electrathon

The awl size is a reflection of the thread size. I have a small one I usually use. I personally feel if the needle falls through the hole easily the hole is too big. A lot of people like larger slots.

Yes, very thin clingy plastic used to keep food fresh. Glad wrap is another brand name here. The reason it works so well is the fact that it is so thin.

That is it. Everyone buys one then realizes it will never make good sewing. A real awl is not much more than a needle. it pokes a hole. You them use two needles to sew back and forthe with the thread. This is more what you are looking for: http://www.tandyleatherfactory.com/en-usd/search/searchresults/3318-01.aspx The blades are pretty bad though, they need to be very sharp and hold an edge well, you likely will find that it will not.

I did it this way for a long time. The thickness of the plastic made it dificult to get crisp detailed lines, so I switched to seran wrap and a paper pattern, never looked back.

It sounds like you are trying to use a jiffy stitcher. If so the first step to hand sewing is to store it in the drawer and a memory of a tool to not use. There are a few ways to punch your holes, an awl is the most classic way to do it. It makes a little slit, you then use your two needles to saddle stitch. You can punch the holes in other methods too, there will be a lot of confusing information posted. There is more than one way to do it. Big oversized holes are about the only way that is "wrong". The big eye needles are hard to use too. They break a lot and are hard to pull too. Harness needles are a better choice.

It is a lot sad for me really. I have a strong emotional attachment to Tandy. I have many childhood memories of my Dad and I looking through that Tandy catalog togeather. I want to buy from them. I have to be very carefull about what I buy though. Tandy is the Harbor Freight of the leather busness. Very high volume, reasonable prices (IF you watch the sales closely). If you are looking for quality though, you need to look elsewhere. As a craft store, almost everyone starts leather work at Tandy. Most however, migrate elsewhere as they learn more.

Kangeroo lace is what you want. Tandy sold it for a while, it is on close out now. Even now though it still costs about twice what you can get it from elsewhere. Y-Knot-Lace is great. Good strong lace for less than crappy lace.

The old kits were great. There was good quality control and had good leather in them. Not really sure when the change happened, I have not been into leather for that long. My Dad has been doing leather since the 1950's and he says the old kits were very good in quality. Same with lace. In the old days most of the lace was good in quality. Now days most of the lace Tandy sells is horid. You need to be very carefull with what you are buying, most of it is virtually unusable if you care about quality (We are paying more money in most cases to make things ourselves that it would cost to buy them. If we do not care about quality if seems sort of insane to waste the time to do the work).

For belt tension you only want the belt tight enough to keep it from slipping. Any tighter and you are putting undue stress/heat on the motor bushings. For oil, if there are no oil ports, do not worry about it. If there are ports use only motor bearing oil. Many people use the wrong oil and do more damage then if they would let it run dry. Modern bearings are pretty good quality and hold oil well inside the metal.

Some of the kits are so bad that the sides interiors and exteriors do not even have the same amount of holes.

The two not lining up is the result of very, very low quality control. Also, the leather used in the kits is some of the worst of the worst (sad). The best recomendation is use the liner for your project. Replace the outside leather with quality leather. Cut your new outside a little too big, glue it togeather and then trim it to size.

I would be very afraid of doing my first seat cover in leather, especially emotionally attached leather. Chrome tanned elk is a very stretchy leather too, making it far harder than normal. If I were you I would want to do at least a half a dozen ot more covers before I tackled this. Aaron

Looks good but I would recomend swapping sides with the sander and the burnisher. The poker on the burnisher is going to hurt you sticking out in the open like that.

The damp leather softens the paper, lay a piece a seran wrap on the leather, then your paper you are tracing off of. Use a ball point pen, not a stylus.

Thank you. What he was recomending it for is on tooling for things like braclets adn dog collars. I have not used it before, or even ran into it. Aaron

Sorry to hear that you got burned on this deal. Interesting thing is that I likely would have bought it if I had known it was in Portland. It astonishes me that so many people do not simply include locations in their profile.

Is anyone using a product called saddle butter? Ran into a guy that swears by it, but it is not available locally as far as I can tell. Just wondering if anyone has used it and had good or bad experience from it. Aaron

I have an indirect answer. I would use two pieces of thin leather and glue them flesh to flesh side. Sew around them. You will have two finished sides this way.

Every knife is going to have a differant shaped pattern. Basicly you just lay the knife down and trace around it. Cut a welt in the same shape. Cut the top, sew around it. Basic picture attached.

Mmmm... Women that smell like leather.

I think it would make your stitching crooked.

I see some room to improve but overall your work looks good. Sell your first items at a reasonable price and concentrate of cleaning op the details. Look through Etsy and see some of the poop there attempting to be sold for top dollar. Your work is already better than a lot of it there. Aaron

I can not directly answer to the running on CO2, but in general the only reason I know of to run on CO2 is because there is no compressed air available. If you have air available and get tired of paying the huge differance, just hook up your air to the regulator. I think the only differance you will find is that your pockets will be full of money.

Personally I would make a road trip to Nevada.

For glueing a tone to leather I would think it hard to beat E6000. It is like silicone on steroids