Mike516

I use a craftool strap cutter I got from Tandy. Not sure if the instructions were missing or if they just figure only yutzes (me) wouldn't be able to figure it out in 5 seconds, but I had never used one before so I was a mess the first time. Once I figured out how it worked, it's really pretty easy to use and as long as you have a sharp razor and a long straight edge to get the first line straight, it works great.

Ya, what electra said. I use craigslist mainly for stuff that's big or heavy that I don't want to have to package and ship. People do the "I'll send you extra to cover shipping" scam, the trying to pay with money order scam, "I'm out of the country but will send my agent blah blah blah" scam. There's a bunch of them. But the most common one is they mass email people a generic message saying something to the effect of; "Is it your item for is to sell. I will want to buy it" so you respond and wind up on a mailing list or start getting offers every day that you won a free ipad if you just click on "the link". I think it's called phishing? I call it, people have too much time on their hands. I put in all my ads now..."Please mention the item by name when you message me or the email will be deleted. Thank you." It doesn't stop the fake emails but you don't miss as many honest buyers who don't think to say more than "I'll buy it". It's not foolproof and I'm sure I've missed honest buyers but I delete anything that's too generic. I asked my brother how he can tell which emails are scams and which aren't and he told me I'll get to know with more experience. He was right, you'll learn to spot the fakes for the most part. Just be careful.

Craigslist gets a bad rep, to some degree deservedly. It's got its share of scammers but you get to know what to look for. You just have to be careful. As far as I know, they don't charge fees for anything, so not sure why they're asking for a credit card number. I don't remember giving a cc when I signed up. If you have any specific concerns, pm me and I'll tell you what I can.

LOL that sounds like a plan. I just painted some shene on a bracelet. If it looks half as good as GH's does, I'm set! Thanks for all the advice Sylvia.

Thanks Sylvia. I love GH, he reminds me of Mr. Rogers. He just needs new theme music, or at least a little variety I been using super shene on top of antiques, stains, dyes, etc (not in love with it btw) and after reading through some of the threads on this subject I ordered a bottle of reolene to try out. Will the resolene give me this effect also or do I need to use the super shene for the two tone effect?

I'm sure that sounds like a stupid question, but I used antique gel then the shene as a finisher and didn't notice a difference to the darkness of the antique. I'm just not sure what I did wrong.

So is it applied before you use the hi-lite and/or antique, then put the hi-lite over it?

I'm starting to go through the pains of figuring out dyes and finishes that work for me (have some spider webbing going on when I bend the leather after finishing), so I'm dredging through old posts for info. Just had one noob question about this thread...When you say you use the Satin Shene "as a block for antiquing" what does that mean? Thanks.

I was thinking about branding rather than stamping letters and numbers to get a straighter line on, say, a bracelet. I found something called Walnut Hollow creative leather branding tools. It looks kind of cheesy and I was more thinking about something you could insert the letters or numbers so they'd come out straighter. That's the only reason I'd brand anyway, because if I have to brand one letter or number at a time, I might as well just stamp them. So any help with a decent branding iron kit would be greatly appreciated. The one Tandy has looks like the WH one. Thanks. This is the kind of thing I had in mind but; 1) there's no manufacturer name for the item, which is never good imo, and 2) just the fact that the seller says "letter only 0-9" although it made me laugh, from a business standpoint it's completely ridiculous and there's no way I'd buy anything from them. http://www.ebay.com/itm/Specialty-Branding-Iron-Letters-Leather-Tires-Handles-Tables-3-4-LETTERS-ONLY-/260925287028?pt=LH_DefaultDomain_0&hash=item3cc05bea74

Well, I don't usually use either side of my brain, but I think your pamphlet is pretty cool. There's a lot of people who make a lot of money designing pamphlets and such, and I think you did a darn good job. The only thing I'd say is, good punctuation will make it look more professional.

I had been practicing tracing and carving and was about to buy some stamps when my father-in-law called me about a set of tools he found for 150 bucks. Nice guy he is he bought them for me. There's got to be at least 60 craft tool stamps, a rawhide mallet, an old old swivel knife and a bunch of patterns and scrap leather. The tools are obviously well used but they're in pretty decent condition and certainly good enough for a beginner. There's actually 2 tools in the set I'm not really sure what they are. I may try posting some pics and see if someone can tell me what they're for. I think one or both are edgers but I haven't gotten past stamping with a camouflager yet I have heard a lot of bad things about the chincy tools in the kits so I'm glad I put off buying them as long as I did.

Excellent! Thanks Sylvia I did not get a kit. All I have right now is a stylus and swivel knife from Tandy and they're good enough for what I need them for. I've read all the negative comments about the tools in the kits so I'm going to buy them separately.

Thanks Sylvia. I like the doughnut idea. I'm going to go with what I have for a while and maybe if I find that neither of these is big enough I'll do that, thanks for the suggestion. I really just started this week. I haven't learned to stamp yet, so I'm just practicing cutting straight lines, half circles and esses on a couple of really small pieces of scrap right now. I only have one nice square that I traced a simple pattern on, but I'm not confident enough to cut it yet. I have to work on my depth which is much better than it was and proper casing which I'm not totally clear on how to do properly. I tried to pm someone that mentioned an archived thread on casing here but haven't heard back and I can't seem to find it. Hopefully they message me back and let me know where they saw it When I get the rounders I ordered I'll be able to practice more.

Thanks WS. There's a couple of saw cuts at the top on the granite piece which there's nothing I can do about, but do I need to get too crazy trying to buff out the scratches? They'd only be an issue if they were deep like gouges right?

Please add me as well. Thank you.

Thank you all again for the advice. Basically, these are pics of what I ended up with. What follows is the story of how I came upon them, so no one needs read it, but this is what I found. I went to a couple of granite/marble places and right away, first place I go to, I find the Grinch that stole Christmas. Don't get me wrong, I had every intention of paying for whatever I could find. But the Grinch says to me she has to go outside and see what they have. I told her it didn't have to be anything special, not even a regular shape. She comes back and tells me she can cut me a piece from scrap unfinished granite 2" thick 2'x2' for $250! She says it would be cheaper if I would take marble 1 1/2' thick 1'x1' - only $150! I asked her if they had any broken pieces, anything they were throwing out I could buy and she tells me this was scrap she's talking about, they sell everything. I said thank you no problem and left. I don't begrudge anyone trying to make a buck but this seemed a bit off to me considering I could buy a perfect 1x1 from tandy for 50 bucks or something. So I find another place not far from here. I go in and the woman really doesn't look very happy. So I figure - ok, ask because you're here and get out before you waste too much time with the second grouch. So I ask for a small piece of scrap granite, marble, whatever they have. She says to me; "you mean you want me to cut you a 1 foot square from one of my big slabs out there?" I said: "No ma'am, I just want something you might be throwing out" (I'm always nice because you never know). So she asks me if I'm looking for a broken piece? YES! She tells me go take what you want from the dumpster out back. Man, if I didn't feel like a kid again, and all for a scrap piece of granite, or marble, who cares. I'd take whatever at that point. So, I go back there, and not to be greedy or dawdle before someone came out back and told me no, I grab the first 2 pieces that look reasonable and take off. As I was getting in my car, I decided I had to go back in and thank this woman again, and I think I surprised her by going back in there just to say thank you (especially because it's about 2 degrees out today) but it made my day when she smiled. They're a little smaller than what everyone here was suggesting, but I didn't want to dig around too long so I grabbed the first thing that looked decent. If I decide to try and find something bigger later, I can spend more time looking since I already have something to use if someone chases me away while I'm looking through their garbage The white marble has some scratches on it (it was in a dumpster after all) but I think it's ok for leatherworking, no? The surface on the black one is pretty clean, and I'm pretty sure it's granite, but I don't know a brick from a paver, so doesn't make much difference to me. So what do you all think of my score? PS. I'm pretty sure they're sink cut-outs so that's probably about the size they all were in there.

Cool, I will - thank you all.

Everyone is entitled to at least one a year Thanks for clarifying. Imagine I go get myself a 6" thick piece of granite and I'm like; "hey look at this pic of what I got guys!!!" LOL!

Ya. There's a place in my area where I bought all the pavers for my patio - I'll just mention I'm a returning customer . They sell granite there and I figure all places like that have scrap of some sort. The only bad thing is most of their scrap will probably be broken pieces and it'll cost more to cut it into a square than it would be to just buy a pre-cut piece from somewhere. I don't have any heavy duty tools so I couldn't cut it myself. There are several headstone makers around here also so that's a possibility but 6" thick? That's going to be pretty heavy even if it's just a 12"x12" won't it?

Thanks guys. I appreciate the advice.

I'll start by saying I'm just getting started in learning leather working. I'm working on getting some tools together I'm going to need for practice and have a question. I looked around the forums and saw a lot of threads devoted to setting up a shop, and different types of slabs used to work on. I couldn't find an answer to my question so I figured I'd just ask; What's better for a stable surface to work on, granite or marble? I'm going to go to a stone place I know of near me and I'll take whatever scrap piece they'd be willing to give me, but given a choice... Which is better, granite or marble? What's a good thickness? And what's a good size if I'm not making a whole table out of it? Thanks.

Hey, my long lost Nigerian uncle left me millions also. Maybe we're related! Come to think of it, I wonder where my check is

I like that Beautiful belt. Really really nice - a work of art. These are the kinds of things that are attracting me to this craft.