Glendon

The cheapest decent laser cutters run about $2,000. You can find knock-off garbage for a bit cheaper, but from what I've heard they don't work well. You can find a good entry level laser cutter from Full Spectrum Laser at http://fslaser.com for about $1,900. They are not cheap things to get into.

The vests are easy. You can find those pattern packs at most leather retailers, and in a lot of the older books. The rest of the items you mentioned are basic clothing items that are usually made out of fabrics. You should be able to use most fabric pattterns and substitute garment leather.

Keep in mind that I only have a little experence with eco-flo. I jumped away from the brand very quickly in my leatherworking experence. As I understand it, they are both acrylic finishes. The pro version probably has tighter controls on quality and on ratios and the like, but I would think they are fairly close to being the same.

Intresting comments on the strap cutter varients. I have had the worst luck with the wooden one I bought. The blade is too fiddly to change, and never wants to stay secure. No matter how much I try to tighten down the screw, I can't keep the cross bar locked at a proper right angle to cut straight, and the edge of the leather keeps getting caught up in the mouth of the cross bar. That's why I switched over to a draw gauge, and am actually looking for a plough gauge to try, but don't want to spend hte money something I'm not sure I'll like using.

Here is a link to the kind of strap cutter I sugguest. http://springfieldleather.com/24742/Draw-Gauge/ They are usually called draw guages. C.S. Osborne is the big brand that still makes new ones. Though most used ones are in perfectly good working shape, and you can usually find them in ebay for about half the price. The older ones actually have a bit of an artistic element to them and look quite nice, and replacement blades are pretty cheap.

Great questions. I will leave the question about types of leather to those who have made more bags then I have. The cutting question however, I can awnser. Yes, it would be a touch cheaper to cut your own strips. Not by a ton, but cheaper. The bigger advantage is being able to get lengths and widths you want with minimual waste. I would suggest investing in a good metal strap cutter though. The cheaper wooden ones don't seem to work particularly well, and I have not gotten the best results with a straight edge.

There are free templates out there, but you will have to hunt for them. There is no centeral repository of the free templates out there. No one has taken the time to do that. Things that don't change very often, bags, hats, and the like are the easiest to find free templates for. Electronics are updated constently so by the time a free template is released, they are usually a couple generations old already. Wallets are a special case. Wallet interiors are complex. Even with a solid template, the instructions needed for a beginner would be a book. So people don't generally do them. Besides, wallets also seem to be one of those things that once people figure out their way of doing them, they don't like to give out the secret. Best suggestion I can give you is start at www.leathercraftlibrary.com. Not free, but a great starting point. Then get really good a Google, and start building up a collection. This is an old skill. You still have to learn a lot the old way. The net can only take you so far.

I would suggest e-mailing the guys at Goods Japan info@goodsjapan.jp. They are great about awsering questions. They sell tools, finishes, dyes, all that good stuff. However, I would think that they would probobly be happy to point you to local leather suppliers .

Bridle isn't exactly tooling leather. Hand stamping won't work too well. As Ferg said, with prefinished leather, hot stamping is a better bet. See this video for a great explination. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=h7I1D0lDYz8

As Jax posted, GoodsJapan has some awsome tools at a pretty fair price. There are also V and U gouges that are bult into handle hefts that do the job. Those adjustible metal ones basically arive broken. They do not mantain the depth they are set at. There are instructions on the forums somewhere on how to rig them to work correctly, but its not really worth the trouble. Buy a good tool from the start.

The best way that I have seen this done is as a molded sleeve with the screen area cut out. That way, the leather around the bezel of the phone will hold it in well.

That's a little better, but given the choice I think I would still go for one of the old shoe repair brands. Restored, those should last a couple of lifetimes.

Not at that price. You can get an old Landis 5 in 1 or stand alone splitter that will last another hundred years for less then that.

Doesn't supprise me. Infinity is pretty much your generic big corperation at this point. The guys at the top may or may not have some passion for what they do, but the rest of the staff are just doing a job. I've put in a couple of diffrent qoute requests to them, always ignored. I gave up and started doing the smart thing, working with the smaller one man shops, usually ones I learned about on LW.net.

Molding forms, that's another great use for a 3D printer. I know a lot of people will work up a wood form on a table saw or bandsaw, but for those of us in the city and can't do much woodworking this could be a nice alternative.

Awsome. I've wondered if this would work for awhile. Of course for stamps you would use all the time, you would still want to get made from a stronger material to avoid the regular cost of remaking. However, for more limited run stuff this is great. The price on 3D printers have really come down too. The last time I had looked, they were still hovering in the $1,000 - $1,500 range. $500 is doable. Still some money, but reasonable if you think you'll get some use out of it. Now if they could just get the laser cutters down to a couple thousand, small scale projects truely would only be limited by your imagination.

I don't think I'd go for those. The seller is a random chinese group that seems to work with "craft" suplies. I would assume the metal is pretty cheap, and it would be a good bet that they are completely unsharpened.

The tag / key fob idea is proboblly the easiest solution. Though you might also be able to punch two holes in them, thread them onto some thin lace, and selll them as bracelets and necklaces. Perhaps thread four of them together flat as coasters? Expanding on the makers mark idea, maybe epoxy a pin on the back and offer them as pins for jackets / hats / bags, along with the key fobs.

Tannery Row is Horweens new retail operation. They started that late last year I believe. I don't have it, but I know some of the people here have the name and contact info for the guy who runs this side of Horweens business and should be able to put you in touch with him.

Either chicago-screw or rivet them. If you want to hide the securement point, then you could attach them to a strap then sew that in, or attatch it just to an inner lining. Depending on the look you are going for, you could also go through the whole project and use the caps of either the screws or rivets as decrotive elements. Personally, I think I would go with rivets in this case. Unless you think the rings would need to be replaced during the lifetime of the binder, chicago screws are kind of expencive.

Springfield Leather caries a couple, the common 8 1/2 3-ring, and the 6 3/4 6-ring. http://springfieldleather.com/19536/Vest%2CWolf%2CBeige%2C2XL/ I believe that Ohio Travel Bag also carries them, but I'm not finding them in the cataloge at the moment.

There are a lot of places that do that type of work. Though before you go looking at the online busniseses and mailing your work out, I would suggest doing a search for businesses in your area that you could work with. There are small shops all over that do laser engraving, and would probobly be happy to do a quick projject like htat.

Ohio Travel Bag has a couple of plastic clips. 2012 catalog pg 90. Only catch is that if you don't have a tax ID, you'll have to call to ask for an account, and they have a $30 minimum on orders. If you find what you want in their catalog and only need a handful, the staff at Springfield Leather might be willing to specal order for you.

Thanks for posting! Always helpful to read about experiences like this. I've been thinking about ordering from thethreadexchange for a little while now. Please keep us updated when you can.

Looks great from here. Like Dwight, I don't use gum trag because you can't dye after burnishing. I've been using a 50/50 mix of saddle soap and water, and getting pretty good results. It's amazing how everyhing old becomes new again.