raysouth

Great to have you as a member and your work is extremely nice. Very creative. Keep at it and enjoy the craft. God Bless. Ray

Hello Strudel, It is apparent that you read the books well. Great workmanship and happy that you have discovered the craft. Pleasant medium to work with and the sky is the limit. Happy to see your work and that you are a site member. God Bless. Ray

Hello Mike, and welcome to the site. You will find everything to get you going and plenty of assistance by the members here. Greatest leatherwork site around. God Bless. Ray

Hello WMarshall. You may find a few tools on the for sale section of this site but as redbeard said, ebay and Tandy are good places to start. This is the best site for obtaining the information you need for your projects. You can invest slowly and use the time in between to learn more about the craft. There is so much to learn that I find it best to research and ask for assistance that may involve something I intend to do in the near future or just to expand my knowledge base. Everyone here seems to be eager to assist whenever they can. I will send you a pm from this site when I am finished here. Welcome and God Bless. Ray

GREAT WORK. Looks good on the bike and sure it is a good feeling to know it is something that you made. God Bless. Ray

GREAT WORK!!!!!! Happy to hear that you have found your niche. Also heard that someone I know in Charlotte has been asked to make things for movie company or something like that. Sure you will all do well. God Bless. Ray

SUPER BIKE!!!! SUPERB LEATHERWORK. The only thing I couldn't find was the power window switch. ckl. Know it has to be a fun ride. God Bless. Ray

Hello Duke, and welcome aboard. I have also been shopping around for skiver but of a special type. There are a number of skivers listed on eBay at the moment. Might find something there or look in the "for sale" section of this site. May luck out and find something a leathercrafter no longer needs. Happy to have you join the site. God Bless. ray

Are you making reference to the $20.00 sides that have been offered? Ray

Hello Jennifer, There are a number of different devices that will do the job and good number of them may be found on eBay. Several of the leatherworkers on the site, have machinery for sale, at times, and I would browse through the for sale section here. Ask billymac, as he is very knowledgeable about the tools used for different operations. If I happen upon something, I will be certain to let you know. God Bless. Ray

Hey Heavy Leather, Great find. I have been looking for those type stamps for a long time and missed those. I enjoy stamping military items and not much around, that I can find. Hope you enjoy them. God Bless. Ray

No idea, Chrstn. Neat stamp and a good find. Hope you learn who made it. God Bless. Ray

Like many of you, I have purchased stamps from him and they are superb. Beautiful workmanship, fast service and priced very reasonably. Was happy to have stumbled upon his items while searching on eBay. Ray

Hey Y'all, Take a look at the 3 pages of book listings and be sure there is nothing there before they go away. The book, Leatherworking Tools 1700-1950 is gone but most everything else is still there as listed. ANY BOOK YOU SEE FOR $7.00 WHICH WILL COVER THE MAILER AND POSTAGE TO ANY ADDRESS IN UPPER 48. NO IDEA WHAT HAWAII AND ALASKA WOULD RUN BUT PROBABLY NOT MUCH MORE. NO OTHER CHARGES SO GRAB ANYTHING OF INTEREST. BOOKS REMAINING WHEN WIFE RETIRES AT END OF MAY, WILL BE GIVEN TO A SMALL LIBRARY IN AREA. Hope you find something of interest. All like new and if not, I will be sure to say so. God Bless. Ray

More questions for this lost soul. I am interested in doing some edge/lap skiving but don't think the skiving/splitting machines I see, such as Heritage, Osborne, Cowboy, etc; will do what I hope to do. Not having any idea what to look for, I am hoping that someone can head me in the right direction. An example; I have a piece of leather, about 10" square, @ 8-10 oz. that I want to skive and edge on to @ 1-1/4" to 1-1/2" back on all 4 sides. What type of manual, if any, machine will handle that for me? I can pull the leather through, to some extent, but not while holding other levers, etc; as I will be concentrating on staying upright while performing the skiving operation. ckl. If no machine is available that will do the trick, what would you advise as to good knives. I have seen some interesting Japanese knives lately, that appear as though they might be good for this task. Important for me to be able to skive while keeping hands far away from sharp edges. (Age and Infirm issues.) Regardless, hoping I can glean some relavent info here and get what I need without taking shots in the dark as I have many times in the past. Any and all advice will certainlt be of value so, Thank You and God Bless. Ray

Many interesting products to use. DickBlick.com has a number of very reasonably priced tracing materials on rolls or individual sheets. Speedball tracing paper 20 yard roll x 18" wide is @ $6.14, 50 yard roll x 12" wide is $9.26 and 18" wide x 50 yard is 11.97. In addition, something I use is called Sally's graphite paper. Composition is not same as found in pencil lead and is easily, with art eraser, removed if not heavily forced into leather. My primary use is when I am using pyrography on leather and most of it is burned away during the process. Great product for me but perhaps not for everyone. Hope this is useful for someone. God Bless. Ray

Howdy All, I am a subscriber to Shop Talk, published by Proleptic and wondering if you are familiar with the BIGBOOK they publish annually? Just happened to look through it yesterday and thought it might be good for anyone needing supplier information so thought I would mention here. I enjoy Shop Talk monthly and the BIGBOOK is furnished free with your paid subscription so somewhat of a bonus publication. Good reading and plenty of information, especially for thos interested in saddles and shoe making. Hope the information is useful for some of you. God Bless. Ray

Howdy All. Just wnated to let everyone know that I just posted another of the tools I will not need in the shop. As new as never placed in use. Thanks for looking and God Bless. Ray

Another of the tools I purchased and never put to use, soooooooooooooo, offering it at a decent price for anyone intetrested in such a tool. $250.00 cash, plus actual shipping charges via any method you choose, USPS, UPS, FED-EX. Comes with whatever was in the original box when purchased. Nice item but something I will not have a use for. Had to use a picture of the one being sold on ebay as my pic did not do well. Ask any questions. Great tool for someone interested in doing a lot of stamping. Hope this will fill a need someplace. God Bless. Ray

I have, over the past several years, purchased domain names, etc; from godaddy. Prices for the domain names were originally very reasonable but as time went by, their seemed to be an extra fee for a number of different reasons, etc; and became confusing. Also purchased the hosting and development program and that turned out to be a nightmare, especially when I attempted to obtain some assistance from them. After many frustrating hours spent trying to develop a site I gave it up as had no way to get the assistance I needed, and, to my dismat, they don't/didn't offer any refunds, for anything. Once you bought it, it was yours and good luck was the order of the day. Never have been up on computerese and the lingo is far beyond my very limited capability. The software that "ANYONE' could build and have a web site with was for ANYONE, and not for me. Never met ANYONE, but he was more up on website development than I was. I speak and converse in several foreign languages but computerese zipped right through the gray matter. lol. All in all, I suppose they may be okay but of no use to me and referring to my past experience with them, on a scale of 1 to 100, with 1 being the best, I would have to give it a 159. That bad and frustrating for me. ckl. Ain't life grand. I love it and more each day. God Bless. Ray

Yes Ferg, That can be done and it is a bit more than the $100.00 I have offered this one for. Felt that the difference would compensate for the shipping charge. Hate to take the loss but when things change we sometimes have to adapt. At my station in life, I have to adapt to things that I never thought would become major issues. lol. Comes with the aging process, I suppose. God Bless. Ray

Howdy All, Having bit of difficulty with hands lately and want to do some lap skiving on a few items. Have been looking around and found a couple of items on eBay and wondering if anyone has any information about these items. Listed by: bantamsaddletack Item no. 271190154840 Price for both the skiver and splitter: $ 234.99 with free shipping. No idea how to get the information onto the site. Please forgive. Would appreciate any advice or assistance along these lines. God Bless. Ray

I suppose it is time for me to cry, "UNCLE", and say, I give up, trying to obtain information about the neat embossing machine made by Amish Folk in New York. No matter how hard I try, I cannot seem to find anyone that can give me any information about the machine. Frustrating to find something that would do what you would like to do and then not be able to get info about machine, specs, capabilities, price, etc. Feel like they must be made on another planet and all I can do is sit and cry. lol. Another operation I would like to have done but Tippmann, Tandy machines would not do what I had hoped to do. Nobody seems to own one of these other than one gent here on the site but he also does not have the info I would like to have. Has been as helpful as he could be and appreciate his kindness. Oh well, I'll get out my crying towel and forget this project. Sure I am not the first to have such a problem. ckl. God Bless Everyone. Ray

I do have a rubber pad on one of my benches and it is a great work surface. It is a pad cut from printers mat as used on press. Not something found around every corner but is very strong and dye wipes off with a bit of acetone. Easy to maintain. Does work well under pounding block as well. Hope you find that your idea works for you. Ray