Bard Skye

Bob First off, Thank You! for the tutorial. I had no idea of how to deal with edges until I read it. My edges still need a lot of work, but at least now it looks like I have a clue or two. (Practice, practice, practice! Likewise for my stitching....) I have a couple of questions. I just finished a magazine holster for a friend. As you can see in the first pic, the base piece flares out to accomodate the belt loops. I burnished and polished the top portion of the box edges before stitching it to the base, then completed the edge work after. The finished edge took a bit of a beating during stiching, so I'm not real happy with it. I was wondering how you would have handled this. In the second pic, the arrows point to what looks like a dividing line between the box and base. It's not. The line is about half way through the thickness of the base. I've had this happen on several pieces now. It seems like as soon as I have one sanded out, another one appears. Any ideas why this might be happening? Thanks. Skye

Tina That's beautiful, as always. The boarder detail is killer. Love It! Skye

Like this, you mean? <g> Could have sworn I'd tried this, but maybe I'm just getting senile. Thanks. Skye

At the risk of sounding like one of the technologically challenged, (which I'm not, normally) How the heck does the Multiquote option in the posts work? I've twisted it's tail just about every way I can think of, and can only quote one post. I know it's probably something obvious and stupid, but I'm missing it. Help, please? Skye

A Dell, eh? Reminds me of when I lived in Forks, WA. (Yeah, the vampire town) there was a small computer repair shop that had a sign in the window: Dell - Thanks for the job security! Always got a laugh out of that. Skye

BobH, on 12 December 2011 - 10:57 AM, said: What do they call the group that preceded baby boomers? Geezers? Whatever, they call us, I are one. I was born in '42 and turn 70 next year. To solve the fine print problems, I bought an Osborne magnifying headband and use good lighting. I also have one of the clamp on lamps with a magnifying lens but have no place where I can leave it set up so I rarely use it. For all you whippersnappers, just wait! Well guys, I'm a boomer, but my poor bod has been abused sufficiently that I *feel* 80 or so. Anyway, in honor of the so-called "Golden Years", here's a little something I found a few years ago... I can't see, I can't pee. I can't chew, I can't s***w. My memore shrinks, My hearing stinks. No sense of smell, I look like hell. My body is drooping, I have trouble pooping. The golden years have come at last, The golden years can kiss my ___! Skye

Maybe it's the maker of the wool, but I've never found it necessary to burn it off. Just drop it in and give it a month to fully dissolve. Skye

Yes, it leaves a raised stitch line, but I don't think that these would be grabbed hard enough to make them uncomfortable. Not like the handle on a 100# suitcase. <g> Using relatively thin lace, it will lie fairly flat, hide the seam, and definately add some "zing" to the look. Check out this scroll case that Tina made: http://leatherworker.net/forum/index.php?app=core&module=attach&section=attach&attach_rel_module=post&attach_id=47924 She does *incredible* work. I can only *hope* to be as good as her one day. She used something more complicated than the double loop, but the effect is the same. Just my $.02. Skye

Nice work! Glad to see a fellow Okie on board. I was born and raised in Guthrie. Really need to get back home one of these days..... Skye

???? Pardon my ignorance, but what's a "rose engine"? Skye

Yeah, somehow I didn't really think it was a 5 axis hotrod. But self designed and built? You're a better man than me... Skye

Glad I could help. Skye

Hopefully, I can be of help. What kind of needles are you using? I use the spring steel needles that I get from Tandy. You taper cut the end of the lace, put it through the eye, then open the halves of the needle and sandwich the lace between them. There's a small tooth that locks the lace in place. Works quite well. I gave up on trying to make my own lace. I always had problems with the tensile strength of my lace being vastly infereior to the commercial lace I can buy. I'm including an attachment that shows the Double Loop Stitch. It actually pretty easy, and looks really good. I aplogize in advance for the quality of the jpg. The word doc that I took it from was a bit blurry to start with, and printing it then re-scanning didn't help any. But it's still legible. It's shown being applied to an edge, but it works quite well on butt joints, too. If it turns out that your holes are too widely spaced for the stitch, you can simply do a double-pass through each hole the way it shows to do on corners. Just be sure not to let any twists make their way in. It'll look like..... well, gents aren't supposed to use that kind of language..... Hope this helps. Good luck. I think it'll look awsome. Besides, if the girlfriend's happy, that's the main thing, right? Skye

Spinner As always, Skye

Yes, you *can* cut aluminum. Used to do it all of the time. Just make sure you have the right cutters and keep your feed rates very low and don't try to hog off to much at a time. How many axis do you have? Can you rotate spindle head? And, do you have a way of locking your spindle. If you can rotate the head and lock the spindle, you could make a fixture to hold an x-acto blade and make a progressive series of shallow cuts. CNC's are great for repetative precision movement!

I used to work in a shop where we CNC routed honeycomb composite for aircraft parts. We'd either put tape on the table side of the 'comb or use double sided tape / rubber cement to attach it to a backing plate for the vacuum fixture.

Ya know, if I understand what you're saying, I think maybe you've just solved a problem *I've* been having with a knife....

Good points, all. I did find black crystals collecting in the bottom of the jug. At first, I thought they were just some sediment that made it through the coffee filters, but they could very well be iron precipitate. I managed to get them to re-dissolve. There is no coating on any of the leather. I'm afraid I don't know how to judge the "openness" of the grain of a given piece. Even though all pieces were from the same hide, I'm sure there can be variences. I've found out that temperature *is* a factor. Warming the vinagaroon up to about 80 deg. sped up the reaction considerably. As to tannin content, one would think that a given hide would be reasonably consistant. Apparently this isn't so. I cut more test pieces and tried them out. These are all from the same hide, remember. The results varied from jet black to medium gray. The tea trick worked quite nicely, though <g>. Lovely little tannin booster. Thanks. Skye

I started my first batch of vinigaroon back in Sept. Loaded the vinegar with as much steel wool as I could get to submerge, then let it mature for a month. Filtered out the leftover wool and sediment and tried it out on some scraps from a hide I have. WOW! Instant, beutiful black in less then 60 seconds. I sealed it up and put it away to await my next "black" project. I just finished cutting out the pieces of a knife sheath, and thought this was a great time to use some of my vinigaroon. The leather for the sheath came from the same hide as the test pieces I used earlier. It took over a 2 hour soak in the vinagaroon to achieve the same level of black I'd been getting in 60 seconds about 2 months ago. What the heck??!! Does vinagaroon have a short shelf life? Could this be temperature related? Ambient air temp in here is about 60 degrees, with floor level temp (where jug was stored) somewhat less. Any ideas?

I've thought about that, too. I wonder how a set of laminated jaws would work out. Lay them up out of thin wood slices and epoxy. Still need to build a form, but much easier to shape than solid wood. I just wonder about the durability. Skye

Glad to be of service. Skye

The only thing I can say about your difficulty piercing the leather is that there's no such thing as an awl that *too* sharp. <g> The needle *should* follow the channel that you've punched without a great deal of pressure. I also notice that the holes you're punching are emerging from the underside of the leather. For the type of seam you're doing, the holes need to emerge in the cut edge, as shown in the attached illustration. Hope this helps. Skye

It does indeed! Just what I wanted to know. Hmmmm..... Acrylics over Vinigaroon..... Thank You! Skye