Glendon

Something like this? http://www.amazon.com/Xacto-X5282-Basic-Knife-Set/dp/B00004Z2UB/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&qid=1337655293&sr=8-1 I can't tell if it has a stylus, but it has everything else.

Did not know that. Ya, even I not having any real blade knowledge can figure out why that is a bad idea. No wonder they don't hold an edge. I'll keep saving too. The good solid utility knife with regularly replaced blades will do until then.

Well she's right. The point of wholesaling from a crafter's point of view is as a sales tax pass through so you don't have to pay twice. If you are purely a hobbyist then this is a pointless discussion. Don't even think about business registration. You can't get a business tax ID, buy wholesale, and then keep or give away what you make. This discussion is for people who are or would like to sell a majority of their production to make a profit or at least break even. The fact that you're from Cali explains the confusion. It seems like there is not one single thing the CA state government can leave be, even if 40+ other states have a well established working system similar to each other. Who are they trying to kid with this Board of Equalization stuff. In almost every other state it's called the Dept. of Revenue or something similar.

Well getting the ID is free. What it will cost you is time, since you will have to do quarterly tax estimations. Best suggestion I can give you is to go do some quick reading on starting a business. You'll have to look at your sales and see if the time is worth it.

No where that I know of. You still need to be registered to pay state sales tax, so an EIN alone wouldn't help you as much. However, the sales tax registration alone doesn't work either because it would be under your SSN. The EIN gets your personal number off the paperwork so you don't have to be worried about who you're sending it to every time you open an account with a new supplier. That's why an EIN isn't just for selling, but also buying.

That is not correct Kustom. To buy wholesale, you have to give a tax id in most cases. You can either give them your SSN (BAD idea of course), or go get a tax id #, otherwise known as an EIN.

Sounds like you need to go get yourself a quick crash course in leather tanning. The Wikipedia article is pretty good for a first read. By shiny do you mean the grain / skin side of the hide, or do you mean finished leathers, like what a leather jacket looks like for example? If what you've been playing with from the craft store is flesh tone and dyes well, it's most likely vegetable tanned or veg-tan. The other really common leather is chrome tanned. That will not dye at all. What you see is what you have. A good place to start with reading would be The Leathercraft Handbook and anything by Al Stohlman. Leather is still a pretty off-line hobby. Good old fashioned dead trees is where most of the information is. One last thing, to get you started with wrist bands, what you should look at to start is 8-9 oz veg-tan leather. Here are some pre cut strips you can play with from my favorite leather supplier, or maybe I should say dealer. Feels that way sometimes. http://springfieldleather.com/16964/Belt-Strip%2C1%22x72%22/ A few of those plus a $4 10 pack of snaps and some $0.80 buckles should keep you entertained for a bit.

The big obvious difference is the handle layout. The Knip knifes are the traditional design with the handle straight back from the blade. Paul over at Leather Wranglers puts the blade on an angle to fit better in the hand. In theory it should give better control. Leather Wrangler round knifes also have an option for putting a cutting edge on the back side of the head to make pull cuts. Personally, for those reasons I think I've decided to go with Leather Wranglers when I'm ready to buy.

I am by no means an expert on steel, but here are my thoughts. I was going to buy the A.S Damascus knife myself, but after looking at what the custom makers are using, I'm not as up on the idea of Damascus as I was. I'm sure one of our resident knife makers will be along, but from what I've read, Damascus is such a general style now that quality can be all over the place. And at $70, I the Tandy Damascus is probobly not the best edge you can get for the price.

I just finished watching my copy of the new wallet how to DVD made by Kevin over at Springfield Leather Co. I thought it was a great resource for anyone curious about wallet construction. Very easy to follow, and pretty entertaining at the same time. The only critique I would have is that it did not cover anything on cutting parts. I was kind of hoping for some tips and tricks for parts cutting. Everything else was great though. It covers some simple stamping design (actual layout, not just how to hit a hammer, though I learned a bit about that too from watching Kevin), dying and finishing, assembly, and lacing. I learned quite a bit from what he didn't show as much as I learned from what he did show. He eliminated a number of steps I figured you had to do to make a good looking product. This is a very effective make it quick, but make it work approach. Don''t think I'd recommend buying the DVD by itself because of shipping, but if you're doing an order anyway and are at all interested in making wallets, I'd drop it in the cart.

This is one of the reasons I stopped buying at Tandy quick, fast, and in a hurry after I found this forum. A few of the advertisers here still sell Osborne's and other intermediate tools I guess you could call them. Maybe not up to some of the other full pro grade tools, but magnitudes better then the Tandy off brands. I personally go to Springfield first, but there are others too. I don't go to Tandy at all unless they have one of their super sales.

Or grab a handy high school or college student looking for a project. HTML5 is for sure the language that web design is moving to. I haven't sat down and learned it yet personally. I'm still working in PHP because I can turn projects out quickly, but HTML5 is on my list of things to look at when I have time.

This is a perfect example of the cultural deference between the tech community and everyone else. I am by no means a member of the Digirati, but I keep up with that stuff the same way I keep up on leathercraft. In that community, flash is dead, and has been dead for about five years. No one uses flash for anything except video, and even that is being phased out as quickly as possible. I don't even know where you would find flash based website tools or someone who would actually recommend them. Building a new site with those tools is that weird to me. It's like finding a plumber that still works with cast iron pipe. Yes technically it still works, but there are a lot better options now,, and there has been for a long time.

The best ideas usually come when you're just trying to get the job done. Very nice.

I like the style. Very clean and gives a very specific feel. That being said, from a technical stand point, it basically needs to be redone. I hate to say it, but it's true. It is completely unusable on iOS devices, and even on normal computers it is overly bloated. Do the exact same design using a standard content management system like Wordpress or Drupal, and you'd have a very nice website.

Have you given Kevin over at Springfield a call? I thought I saw Water Buffalo the other day, but it was a Bison hide. They might be able to locate some for you though.

Yes, I absolutely love that part of it. I do need to get a couple of lights so I can work better when the sun goes down, but the natural light is very nice. I also like having the windows for ventilation when working with dyes and finishes. Since I'm a couple of floors up, there is always a bit of a breeze going. So all I have to do is pop the window open and it's usually perfect ventilation.

Just took some shots of my little family room corner "shop". A little more then a bench, a little less then a full workroom, but I like it. I don't have the space or the tools to do proper woodworking in my current apartment, so I had to buy the desk and bookcase, but thankfully there is an unfinished furniture place not far that gave me a decent deal on a couple of pieces. This is what you can do with about a year of tool collecting and set up.