been invaluable. It took me quite a while and more than a few wasted purchases to get my head round all that. I was always taught when planning a lecture in the Military to "tell them what you're going to tell them, then tell them and finally, tell them what you've told them". A hand out or two might also be a good idea, that way they don't need to be taking notes at any point during the lesson and, if they take a few of your lessons, they get a small collection of your notes they can use for reference. I have always found that the process of putting a lesson plan or lecture together, even for subjects you think you know well, ended up with me having a much better understanding of the subject in hand. Mainly due to the need to make everything correct, you end up working out answers to bits you hadn't really thought about before and the whole thing becomes clearer in your own head. Good luck with the lessons and I'm sure you'll get as much out of giving them as the potential students will get out of attending.

Thank you all for the kind welcome and sorry for the late reply but I have simply been lost for a week looking around! What a difference the internet makes to things like this, when I was messing around with leather twenty years ago all there was available, in the UK certainly, were books. All very good but nothing like being able to see and discuss things with other people. Just a short while of looking through the various topics and threads on here has given me no end of inspiration and fired my determination to get my act together.

Hi All; Thought that I had better introduce myself having joined, names Gus and as the title suggests I hail from Scotland. Used to do a bit of work in my youth mainly for friends and involving motorcycle stuff and have decided to take it up again. This time I intend to put a bit more effort in and see if I can't do a better job. I work from home now so it gives me more leisure time and I've fancied going back to it for a while now. I'm sure I'll be picking brains and generally getting to know everyone. Gus