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bruce johnson

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Everything posted by bruce johnson

  1. My thoughts are that it depends on the compound and maker. I have found that within the green, black, and white colors there are variations between makers. One suppliers green can be greasy and spread and stick well to anything. Another maker’s version can be chalky and dry. Those do better with oiled leather. I found a maker that I like for wheels and strops and stay with them.
  2. Yes they are originals - rosewood handles and original Gomph name and size markings. The versions Gene made for Ellis had hardwood handles and a bit different shape.
  3. It is not original. Original would be marked differently and different handle. Gomph maxed out at a size #8 and 1/2 inch width. This is one that Gene Pepples made for Ellis.
  4. We are starting to pack tools for our booth at the Pendleton Leather Show coming up at the end of next week. I have missed the last 2 shows because of work schedules but ready to be back this year! If you are in the northwest please check it out. I can make it worth the trip with just free rulers, stickers, and candy. Seeing tools, machines, leathers, and hardware is a bonus. Here is a link with more information - https://www.pendletonleathershow.com/ We hope to see some of you there!
  5. Buckle up - this may be a long one.... Fact - CS Osborne has probably never sent out a tool that is user ready sharp by some/many/most standards. I have had vintage tools in original packings from 150 years ago that had square edges. Back then each worker had their idea of what they wanted an edge to be - low taper and thin or higher angle and "chiseled". Easier cutting at the expense of blade edge longevity vs more durable steeper edge with more force needed. These users had an edge preference and the company sent out tools for them to finish off they way they liked them. There were no hobbyists, beginners, trading up from entry level tool craftsmen. These were work-a-day tradesmen and they generally provided and maintained the tools they used themselves - much like a modern day mechanic. I have had some cool portable tool chests they opened up and set up to work, closed up and packed them home at night. These were the guys that were the Gomph, HF Osborne, Rose knife, and CS Osborne users of an era we will never see again. CS Osborne outlasted the other makers is all. The leather trade was vital for the horse powered society. Henry Ford and powered farming made the harness maker in every town less of a necessity and the demand dropped some. This went merrily along with tools being made on some level for tradesmen until most will say the 1950s. People got some free time and hobbies and pastimes became a thing. Some people took up leatherwork. Tandy was a major player and there were several other leather craft tool suppliers. Most of these catalogs and hobby shops also sold Osborne tools. Eventually they replaced them with lower priced options and something had to give. Osborne changed patterns for some tools (like leather creasers) and had to cut production methods and likely material costs to compete. The focus switched from competing with other makers to a quality standard for a professional user to a hobby price point standard. I don't have exact number of Osbornes but have handled over 15,000 vintage and used leather tools and my somewhat guess is that 60% or more have been CS Osbornes. These go from the 1860s up until something that could have been made last year. There was a dip at some point in quality on some things (that quality standard vs price point thing). My rule of thumb is rosewood handle tools are usually good, depending on the tool and guesstimate of age and experience - most of the ones past that are OK with a few exceptions that I have concerns with. Round knives in particular and I'll get to that in a bit. My beginning from the leather business to tool business transition was refurbishing old tools. A few years ago I sold some new mauls for Wayne Jueschke, that progressed into stamps and string cutters too. I sold a few other new tools as well but mainly refurbished vintage tools. I was buying Osborne parts from Osborne dealers. Problem was that I'd need 20 draw gauge shims, blades, or punch tubes and this place had 5, another had 3, some would order from Osborne and then resell to me as I ordered. I'd end up ordering from 5 places. It sucked. Osborne had turned me down a few years earlier as a dealer because I even though I had a business license I wasn't brick and mortar storefront and a few other factors. I finally tried again and they said "yes" to a limited scale that has since enlarged. So here I am... I started on a low level - mostly buying parts for my refurbishing side of things and selling a few of those parts as well. I was doing a little outside sharpening/resharpening for current customers then too. They would buy a new Osborne tool from a supplier because I didn't have it in a used or vintage size they needed. They would send to me to sharpen before they used it. After a few of those I'd get the "Bruce, Can you just order me these, sharpen them and send them to me. Can we cut out the middleman?" That is the reason that I stock the different new tools as I do now, and expand what I am stocking often by customer request. MY deal? I handle every new tool I sell. I have a work shop and the tools to do sharpening and finishing - variable speed knife grinders and buffers, wet grinders, polishers, sharpeners etc. I am not just stocking a box with a tool in it and mailing it out when it sells. The $8 fids? They come new with grind marks on the faces, and some have sharp points. I polish the faces and smooth the point. This is still an $8 tool when I am done. The hammers have squared edges and grind marks on the faces and heels - I go through the grits and polish them to be smooth and not mark leather. The rotary and single tube punches have the tubes removed, sharpened and polished. Some of the frames have a sharp square edge at the hinges and I polish that to be easier in the hand. The new single tube punch frames have the size numbers etched on them now. By request I can number stamp with a machinist punch for better visibility. Some of the punches come pretty sharp, some don't. They can come with some grind marks. I clean all that up and sharpen them. Every punch has been sharpened. I am going to say that I have seen an improvement in the factory edges overall in the last couple years. Some rosette punches may have burs, but none have flat edges like I have got in to sharpen in the past. Splitter blades - OMG - night and day. These bimetal blades are the nuts. I like them a lot. I touch up the edges for sure but man are they a step up from a few years ago too. Draw gauges - I am asked why I don't carry the new draw gauges. The quick and real answer is that if my wife unpacked a new cast metal handle draw gauge she would gut me with it. I likely have at least 50 cast metal draw gauges to clean up. Every estate and tradesman set I buy has at least 1 and often more. I just need to catch some time to do them. Nothing against the new ones, I just have a few totes of old ones to get ready to sell first. Round handled knives - these are utility knives. Shoe repair and stuff like that. Made to compete with the $10 green handle Hyde knives and were never intended to be edge-holding pass them to your grandkids knives. Basically use them, grind an edge, use them again until it was time to throw them away. I don't stock them but can order them. You can't expect as much from them as a custom knife makers trim knife. Round knives - OK the old rosewood handle Newark marked knives are generally very good. The newer reddish handled used ones I would get could go either way. Some were literally not much better than a sharpened can lid. They were on a par with the Tandy round knives. Total price point tool. I could sharpen one to a nice edge in under 5 minutes. That edge wouldn't last as long but that was just the deal with them. If I get them in a set, you will find them marked $20 or so on Ms Rundi's Table O' Bargains at the leather shows. I had a guy call me up a while back and placed an order. He wanted some other things and order me 4 round knives too. I told him he wouldn't like the knives. He said he didn't care - just order them. He was a saddle maker and in his ranch shop the workers would come in and grab his good knives and tear them up when he wasn't there. I have to order the minimum of 6 from Osborne. At least they won't take much time I am telling myself. Yeaaaaah. They came with basically not much of an edge - steep and gritty and not unexpected. These 5 minute wonders took about 25 minutes of slow speed grinding to get the bevel set and work through a couple grits. WTH?? Then I go to the wheels and through the compounds and final edge. Something changed from what I was expecting - these seemed to be pretty nice knives. I sent him his knives and didn't say anything. He made another order a few months later and we didn't bring up knives. He called me a few months again and said he needed to talk about the knives too. "here we go...". He wanted to know what the deal was on these knives. They are way better than other Osbornes he'd had. After these guys were using them the knives were still cutting. He tried one and cut a full saddle from HO and stropped once. His take was these were about like his custom knife he mostly used. He's a fan! Since then, I have sold quite a few more. Pretty much the same feedback from people who have used other good knives. these are better than the recent past ones. I never asked anyone at Osborne about it. At the Sheridan show this year I was talking with the sales rep for Osborne. We BS'd about some of the other tools and I told him about these knives. He said that it was an interesting observation and there was a reason. The new family manager for the company was taking some of the past criticism to heart and made some changes. One was that they went back to an older formula steel and process for the knives. In my limited experience, it is working. So- What is the bottom line according to Johnson? If you order an Osborne tool do not expect it to come using sharp from most places. If you want that, you have choices - sharpen it to your liking or buy something else from some off the grid tool makers and custom makers can make sharper tools for sure but at a convenience or price difference. Osborne makes production tools at production tool prices. They weren't finishing them off to a perfect using edge 150 years and generally aren't now with a few exceptions. If you get a tool that needs help and go on-line someone always says "Oh, just strop it" . Might want to be prepared for a long session if you follow that. You need to read the edge. It may just need a light stropping but it also may need some stones and compounds before stropping too. Sharpening is a learned and evolving skill. Do not expect a tool to stay sharp afterwards forever. Using the right cutting surface for punches and knives helps prolong edges but they are all going to need resharpening. If you cant resharpen, find someone who can. Am I saying every tool is perfect? Not in the least. I have had off shapes on end punches once in a great while. I have had loose handles. I have handled and sharpened these tools and still had a couple get by me with issues. I have had punch edges fold, stress cracks after a bit of use. Handles split. It happens. Shameless plug - If you buy from me, you deal with me. If you have an issue I am not sending you to the maker. I will choose to deal with them or eat it. I have used most of these tools in the past in my leather shop. I have an idea what they need to do and try my best to get them to be ready to use. After the sale - "Buy from me, I resharpen for free" (just the cost of return shipping). It is the same deal as my refurbished tools. My other disclaimer is that I am not doing outside sharpening right now for other tools. I still have a day job for another 238 days and limited shop time. Once I am retired I will probably be offering resharpening services for tools bought anywhere but just can't right now.
  6. Barry also makes blades with a 7/32” shank. You could always just ask if you could exchange it.
  7. Looks great. he’s a really good maker and one of the nicest you’ll meet.
  8. That one checks a lot of the boxes - steel bottom roller, multiple gears instead of two, and the hooks and shaft extensions aren't broken off. It has a wide wheel and likely used with an overhead line shaft for power. Some of them have a hole in one of the spokes to bolt on handle to crank it, some don't. Easy enough to correct. Would need a bench built for it and stirrup for pressure. User friendly - yes. Productive - depends on how much you are making but if any kind of production work - for sure. Collectible - not really. With the popularity of Biothane, the demand for these has dropped off a bunch. I have seen them bring $600 at auctions, $150 at others, and no bids/"please take it back home when you leave". Just depends on the day and who is there. Downsides - they take up a lot of real estate on the bench in a smaller shop. They don't ship very well. Unless they are taken apart and packed like Grandma's fine China you may not be happy on the receiving end. If they are left assembled, forget about shipping insurance because they will NEVER pay. The legs break off. The rollers are heavy and the weak spot is where the shaft meets the heavier center section. The road vibration can crack them right there even in a crate or bolted to a pallet. They call it shock damage and one of the many exclusions the shipping insurers have in their pocket to deny a claim. If I bought another to ship in or out, my estate sale would be next weekend because my wife would kill me.
  9. My first call tomorrow morning would be to Aaron Heizer at Makers Leather Supply in Elm Mott TX. Aaron is a Cobra dealer, leather and tool supplier, and teaches classes. He has a video on Canvas and leather bags a few years ago and may have done classes on them. Good guy and super approachable.
  10. I don't see that anyone has mentioned granite inspection plates yet. You don't need a tight tolerance inspection plate for stamping on. I started out stamping on the 8x12 marble that Tandy sold and when my first wife died, the headstone company gave me a second stone with a small chip defect on an edge. It was good - plenty of mass for good stamp definition and absorbed sound well. The only thing that made me give it up was I wanted a bench with the stone inset and squaring up the edges was going to cost a bit. I ordered an inspection plate from Grizzly. They had a deal with Fedex Freight for shipping that was a smoking deal to get it to me also. They have several sizes of no-ledge and 2 and 3 inch thicknesses.
  11. Just a generality and not for a specific place you mentioned because I have got leather from all three over the years, and several others. I have seen both versions of Tandy, Springfield once they spun off Tandy 1.0, and Weaver through the family and now corporate ownership. I have nothing against any of them - a few hiccups that were early on because I didn't know then to help them out. . These resellers are most often getting several grades of leather in a pile. The old rule of thumb used to be 25% good to great, 50% good, and 25% below good. They don't tan it, they just sell it. If you click a button and go to a checkout cart, good chance the order pickers/packers are going to just pull the top side of the stack - whatever that one is. Might be good, might be the bottom ender. I rolled those dice for a few years and got along, then tried another supplier I'd heard about. The phone rep asked me "what are you going to be making?". Umm rope can covers, nobody has ever asked me before.... "can you work around a brand?"...sure. I got a side with a rib brand that would have been problematic for belts, great for my needs on those rope cans. Another time I was making belts and needed several no-brand sides with no butcher cuts on the back above the break. Below the break could have tire tracks for all I cared. Told them that and I got nice sides with low breaks for good yield. Sometimes I was basket stamping the whole project and scratches didn't bother me, other times there were going to be open areas and I needed clean sides. The deal was I was talking to a live person and telling them what I was doing. That helps them and they get to know you. I called up Matt At Maverick Leather several years ago. I told him I had two saddles coming up and needed five nice skirting sides, at least two of them deep, and then the worst piece of crap skirting side he didn't want to look at anymore. He said he had a pretty good side he'd been cutting a few sample pieces out of. No need, keep cutting samples Matt. I want ugly to cut into little strips to test splitters and tool edges. That poor cow died from a bumper crop of ticks or several shotgun blasts. I leaned toward shotgun blasts because there were multiple brands. Likely a hooky old rip or a fence jumper. By golly we used her though and I helped him move subpar piece. Here is my advice - Establish a relationship with whoever you deal with. Not every project needs A-1 leather. If you are willing to take something less, they will remember that when you do need top shelf. My two cents worth of thoughts
  12. There were good makers and poor ones throughout history. I really don't think there can be much generalization. What changed is that most older saddles were made to a quality and durability standard for the most part with a few catalog exceptions (Sears and Montgomery Ward). When horses went from a tool to a hobby then some rider's expectations changed. Cowboys needed users. Casual riders were different. They wanted something affordable to go ride down the trail for an hour or around a ring, not 4-8 hour days. Enter the pricepoint saddles. Materials? Maybe the hides were thicker, maybe they were tanned differently. Some of those old guys talk about drowning your leather until it stopped bubbling, then put into a sweat box to case for a day to be able to work it. Was it any better or worse? Who knows. The fact is that leather is a perishable product and leather weakens over time. Would I strap a hundred year old saddle on now and trust the rigging - oh hell no. The cattle business has changed - younger cattle, less brands and scars, and smaller hides. Leather has changed and tanning has changed. Those old needle and awl machines and waxed linen thread held a ton of saddles together. Nothing to sneeze at there. Saddle trees. - some are fiberglass covered wood, some are rawhide covered wood, and some are molded composites. At one time you could not sell a fiberglass covered tree to a great basin buckaroo - had to be rawhided and some buyers were specific as to who needed to make the tree. Likewise it was a hard sell to get a Texas roper to buy a rawhide tree - had to be fiberglassed. Both are right. The casual rider either didn't care. They'd buy a brand name saddle from a store and not care what kind of tree it had or who made it. Makers - Those older saddles were generally shorter seats and had a pretty ground seat in them. They were made for longer day users. New ones from a quality maker - sure. Production saddles - maybe to no. Ground seat, stirrup set, balance points - they all affect the ride. You can sit in anything for an hour but 5 hours changes that equation. The good makers know that. Good ones were good then and good ones are good now. Horse's backs have changed, riders have changed, materials have changed, information explosion has changed a lot of stuff too.
  13. Wayne - The back side stitch in a closed eye machine will almost never look as clean as the top side straight out of the machine. That is yet another reason they make overstitchers. Bringing back a picture I did several years ago here for the forum. In the example below, the double layer was sewn on my 1245. The left side is the bottom stitch immediately after sewing. The right side is the same, but has been rolled with an overstitcher that matches the stitch length. That sets the stitches, and rounds them up by pushing down into the needle holes. The production stuff didn't get rolled much but once I got past that - if it was the back stitch was visible and my name was on it then it was rolled.
  14. You bet. Most of those old stamp rocks were not smooth or surfaced on the bottom. I was taught early on the put it on something besides a bare tabletop. One reason is to muffle sound but you don’t want something that absorbs a lot of the stamp force . One common suggestion is a sand bed. I had one bench I could do that with - worked great. I’ve also used poster board. My current rock is a granite inspection plate inlet into the bench. It sits on a matching size piece of 4 oz chrome tan leather underneath. It’ll never be pulled out but absorbs sound and stamp bounce.
  15. Did it for years. Diluted out Elmers about 50:50 with water. It makes a hard edge, not always the most flexible with that ratio. That was my mix for stuff that didn't need to flex - saddle horns, stirrups, belts. Wallets and things that flexed a lot I used Feibings LeatherSheen or an acrylic floor wax. With the Elmers especially you need to burnish with a wood slicker or white canvas. I found out the hard way that denim scraps from old jeans bled blue color into the glue.
  16. Fred - Nice modifications and upgrades on an old trooper. These originals are definitely the way to fly. When the knockoffs first came out I bought a few thinking I could leave them to set widths. It would have been a good plan if they would have been square. Maybe one was. When I get them in sets now, they go on Ms Rundi's Table of Bargains at the leather shows for $5. The more recent ones seem to be more square but once in a while I still get some trash can fillers. I set mine up with single edge razor blades too. Those blades will cut softer leather cleanly and I used them up to light skirting before I saw the light with a good plough gauge.
  17. I've got a Ferdco 2000 so essentially similar in many respects to a Cobra class 4. Also have a 1245 flat bed machine for strap work and small projects. Between those I could do anything I needed from interiors and card wallets to saddles. When I moved away from leatherwork to leather tools and my wife retired she took up leatherwork for fun and makes a few things to sell. She was intimidated by the 2000 and loves the 1245. She used a 26 in some classes she took at the shows the last few years. In January she decided she wanted a 26 and we ordered ahead to pick one up at the Prescott show in February. She loves it, and the side benefit is that it got her over the fear of the 2000 also. Bigger thread and more layers she might go to the 2000 now, but most of her bag and wallet work is done on the 26. She's using 138 top and bottom last time I checked.
  18. Back when I was shopping machines money was a factor. Any powered machine that could reliably sew a saddle was either a relic that came with a spare machine for parts or cost around $6000 to buy new. My dream machine then was and still is - Ferdco 2000 with the original diamond hole bottom foot and all the accessory feet and plates. Leased mine for 5 years and paid $1 at the end to own it. Added a servo motor when they became more available. Still tight after at least $800K worth of stuff through it.
  19. Looks great Kevin, I'm a fan of the look of snapping turtle as well.
  20. Probably so… LOL. I found these on a quick search.
  21. No, they are for using a mecate rein on a snaffle bit instead of flat reins. The rmecate is looped around the right slobber strap and through the hole and the knot makes a bind, the end is brought back to make a workable rein length and the tail is looped around and through the left side slobber strap with a bind over the tail, then brought back for the rider to tuck into their belt to use as a lead or a safety line to the horse in case you get bucked off. These are realistically a big country piece of gear. They are a weak link according to some to break if need be. Others want them a heavier for signal (the horse feels the slobber strap raise before bit pressure). Finally if the horse slobbers they help keep the mecate protected.
  22. I’m with Cattleman (and many leather knife makers) - cut on HDPE or UHMW, knives glide, don’t dig in and will turn easily. I probably fix 2 round knives a month that someone has twisted off the point trying to turn on self healing mats or LDPE. I like LDPE for a punch surface. Allows the edge to penetrate for a clean cut without damaging the edge. My opinion
  23. Looks like really clean work again Tom!
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