simontuntelder

Hi Jesse, there hasn't been any progress yet. Despite having a design ready, but I have thousands of designs ready. So basically, no progress. I have had a build up of orders that need to be finished before I take on any larger orders. But it will get made at some point and I'll try to show the progression and finished product here.

Walter, that is a beautiful machine. Would it be possible to find such a machine in Schwitzerland (used or new) and how much would such a machine cost?

Hallo Walter, herzlich Willkommen. I've been enjoying the summer vacation, and I haven't been checking Leatherworker at all. And what a nice thread, I've missed. The wealth of information you're sharing is just outstanding. Thank you very much. I'm very happy to see a member from Switzerland, who knows so much about the history of the saddlery trade, mostly because I'm very fascinated with the military products that were made for the Swiss army. I can't believe the quality of those products and all the work that went into them. I mean, everything was handsewn and the leather quality was very, very good. Can you tell me more about the army saddlers and the tools they used? I'm not after any specific information at the moment, so if you could share some general knowledge, then I would really appreciate it. - if it's easier writing it in German, you can do that and send it to me in an e-mail, and I'll do my best to translate it to English. I understand and talk German quite well, but I rarely write German anymore, so it takes too long constructing the sentences. And lastly do you have any good tanneries in Switzerland?

Hi, sorry about the late response, and thank you for chipping in. Torquewrench: You're absolutely right. I wouldn't copy the pattern, I would only study it to understand the construction better. I've never been afraid of the old paper and scissor pattern making method, but this is a large project with costly materials, that I wouldn't want to mess up. Conceptdiba: I'm talking about this bag. Jessebeckman: It looks like you're making yourself a nice, sturdy travel bag. I will last for a couple of lifetimes in such a thick leather.

I was approached by a return customer the other day wanting me to make a custom travel bag for him (yay!). The only problem is that I haven't made many bags, and I've never made a bag this big (nay!). But I'm quite interested in taking on the job, as the customer is a doctor and money is no object to him and it would be a personal challenge for me - plus it could give me a couple of days not doing the same old boring stuff like belts and wallets. Basically he wants something along the lines of the classic Louis Vuitton keepall / travel bag (See the attached file), but he wants it to be more simple, rugged and manly and it must live up to the standard carry-on luggage size. So I was hoping that someone could point me in the direction of a similar pattern (that I can tweak myself) or a tutorial or if someone can give me some friendly advice or suggestions on how to construct it and so on. I should be said that I hand sew everything, so that should probably also be taken into consideration, when making a pattern. Thanks in advance

How did you get them to look this good, Billymac?

They probably don't. But try the English agent for D'annonay. Just google it. Weinheimer probably has an English agent too. But I'm not sure. If you need to contact them in German, just use google translate.

I get mine from Sweden, but it's expensive. You can get some from Tannerie D'annonay from France (they used to have an English agent) and Weinheimer from Germany/Poland. I also remember seeing some really good stuff from Italy. In my experience this can be hard to hand sew. But it can be done. If you looking for grain, you could also look for Zug Grain - Horween makes a descent one and you can get it through AA Crack in the UK. Montana in Italy makes some Zug grain, I've seen, but I don't know about Montana's distribution in England.

How I wish this post wasn't 4 years old. If you letting go of more Dixon tools, please post them here on Leatherworker.

Could one use felt on the Dremel? If so can you buy them ready made or how do I make them? I think I have the sufficient punches to make them?

I took me three years to come to the realization that you have to have good knives in order to perfect your leatherwork. Of course a good Stanley knife will get you so far, but you really do need a head knife and probably a couple of other knives. I just purchased my first head knives, and some other knives, and right now I'm learning how to use them all and most importantly how to sharpen them. I can tell you that these knives will get a lot sharper than any stanley knife, and it really shows in your work. It was really a hurdle for me, but I'm so glad that I did. So take Trox' advice. I always do.

What kind or type of dye are you looking specifically? Cheers

Finally, maybe I'll be able to give some advice here. I've fiddled with the burnishing wax mixture quite some time now.Before I used to go half beeswax and half paraffin, however I've been doing it a bit differently lately. I've been getting quite good result with the following mixture 100 g paraffinwax 300 g beeswax and dash of neatsfoot oil - not a lot - maybe a tablespoon -and in my last batch of wax I also added some pine resin, which I ground very finely. I like to keep things as natural as possible, so I've really prefer more beeswax to paraffin. Then I suggest you buy a silicone cupcake mould or look for it in the kitchen. When the melted wax has solidfied, the "wax cakes" will come right out and whatever wax residues is left can easily be scraped off and the very last can be removed using some boiling water.

First of all, GoodsJapan is based in said Japan, and the Japanese have a totally different mentality when it comes to quality that most other countries. I would chose Made in Japan over a lot of other countries. As a form of public service, I asked a guy, who purchased some punches from the Chinese seller. Here's what he said. "The punches do work, but they are really rough. I was able to improve their effectiveness by working on their sharpness/edges. All of that said, I bought them because the only other corner punches (right angle punches with different radii) I could find were larger presses and I didn't want to allocate that much space for this small of a job. Given what I know now, would I buy them again . . . yes, but . . . their quality is not anywhere near the Osborne punches I have. Hope this helps."

I wouldn't buy from China too - based on bad experiences where I found something cheap, that I just decided to try out. The quality has been terrible and for some reason it always takes ages for the products to actually arrive. But this is a really, really good deal. I mean, if you know how to polish/sharpen metal, I'm sure these could be sharpened. If I were you, I would check the seller's feedback record and see if you could find other eBay memebers, who purchased some punches from the seller and simply ask them, what they think about the quality.

Oh, I forgot to say that I found it in a classified add in Denmark. But the seller got it, when he bought a shop that used to house an upholstery and curtain shop, so he doesn't know anything about it (hence the price probably). So I'm not buying straight from the factory - I found a re-seller of Fratelli skiving machines and new machines were way over $2.000. And I don't know anything about skiving machines basically. I've tried a Fortuna in a leather factory once and I quite liked it, but they're so expensive in Europe, that I've never ever considered buying one until now.

I came across an offer of buying a rather cheap ($400) skiving machine from Fratelli. I don't know much about Fratelli and I couldn't find any info on it here and I haven't had much luck finding any reviews other places. So I guess it's not as good as Nippy or Fortuna. So have you tried a Fratelli skiving machine? If so what did you think?

Nice pick up. Unfortunate circumstances, but that looks incredible.

I have some really, really big aluminum rivets from the German military. But again, they're big as hell, so not really useable, however it's a joy peening aluminum. The Swiss military used smaller aluminium (washer/burr) rivets on their bags and other leather accessories (which were often entirely hand-sewn!! and I've been searching high and low for some surplus stock of their rivets without any succes.

I already have some pounds of them lying around and I'm very pleased with them. I use them on bags and other stuff that needs to be strong and solid, but the look of it isn't clean and neat enough for many things in my opinion.

I only see some washer/burr rivets - are there some other jiffy/double cap options that I'm not seeing?

Are you absolutely sure that they're solid brass? I'm asking because I've bought rivets that were "solid brass" that lost their colour completely - meaning the base metal showed.

I saw a quite famous South Korean leatherworker (his name escapes me right now) who had a bunch of different leather tools made. Among others he had some punches made that you could punch out these slots with in different forms. It was basically a chisel with two hole punches in each end. Very useful tool if you're doing a bunch of these. But if you're only doing one or two, the aforementioned method would work just fine.

I'm never using jiffy rivets or double cap rivets because I can't find them in solid brass. Normally the plating wears off, and they just don't wear well. I'm hoping to find some that will tarnish nicely, just like a solid brass buckle. So I'm looking for a supplier of solid brass jiffy or double cap rivets in all sizes (preferably in the EU or UK, but I order from the US regularly so it's not a problem). Can anyone help me out?

Do you also make mallet dies, as that is the only thing, I'm looking for at the moment.