WinterBear

Moscow Hide and Fur, Etsy sellers, Chichester Inc., and check with any nearby taxidermists/game meat processors. Also, I don't know what the laws are in your state, but in mine, If I wish to buy whole or mostly whole antler, they must be a shed (button is intact). If the antler is attached to any skull portion or been sawn off, it has to have an interstate game tag (runs about $8 in most states, I think). Once made into an object (mount, decoration, furniture, carvings, etc.) the interstate tag no longer has to be attached, but should be kept by the buyer (me), along with sales receipts from both the seller of the raw antler and the end buyer, in case a question ever arises as to where the antler came from. No question about it, I prefer to buy sheds with intact buttons, or antler pieces (which do not require game tags, just a receipt).

Edvin wants it to lie perfectly flat as it is meant for a lid--the front flap? See how the piece is cupped or bowed, especially in the corner? He doesn't want that.

Hi! Good looking seat. I can offer a spot of advice on the tri-weave. It it's not a real quality stamp, the three sides aren't 100% matched. Put a spot of enamel on one of the corners near the shaft where you can see it when stamping, and make that side always point in the same direction as you go along.

Luckily, it wasn't a customer, but a friend. The chimes were her birthday present that I had shipped a little early to surprise her. After the day she had, a cow pat was the least of the problems. She was thrilled that she go an unexpected present and after all that happened to it, it wasn't damaged. Friends tend to be more forgiving than customers though, by a long shot!

I'm not sure, but I think oxalic acid is sold as "Wood Bleach" at hardware and home improvement stores, it is usually near the area where floor finishes and spackling is. However, peroxide compounds and chlorine compounds can also be marketed as wood bleach, so check the label.

I tend to go overboard when wrapping things for shipping. It could just be I'm jinxed when it comes to having ridiculous things happen to my packages though. What I would do, is after wrapping it in something that will protect theitem from picking up something from the wrapping materials (white tissue wrapping paper, unprinted brown craft paper are all probably good--never newspaper or something colored directly on your product--the ink rubs off onto everything during shipping), I'd grab a few plastic grocery sacks and wrap them around it and tape them down. Then, put it inside of a box that is just barely large enough, then use peanuts or air baggies to wedge it in there nice. Then tape the box up well. I always add a card at this point -- basically a copy of the mailing label that will be on the outside of the second box--and tape that on the box. Then I get a box that is at least 2" bigger all the way around, put peanuts or airbags to half-full, then cover with newspapers so it forms a "floor", and put the smaller box in and secure it with straps of tape in the the middle of the bigger box, Sometimes another layer of paper, then finish padding with peanuts and bags, and seal all the edges of the box with tape. The two-box method really protects against drops and having other items fall and crush it during transit. The securing of the smaller box in the middle of the larger, making a newspaper floor, and strapping the inner box there keeps the smaller box from shifting from the middle and jiggling its way to the outside of the box where it won't be well protected. The label on the inner box will insure my package gets delivered even if the outer box is destroyed (and the padding in the inner box will protect it to some degree while it continues its journey). The plastic on the inside of the inner box protects against moisture if the shipper spills a coffee or large glass of sticky soda on the box, of the shipper delivers it in the rain, and/or/leaves it on the porch of someone's house in the rain. It's a pain, but by doing this, I have successfully shipped boxes of fragile to fairly fragile items that at the end-point have been ripped open by a bored dog (inner package protected the product), been left in the rain, left by a mailbox and buried by a plow, been placed in a 4" deep mud puddle, been sat on, had coffee and soda spilled on them, been dropped, been mangled, been completely separated from the outer box, clawed by cats, kicked around the yard by the neighbor's kids, and so on. The most absurd thing that happened is when the shipper left the package by the gate at a rural location, and the cattle being grazed in the area on a grazing lease decided they liked the taste of it and ate the cardboard boxes (inner and outer), and all the packing peanuts... they weren't interested in the plastic bags, so the glass wind chimes were safe--and protected from the cow pat the buyer found on them when she got home from town. (ew).

By all means, charge extra for expediting. If you have employees, you have to be paying them to do the work you normally do so you can work on this last-minute thing, or you have to be doing what they normally do so they can work on the last-minute project. If you don't have employees, you have to charge them for the extra overhead and for the inconvenience and extra hassles that come of having your non-work portion of your day become work. But, as others said, make sure you charge enough that it doesn't get to be a regular habit, or to where most of your work is "priority". Put a limit on the number of "priority" orders you're willing to accept. It can easily spiral out of control and come back to bite you. I came across this a lot when I still worked in retail. At one job, the policy that any late or last-minute order was to be accepted, no exceptions. It was a terrible policy. We wound up with a lot more priority orders than regular orders, and the regular orders began to suffer, especially at peak periods. We obtained more sales overall, yes, but it was outweighed by the amount that had to be paid in overtime to finish those extra orders, and loss of the goodwill of the customers who had contacted us in plenty of time to get their product and found out that someone else's order was given priority over theirs. It made our regular, conscientious customers feel pretty unimportant, and when somebody feels like that, they tend to let their wallets do the talking and go somewhere else. And it seems the people who often were the worst about giving us last minute orders were often the ones we didn't really want to have as a customer anyway--always complaining about the price, finding fault with everything, always trying to finagle the price down, rude to the employees and other customers, and constantly returning product for "just one thing" more to be done. However, sometimes you can accept a last-minute order and waive that priority fee to help a good or new customer out of a jam without too much of an imposition on yourself or your shop, and that person will greatly appreciate it. Just don't do it too often, or you'll lose your shirt or your sanity in the end.

I think the smaller guys might be selling to the larger? Anyway, good luck finding a source.

Thanks Art. I went and mixed up piping and binding too. How embarrassing. That'll teach me to comment when I'm tired. Edvin, look online for "quilt binding" and "quilt piping", and you'll see examples of pinking to go around curves and how to handle sharp corners. It'll all be for fabric, but you'd be able to adjust for leather as needed. Binding is usually a flat strip that wraps around the raw edges and is attached front and back to the project, usually tying two or more layers together. Piping is usually a flat strip that is wrapped around a cord, with the cord sewn in place along the middle of the lenghth. Piping is sewn with the flat side between layers and the covered cord extends from the project edges as a round edge. Since you are working with leather, fraying isn't a problem on the front side, and the piping would cover part of the leather edge. On the back side, where your silk would be, the silk would need to be turned under, and the hem placed against the piping. The piping would protect the stitching to some degree, but the silk would not be secured between layers of leather.

If you need me to, I'll see if I can't get off work in time to get across town to the local one here and get the numbers off the tools. (I just need people not to send me work or call me 10 minutes before I'm supposed to leave!)

I haven't purchased any rattlesnake, so I don't know a thing about what I should be looking for as far as permits, quality, pricing, etc. Depending on what your state's game laws are regarding wildlife imports from other states--California and Oregon forbid the sale of rattlesnake, for instance.. Here's a Texas source: http://www.chichesterinc.com/RattlesnakeSkins.htm Do they have to be Texas hides? You might try contacting Moscow Hide and Fur. I have heard really good things about Moscow Hide and Fur on LW about them: http://hideandfur.com/inventory/5540.html These guys also have skins--have no clue how reliable they are or if their product is good. http://www.alabamarattlesnakes.com/index.html http://www.clawantlerhide.com/no-frames/fursskins.htm http://genuineostrichhides.com/5-traditional-rattle-snake-strip5.html

They don't have a link for them yet, but you should be able to email or call them. If your nearest store doesn't have them, contact the Cheyenne store (307-632-1761 or cheyenne@tandyleather.com) and ask them. You might also ask ClayB (here in this thread), as I believe he said something in another thread about his store having them too.

Man o man o man! I just got the burnishers! They are beautiful! I can't hardly wait until morning so I can try them out.

I have similar issues when binding and piping fabric, especially when the material I am using for a binding is relatively stiff and goes around a curve. You'll note that Kevin King used lambskin binding for his wallet, which is really flexible and a little stretchy. The stress of changing directions around the corner is accommodated by that stretch and flex. Dry veg tan, even thin stuff, doesn't really have that same fabric-like quality for compression along the inside of the curve and expansion at the outside edge. I'd wait for some of the experts to weigh in on solutions, but it might need for the piping, and possibly the leather lid, to be cased and stitched while wet, and then "blocked" (placed under a weight to dry flat), to stretch the piping and essentially wet-mold it around the lid and using the stretchiness of the wet-veg tan to accommodate the curve.

I should spend more time tying knots then, as we could all use a little extra luck!

Hi drphil and John. Those books for figure carving patterns are from Dover publications. I have quite a stack of them for various past projects. If anyone is interested, the they can be viewed at the Dover website if you want to take a look at the inside of one of them before buying. The ones SL Leather lists are the same price as what they currently are on Dover's site, so if you are buying leather, the shipping for the hide might also cover your books. Some examples: Castles of the World Wild Animals Favorite Dogs Many other Dover books are available, and many can also be obtained from amazon (Butterflies, Celtic Books, for example), and some book stores and hobby stores. If you're getting a lot of the books, Dover has free shipping for orders over $50, and Amazon usually has free shipping for orders over $25. My local bookstore does not usually carry more than a dozen of the titles, though, so sometimes I have to resort to the 'net. Some of the Dover books also have all of the drawings as vector art or as digital files on an included CD, such as: Castles (w/ CD), Wild and Domestic Animals, Birds. For most of these Dover art/craft resource books, the buyer has the option of using the artwork without additional special permissions, provided you do not use more than a certain number of the illustrations (usually between four and 10) per single project and that you do not make your own resource document/online archive/book/whatever. I find it's a cheap and legal way for me to get applique designs for my quilts.

Maybe a veg-tanned tooling calf skin would about the same size as tooling goat and might run about that thickness? Calfskin also tends to be pretty thin though.

Sorry to hear about your friend. The 2nd picture loaded before anything else for me, and I immediately recognized it as a javelina skull, so I'd say you did a great job. The hairing really brings to mind the surface texture weathered bone gets.

Wait...I'm confused. If he's recommending that people do this with high-quality leather, and he did it to take the dye out of a navy belt, how high quality was that belt? I mean, wouldn't a well dyed, buffed, oiled, and sealed belt be resistant to slipping dye?

Holiday weekend, they might be out of town? I'd help, but what I know about braiding rawhide you could stuff in a gnat's ear and still have room.

Hi RainMedic. Have you considered a Bible cover, rather than binding a Bible? You might find it an easier project to break into leatherwork with, and that way your girlfriend can have a cover for her favorite Bible that she currently has. Run "Bible cover" through the search bar at the top of the forum, and I think you'll see some things that will knock your socks off.