Shaunny Rotten

Thanks folks, I'll give it a shot over the weekend. On a side note, has anybody had any success with Shoe Goo?

I have a project that requires a seam with no stitching. I've always had less than satisfactory results when using glue in the past, however this seam will have to rely on it 100% It's 1/8" thick leather wrapped around a roughly 1 1/4" dowel and the glue surface is a scarf joint with a roughly 9/16" contact patch. Ideally I would like recommendations for a product available from Tandy as I have one close to me but if their products wont work I am willing to look elsewhere. Shaun.

Oltoot, thank you. You have pretty much typed out exactly what I was thinking.

I have some leather that has formed rather well in the past and has a lot of stretch to it. The hope is that I can stretch it into shape more than compress the extra leather down. What I'm going to have to do is (assuming it goes even remotely close to how I want it) soak the leather until it is completely saturated, tack it to the form and then draw it through the die plate, allowing the leather to dry while still through the die plate. The folds and extra bulk would have to be left on until the piece was completely dry, and then trimmed to length. The entire process sounds futile, I'm aware, however I'm willing to give it a try. Even if it fails I'll have learned something. As for the end use, It's part of an illusion for a magician I've known since high school.

I've had a request to make a seamless leather tube, roughly 1" in diameter and 2 1/2" tall made from 1/8" thick leather. I was thinking of cutting out a circle, with a hole in the center the same size as my dowel form and nailing the center of the leather ring to the form, then using various implements of force and destruction pushing the form and leather through a hole in a board that is 1 1/4" wide. The thought is that I can stretch the ring into a tube. Has anybody ever tried something like this? The easier way would be to just cut a rectangle of leather and scarf joint it using some contact cement to glue it together but that would still leave too much of a seam for my customer.

Dyed and finished.

The bags are 20 mil thick

I'll try to get you that information by the end of the day.

This one was around 4/5 oz. I'm still pretty new at leather work so I used what I had on hand. Triage, enjoy.

They hold up great. I know quite a few people who use them for woodworking of various descriptions. Mostly making skateboards and longboards. Wood can beat the tar out of vac bags and these ones stand up repetitive use like no other. Most of the systems that I've seen on the market try to keep costs down by giving you a crappy bag and a mid range electric pump, however these bags are top notch. The pump that comes with it could draw enough vacuum to suck start a harley.

I got the kit from a company in Toronto called Roarockit. It's their Thin Air Press kit with a 26x28 bag. It's a manual pump that draws a better vacuum than a any of the electric pumps that I have used. The kit can be found here: http://www.roarockit.com/proddetail.php?prod=01301

This morning's progress. There really isn't a lot of depth to the detail on this rubber gun. For instance the ejector port is only set back from the top of the slide by about 1/32" The left side of it is fairly plain and I am really happy with the amount of detail that the bag was able to produce. The only forming that I needed to do manually was right at the front of the trigger guard but I figured that I would need to do that anyways. This is one of the most effective vac bags that I have used' date=' and it's also one of the most inexpensive I've ever found. As for the shape, I'm sure I went wrong it a few places and I'll be sure to address those issues in later designs, however this was merely supposed to be a test of the vac bag on leather. The gun clicks into the holster quite nicely and there's no worry of it falling out. Most of the time it draws smoothly however every once and a while it jams in there pretty good and I need to use two hands to remove it from the holster. [/color']

Simple holster I am currently working on, threw it into the vac bag to see what happened. I like the results so far.

That looks great What method did you use to form this?

Credit where it's due. This is the instruction set I followed to create the holster template.http://leatherworker.net/forum/index.php?showtopic=19338 Thanks Rohn

I've been doing this for a few weeks now and I think I'm starting to get the hang of cutting and basic forming of leather. So far most of my attempts to colour and stamp leather have not turned out as I would have liked them so those pictures won't be posted. However here are a few that I have done that I am proud of. This was the first project that I did, and aside from a minor ripple on one side of the piece I am quite happy with the way that it turned out. The pattern that I made fit perfectly and it provides just the right amount of grip on my shoulder. Second we have two gun cases that came out much better than I had expected them to initially. Made some mistakes along the way but that's what learning's all about. Here's a SASS rig that I put together. The fit isn't as great as I would like it, and there are some major changes that I'm going to make to the next one, but considering I put it together in 24 hours and it works well I'm happy enough with it. The part that I was really concerned with were the holsters. I followed a pattern making template that I found on here (OP's name escapes me at the moment) and our pistols fit perfectly the first time round. Snug enough that I can walk around all afternoon with them with no concern of them going anywhere, but they draw quickly and smoothly every time. Lastly this is nothing special, however it is going to be a daily use item for me. I do tree work and I don't always have the option of coming down from the tree when coffee shows up on site, so I made this to get the coffee up to me. 4" wide, 5.25" tall, fits a 20oz coffee cup. Handle is set with medium double cap rivets which allows the handle to rotate out of the way for easy access.

It sounds a bit strange but a metal shop will have the right tools for this job. They can clamp the solid block into the lathe at one end, and turn the entire piece, inner and outer, without having to move the piece. This will ensure that the wall thickness is even and your outside edge won't be offset, or egg shaped.

By my second trip into tandy the $35 membership had already paid for it's self. It doesn't seem to make an enormous amount of difference on the smaller tools, but walk out with 40 feet of leather tucked under your arm and you'll be happy you spent the money earlier rather than later. Right now they are also giving away one free tooling punch just for being a member.

Hello all, Another Ontarian here. I've completed a few projects thus far. Two gun socks, a shotgun butt wrap and just recently a Buscadero holster ring, all for SASS shooting. No engraving or carving yet but that will come soon. oh and reaper, tis a great view eh?