Glendon

That's what I mean. For that thinner leather, it's easiest to look at what most suppliers call "lining leather".

This kind of thing is where lining leather like thin pigskin can come in handy. You can find some leather marketed as lining that is almost fabric than.

Great to know. Thanks for the information. Somebody always has the real world trial and error experience around here.

The thing with grilling skewers is they are pretty thin. I'm not sure how they would hold up to regular use.

It would work, but the heat conduction is not as good. Steel would take longer to heat then brass, and may not hold the heat as long.

For heating with an open flame, I would probably go with brass. Good heat conduction and fairly strong. Will be more expensive then the magnesium or steel though. Calvin at LW Leather makes brass stamps. Most of his are for presses though. You will have to ask about handle stamps.

Thanks so much for taking the time to repost this over here. It was really helpful. I follow a lot of Ian;s work. I guess I don't check his site quite enough since I missed this info.

Thanks for the catch Bob.

Looks like buckle guy might have a couple. See if any of these work for your design. http://www.buckleguy.com/locks-and-closures/

One idea comes to mind. Have you tried leaving the top fold of the bound edge a little long at the corner, and trimming after sewing?

Gotta love the people that don't have their terms completely straight, As has already been said, a steer is is a clipped bull. Same thing as a horse gilding. As I understand it, steer and bull are hide marketing terms for when people don't want to say cow. Any good bend or back should work very well. You could also of course get a good belt strap blank from a number of places.

My first leather project was the classic three part pocket knife sheath that I made at Boy Scout camp when I was 10 or 11. I did a number of small projects after that. The knife sheath got lost in a move somewhere along the way, but I still have the scout wallet that was my second or third project. The lacing is so bad on that thing.

Bumping is generally accepted around here. Just don't do it too much. As with most forums, serious thread necromancy is frowned on. To your actual question, here is my take on the kit options. Option 1, don't buy a big kit. There are a ton of threads in the Getting Started section on suggested tool lists based on the projects you are intrested in. Get what you need, and start with quality tools. Like with computers, an expert can get away with cheap tools if he has to, but beginners realy benifit from learning with quality tools first. Option 2, the "cheap" kits. You can spend a lot of money on big boxes of import hobby intro level garbage. These are the Tandy kits that a lot of places sell. You can drop $300 on junk easy. I know because I did it. It only took me a couple of months to spend that again on quality middle grade and up tools. There are a few things I still use from those first buys, but those are few and far between. Option 3, quality kits. I only know of 2 sources off the top of my head. The Craft Shia brand kits from www,goodsjapan.jp, and the Basic Construction Tool Set from www.springfieldleather.com. Springfield has some other in house kits, but I still think they are a touch over filled.

Try www.goodsjapan.jp as well. They mainly sell Japanese brand tools to us fellow gaijin back home, but I bet they can help you find the local retailers.

This is one of those questions where the answer is yes,if you want to put in the time, money and effort. Can you whack a stamp with a mallet and stamp oil tan, no. You would have to do hot stamping or leather burning, or another special technique that would make this kind of leather hold an image. You would be going down a path less traveled for sure.

My view is that the only time i give something for free is when it is a holiday gift. I have no problem with giving family and friends discounts the rest of the year, and if I can knock something out in a half hour with their materials, I'll just do it. However, if something is going to take real time or my stocks, I expect to be paid for it. I'll do stuff at cost, but not less. This of course does not take into account special projects or volenteer work.

Hi all, Could someone give me a quick millimeter to stich per inch conversion for pricking irons / diamond stitching chisels? For a while now I have been using lacing chisels to make stitching holes. I gave up on the overstitch wheel pretty quick. I think its about time I pick up some proper stitching chisels though. Most of the ones I’m looking at are from the UK or Japan, and I can’t quite work out how the teeth sizing in mm converts to stitch per inch without holding a tool in my hand.

There are a few versions of those in the bughouse daddy small pattern packs.

Those actually sound like pretty decently sized pieces. 25cm by 30cm for us backwards Americans is 9 3/4" by 11" give or take. With three of those, you can do a few nice pocket items. Like Matt said, a wallet, or phone case. Knife or tool shieth, card case, pouch or belt bag, dopp bag, key case. If you want to go artsy, leather flowers, they may be big enough for a leather picture frame, wrist bands, I'm a bit of a fan of braided leather rings. Depending on how much usible space you have, you might be able to get a clutch purse out of it. There are a lot of smaller projects you can do.

If you are interested in hot stamping, Ian who was mentioned above has a good video on doing poor mans hot stamping. He uses magnesium to good effect. Copper is out. Good conductor, but soft. Brass is ideal, but expensive. I would probably go with magnesium for learning the techniques, because it is fairly cheap and available. Then maybe go with brass if or when your first stamps start wearing down.

As Tim said, it would work fine. You just need o buff and use a good finish. If you're worried, go a bit heavy on a resolene top coat after buffing everything out you can. The advice you got may be from someone who ony uses traditional wax or oil finishes. In that case it might be true depending on their application process.

I'm sure there is a photoshop guru out there who could trace that out. Sadly it's beyond my skill. A true tracing pattern might be too much to hope for, but the graphic should be on the net somewhere.

If I was going to go with the oversized possibles bag with a divider, what I'd probobly do is make a removalbe piece so that I could use it as you want as well as a larger belt bag when needed. I'de size the pouch so that when the tool and firestarter and divider are in place, the pouch is tight. To make the divdider, I would cut two parts that fit tight inside the pouch, making either a front and back space or two side by side spaces. Then I would bond those two parts flesh to flesh and sew around the part to give it some extra rigidity. You could sew the divider into the pouch, but this way would give you some extra use I think. The side loop or double pouch options might serve better if you want this to do one thing and do it well though.

I can see a few ways to do this. You could attach two molded pouches on one back side by side like a mag pouch. Or you could sew a loop on the side of the pouch like a pen holder. Or you could make a larger pouch and put in an internal divider.

Waterhouse Leather has water buffalo. Most of it is thicker, but they will split on request.