Neillo

That's one helluva bottle! is that a bass or trout on the back?

Nice work, no problems with the dye leeching out of the flesh side? I made a Kobo cover for my wife too, kinda like a black mailing satchel style, went with kangaroo lace to tie it up as i had no snaps at the time!

Not sure if they're the right size, but sheridan leather sells them. the #215 Snap is what it's listed at, $11.50 each.

Yeah, i know a lot of people that swear by them! Maybe you could offer a wholistic kind of service where you not only provide the strap, but the locks too and fit new strap buttons to the guitar as well, alls you need is a phillips head and the parts!

Very immaculate piece of leather work; did you by chance painstakingly hammer finish and then highlight all of the panels and strap on this bag?? EDIT: And for the record, I carry a self made "murse", But I prefer to call it a "manbag." Sounds a little more like "handbag," but with added Barrel-Chested, Flannel-Shirt-Wearing Manliness points...

Ingenious use of a food vacuum! Yeah I feel the pain of hand stitching edges together like that, I always opt for whip stitched kangaroo lacing instead; I can always make it look better than I can stitching! Brings a bit more elegance on small items if the contrast is right..

Very nice strap, I keep reminding to make myself one; with a super wide shoulder pad padded with merino shearling, so fuzzy! Do you design the straps specifically for use with strap locks?

Welcome to the forum ben! It's been a great help to me for a while now in my early stages, wet forming was a pretty brave thing to take on, good on you for giving it a go! I'm from adelaide also, i'm always looking for excuses to make leather goods for myself and friends, it kinda... grows on you. If you haven't already discovered them, there's 2 good stores in the metro area- D.S. Horne in Greenacres and Adelaide saddlery supplies in the CBD, they're both great for advice you should you get stuck and need some face to face time with a pro. Good luck and tight stitches ben, Neill

Hi Josh, I'm no expert on swivel knives, but I can share a bit of knowledge from my straight razor days. General opinion dictates that thin horse butt leather mounted on float glass or MDF makes a very fine strop, All that's needed to charge it is Flexcut, chromium oxide and oil paste, or rouge (in order of metal cutting speed) You can always go into sub micron diamond pastes and the like for stropping but i'd assume that the BK swivel knife has a blade made from good steel, are you cutting on any thick tooling leathers or making deep, high angle cuts?

Hey Mate, Love the 2 piece design, functional simplicity always gets my vote! And of course, very nice stitching and finish, is it an oil or spirit based dye?

Hey guys, thought i'd pitch in on the subject after much research into building a bench for woodworking. the way I planned mine was to make the height of the benchtop about 100mm/4" lower than my elbow joints while standing. This way, i have great control over my tools due to being slightly lower than my elbows. I'm working on a stool that allows my hands to be at the same level when sitting so i can do more delicate work. Oh, and a top thickness of 1 3/4" - 2" helps a lot! i do all my stamping over the leg joint of the bench corner, works a treat.

Very nice indeed! I can relate to double loop lacing frustrations for sure! Does hair-on hide need to be sealed in any way? It strikes me as the kind of material you wouldn't want to get rained on.

Depends on what the finishes are made of i guess. I, for one, have no clue!

"Leather Tea" sounds tasty, maybe something to prepare for your guests someday! I was thinking of using a light oil and starting off cold with the item in, then bringing it to temperature and holding it there, much like you'd make a stock in cooking; the theory is that the leather would get a chance to open up as the oil heats up so it could wick it up over time. I might try this with my really thin camellia oil for starters, got plenty of it left over!

Sylvia to the rescue! This is kinda what i had in mind, but didn't know if the leather would survive hot oil or wax! Will give this a go and see how it turns out, would be fun experimenting with what temperatures are needed for the liquid to penetrate the leather. I've seen some luthier tour vids where they submerge the pickups in 140 degree wax for 24 hrs to get the beeswax into the pickup windings, so i'm sure that leather would be even harder to get the same penetration! How's those pick holders coming along anyway?

Winterbear, I'm not sure latigo is in good supply in australia, at least i've never seen it at any of the merchants i visit. I have seen some oil tan kangaroo, ox and cow leather that a friend makes mocs from; that stuff seems to hold up well but as you mentioned, it sacrifices tooling ability to use something pre tanned using oil. I guess also, finding good care products for veg tan seems to be difficult around these parts, i've been looking for a rich oil and wax product like Obenaufs etc but had no luck!

Ok, it seems that immersion is a no go. What would be the closest, perhaps giving the leather some sort of warm oil bath or similar? I guess in theory, you could replace all of the air in between the fibres with oil or a pliable wax and lose some of the flexibility and suppleness to gain water resistance, that's about all I've thought of. Might get some scraps and "infuse" them in some warm, thin oil overnight and see what happens. I know that purposeful immersion of leather goods will destroy them without a doubt, so for holsters for diving and other watersports, leather is out of the question, my idea is to make something where you could get caught in a rainstorm or accidentally drop the item in a pool etc and be able to salvage the item with air drying and oil or wax treatment.

Hey boys and girls, I've been messing around with a few different finishes lately and not been having all that much luck. I know finishing is a very big topic for discussion and also a very personal one; but I wanted to pose a question.. Is there any way to treat veg tan OR chrome tan leather to make it so waterproof that even after submersion in say, salt water, it'd be able to be dried and restored without much difficulty? I've heard of Obenauf's, mink oil and various others but have only had a bit of time and money to test these. I'm looking at making some VERY tough leather products that can withstand survival situations and other such abuse. The question comes from when i was beach fishing and seemed to have ruined my leather sandals, got me thinking! -Neillo

Interesting concept! I'm slowly amassing tools for a workshop and would love to be able to cut leather that quickly, a friend of mine uses a jigsaw to cut all of his buffalo shoulder for armoring with good results. Using a bandsaw with a reasonably fine blade, like 14tpi and up could get a reasonably clean cut. but to make less work for myself; i'd probably get a 22tpi or similar blade just for leather. Probably the biggest issue would be the bottom guide for the blade being too big and trying to pull the leather through it, resulting in a cut that isn't 90 degrees, you could solve this by making a zero tolerance insert for that specific blade. If you felt lazy or didn't have the cash, you could always sharpen the spine of an existing blade into a knife edge, but i'm not sure how well it'd work. I've thought of a few jigs to cut leather, but a bandsaw would be the cheapest and most low maintenance solution of you already have a bandsaw, but you'd want to make sure you have dust collection!