Order and Chaos

Coolness... I just wanted to check since I have a severe case of overlooking the obvious solution, but for once I got it right on the first try. Only downside to this is now I don't have an excuse to go buy another new tool, heh...

Okay, looked at a larger version of the picture and saw the stop strip along the bottom edge. That makes sense with the open bottom loops. I asked and my neighbor only uses 2.75" and 3" shells, so I don't have to worry about making sure 2.5" English or 3.5" magnums fit.

This may seem like a silly question, but here we go anyways... I recently started on a project for a friend that required some of the parts to be made from sole bend leather. Extra thick leather (16 oz. & thicker), that the beginning of arthritis in my fingers doesn't appreciate dealing with. As I'm trying to knife my way through the sole bend, I'm thinking this stuff is almost as hard as wood, and that's when I decided to try taking the leather over to the scroll saw that I use for cutting out forms, and it happily buzzed right through the sole bend leaving me with a perfect 90 degree square edge that smoothed right out with a bit of careful sanding. (fine tooth blade, saw speed set to almost minimum to prevent friction burning of the edges) Here's the question. Is there a better way to cut sole bend? I don't have a clicker press, it would be nice, but most of the stuff I do is one off, no mass production.

A question related to shotgun shell belts... My neighbor is asking for basically the same thing, he would like for it to hold 20-24 qty of 12 gauge shells. A concern of mine is since he wants this for rabbit & squirrel hunting, shells will be pulled out of the loops fairly often, and I'm a little worried if I use too light of leather for the loops, the loops getting stretched out of shape may be an issue. I'm trying to figure out a way to keep things snug with the shells in the loops. One option I can think of is having the bottoms of the loops closed so even if there is some stretch, the shells can't fall through. The other idea I had was hiding a band of 2.5" elastic weave inside the shell loops...

Okay thanks, I didn't realize it was the same bobbin for multiple brands of machines. Ordering them straight from Artisan works for me. One of these days I'll even get Amazon and Ebay accounts...

Where can I get extra Bobbins for a Toro 3000 Artisan? I bought my machine used and it came with two bobbins, but I'd like to have some extras for the various weights and colors of thread. I tried doing a google search for them, but came up with results that didn't look anything like the ones I have now. Online, or brick & mortar store in the St Louis Mo area makes no difference to me.

How do I get rid of (or hide forever) all the Facebook related junk (popups, etc) that now seems to be part of the website and forums? Also, what do I have to do so images people post in the various threads are automatically previewed like they are supposed to be? Is there an updated FAQ for settings?

I like it. I've been trying to decide what to do with my soda can killer in regards to a holster or sling, it's a Ruger Charger-22, basically a 10/22 that has been built as a pistol. http://www.ruger.com/products/22Charger/models.html Using a normal Ruger 10 round rotary magazine that fits flush with the stock, a holster like yours would work well. The 15 and 25 round mags are banana clip style, so a holster becomes more complicated. The only sling style that makes sense to me would be a single mount point sling, with a swivel mount added to the butt of the stock.

The reason I'm asking is I remember the shoulder holster my uncle wore. He was a plainsclothes detective and it didn't have any kind of strap going to the belt, I think his duty pistol was a 5 shot Chief Special, and I don't recall any of his fellow detectives having their holsters hooked to their belts.

I've been practicing making different styles of holsters and decided to try using the shoulder harness pattern from the Stohman holster pattern book. When I pieced everything together to make a shoulder holster for my Ruger Redhawk .41 magnum with a 7.25" barrel, the muzzle end of the holster was just below my belt. That got me wondering, would it be useful or a hinderance to have a belt loop at the bottom of the holster to keep things from flopping around under my jacket? Is there a way to make the belt loop removeable (a line 24 snap) that would also allow it to swivel, would it need an elastic section in the belt loop to allow more flex and stretch? Using the same shoulder harness pattern for a friend's FNX in .45acp, his holster looks like it will stop about 1-2" above his belt line. If you do put a belt loop at the bottom, what do you consider to be a reasonable distance to decide if it does or does not need a loop at the bottom?

Gamers that have dice can always use another drawstring dice bag. I have a cheap wood cutting board that has one side covered in suede, when I disassemble something with tiny parts, nuts and screws, the parts don't roll away and vanish for 3 days only to show up once I bought a replacement part.

I have an idea for a powered edge burnisher and am trying to decide if it's a good or bad idea... My first attempt was sawing the pointy end off the tandy wood burnisher, bore a hole down the center and epoxy in a steel shaft to put in my cordless drill/driver. It makes things go quicker, but it's kind of ungainly trying to hold the drill in one hand and the leather piece in the other. For my next attempt I'm thinking of using an inexpensive hand mixer (three speeds, two counter rotating beaters). Cut the curvy bits off the metal shafts, epoxy the drilled burnishers in place, and mount it to a piece of 2"x8" that can be clamped/wingbolted to the workbench. So what do you think?

Judging by what I have seen in the Tandy pre-cut kits, theirs look to be, and this is purely a guess, somewhere in the 5 ounce range. In a related note I have a question also. Some messenger/courier bags have the straps mounted to the gussets like a normal purse, and some have the straps mounted to the back side of the bag. I can understand the straps being mounted to the back of the bag if the gussets are fairly narrow, but is this pretty much an esthetic/personal preference, or is there an advantage to one location over the other?

Maybe someone else has tried this already, but it sounds like you may want to look in to a modification I'm going to try on my older Singer walking foot machine to see how it works. I plan to order some new walking feet for the top side that are teflon coated for the top, and replace the feed dog underneath with the silicon rubber version. At a minimum the teflon coated foot up top will slide smoother on the top leather giving more even stich size, and it should reduce the machine marks to smooth lines on the bottom compared to the tank tracks mark the standard sawtooth feed dog underneath leaves.

Back when I was working on a degree in technical illustration one of the instructors was showing us how to use an xacto knife to remove errant ink marks from the acetate. He accidentally sets the xacto in the tool groove up top crooked (the drawing table which was sloped), the knife begins merrily rolling down the table and falls, without thinking he tried to catch it... We had a stand in instructor for a couple days while his hand healed up.