bruce johnson

Julia, I think it is due to the rigging ring height, not the 7/8 position. How far are these rings below the bottom of the bar edges? I am just not seeing a clean fix other than a do-over on the skirts. You wouldn't be the first to ever have to do that.

Jim, Happy Birthday, and thanks for all you have done.

Gary, I do them like you. I cut my leathers initially about 1/4" over width. Soak them until drowned almost. I get a little narrowing at the front end of the leathers when I stretch them on the board. I make the final cut to width after they have dried. After I assemble them I stretch them on the stretcher or drawdown. Usually a light case is enough to get them to hold shape then. I kind of preshape my fenders after stamping while they are still cased by loosely rolling them and letting them dry set to that shape.

Tom, I do a lot of stuff with big circles. My biggest problem was always getting a good circle on big stuff. We go to a lot of antique stores and one of the things we collect are things marked "Johnson" - Old Johnson Wax containers, Johnson fishing reels, Johnson soda bottles, etc. A couple months ago we went into a shop, and the lady told me right off the bat she had just got in a tool marked "Johnson" that I might want. I about tipped over when I saw a set of 24" Wm Johnson Newark NJ dividers - $7. Before that I used the string and nail deal to make big patterns. Smaller things I use pans, bowls, stencils, whatever fits.

Shelly, I was taught to use Sharpies for edges 15 years ago. The saddlemaker that showed me that, also was using them for background dyeing and lettering besides edges. I have used several brands over time, and have some favorites. I like the Pilot refillable carton markers in black for edges. Add extra ink to keep them moister than you might want for paper. I buy them and the refill ink bottles at a local office supplier. They have the "jumbo" nib and do a good job on most edges with one pass. I have some chisel point makers in brown also. I think they are MarksALot. Sharpie makes a nice fine and ultra-fine marker in brown also. I have tried some other brands and these are my favorites. One brand of black marker looked alright, but faded to a lovely purple color in about two weeks. I tossed those. I have found the normal Sharpies do a better job for me on leather (oiled or not yet) than the "industrial" Sharpies. The Industrials sometimes are a little streaky. I don't do much work with other colors. I have not had the demand or expectations for much color work. I had a guy a couple years ago who wanted a Bible cover with a cross in silver and old turquoise. The robin egg blue Sharpie marker on oiled leather gave me the turquoise color, and the silver Sharpie gave me the silver. I'll attach a pic for the example. Saved me messing around ordering color dye or acrylics, and gave a good durable coloring. I use the reds some, but not much else. With some of the reformulations and products being discontinued, I think we are going to have a lot of new things to play with. Part of it is going to be borrowing chemicals and finishes from other venues like the wood finishers and office suppliers. Plain carton and sign markers can be bought from a few suppliers. Beilers sell them. You can put spirit dye in them, edge dressings, what ever and slather it on edges too.

I use a Ferdco 1245 with the servo. Set up with Artisans gooseneck lamp and the L-shaped LED setup too. I have had it two years, and am waiting for it to skip the first stitch. It is enough like a home machine, Rundi is not afraid to sit down and run it either.

Elton, Happy birthday from Rundi and I. We hope you have a great day. Just take the day off, and tell everyone I said it was OK. Greetings to Candace as well.

Harvey, Finally a computer deal I sort of know. There seems to be a few ways to do it. A kid at Best Buy showed me. I had all the comprehension of trying to explain the futures and options market to some first graders. He finally gave up and went to "paint". Open the "all programs" deal (click the flag on the bottom left of the desktop) and find "paint". Mine is hidden in "accessories" with a lot of other stuff I don't know what they do either. Click on "paint". Have your scan or image somewhere you can find it. Click on the "file" tab and then "open...." Find the image or scan you want, and click it. Then you head a few tabs to the right to the "image" tab. Click that and you should see a deal that says "flip/rotate...." Hit that one and a menu shows up that gives you the option of flip horizontal, flip vertical, or rotate by angle. After I figured it out, I asked him if I could get a white shirt, funky black tie, and go to work there. They all laughed.....

Pete, For what it is worth, I packed a leaf bag full down into a box pretty tight. It weighed 13# with the box and shipped Priority for about $24.00. It was only about $1.50 less to ship Parcel Post. I am officially out of scraps for now.

I had a set of Ron's round bottoms. They were very good, but I spent the money and replaced them with round bottoms from Jeremiah Watt. Theyare good too. I also like Jeremiah's Vizzard pattern edgers for some things. My first grabs now are bisonettes though for routine edging, especially anything with a lining. I have bisonettes from Bob Douglas, Barry King, and Jeremiah Watt to fill the sizes I want.

Thanks for the compliments. I appreciate it. The silver centers are small engraved conchos from Hansens. They have a Chicago screw post on them and go through the lid. I use these little conchos a fair amount. They are not all that pricey and really dress up a piece instead of using a plain Chicago screw.

Harvey, 6). A new maul or two from Barry King or Wayne Jueschke 7). The florist advertisers have it wrong, swivel knives are the gift that says I love you.

It has been a while since I posted anything recently finished. The briefcase is one I bought and covered the front. It is secured with 3/8 HiDome conchos. I have done quite a few of these over the last several years. A reasonable alternative to someone who doesn't want a fully covered one. They hold up alright, I carried my last one for quite a while. I had one customer whose horse stepped through the back of his. I just attached the front to another one and salvaged that deal for him. I am pretty happy with the rope can too. I have dislocated my right thumb three times in two years. Doing any more than a couple floral elements was hitting the wall. I had some time out of the shop with remodeling and fixing up our place, did some physical therapy, and the rest probably helped more than anything. I did the can in one sitting and felt like I could have done another. This is the first full floral anything bigger than a checkbook I have done in two years. It isn't my best ever, but it is going in the right direction.

Bob, For another thumbs-down reason for Neatlac on a saddle. In a past life I was a nose to tail around the rail western pleasure rider. I used to religiously apply Neatlac and/or SaddleLac to my stuff. You reins get slick and your saddle is like riding a greased hog. I tried a little sock rosin inside my shotguns once. Made a squeak to end all against that finish. I drowned out the organ player. Dually, I have done a few of these. First thing is to apply a small amount of water or casing solution on the grain side of the fender leg. If it absorbs you can case it normally. Otherwise you may need to strip the finish to do it right. You can case from the back usually, but the dye for the letters won't penetrate on the front. I haven't had a problem with Tankote lifting Sharpie ink/dye on lettering if there is no finish under the ink. It will smear if there is a coating left on. I had been known to case from the back, and then sand the finish off the lettering on a Friday night drop-off/Saturday give away trophy saddle. Fine bullet shaped grinding stones on a Dremel can do it and not eat the grain. Dye and then seal it.

Confusin' ain't it? I was taught that look at the knife. If you continue the contour of the blade around with imagination. If it makes a circle, it is a round knife. If it makes an oval, it is a head knife. As far as a quarter being more/less useful than a full half circle. If you are using it to cut, you have two edges to use before stropping. If you are using to skive a low angle, you can get lower with the quarter blade without skiving your knuckles on the leather holding hand. For the knife safety experts, admit it, you all do this. You know you do. LOL. Now as far as blade geometry. I guess mine are mostly flat, but a tad bit convex at 1 to 1-1/2" or so back from the edge, then flat to the edge. I put a fine secondary bevel on the edge to keep it from rolling. I got really precise about thin edges one day. I sharpened all my round knives to skin gnats. First time I ran them through some skirting they went great for about a foot and hit the wall. The edges were so thin they were rolling or chipping. I called Herb French. That was the day I learned about backing up a thin blade with a slightly steeper secondary bevel. As far as where the blade goes from thick to thin, looks like they kind of slope off from the spine pretty much flattish. That seems to have worked the best on the Clydes and Osbornes I have had.

Not sure about blade thickness. My favorites are two. The old ones are made by Clyde Cutlery. They made a lot of kitchen and butcher knives. I think that the round knives are the only leather knives they made. I have heard they also made the Diamond Edge knives for Shapleigh. The knives sure look to be clones. I took the shoulders down some and like these Clydes a lot. A good balance of edge holding and ease of sharpening. Not sure when they stopped making them. I run onto them now and again. Quarter circle knives are nice for low angle skiving. The half knives give you two edges to use before stropping. That said, I got a new one from Bob Dozier last spring. Made from D2, the sharpest knife I have ever laid a hand on off the bat. I haven't done anything but strop it yet. He is in Arkansas. Nice guy to deal with. Be prepared for some sticker shock, and a wait if he doesn't have one made up.

Pete, My schedule is that I get up at 4:00, work solidly for 3 hours. My day job has enough breaks I can keep up with the forum and do paperwork for the leather business too. Get home, eat, work a few hours, case something for the morning, and that's it. After 24 years fo working mostly 6 day weeks, I now get a 3 day weekend every other. I don't use propetals much. I have the TLF and a couple homemade ones from screwdrivers. I have played with Jeff's at a show. If a guy uses them a lot, his are the real deal.

Pete, There are probably as many tooling sequences as toolers. I think I have an old Ray Holes catalog that showed Gerry Holes tooling a pattern. Pretty sure he undershot right off the bat too. I know some really good guys who undershot as the dead last thing they do. The Sheridan Style Carving book shows doing them right after the swivel knife. It also depends on how you use your undershots. Some guys hold them pretty steep and it is more of an undercutting. Heavy leather allows this. Others guys hold them so the bottom part is pretty much parallel with the surface and run them under and raise up, much like a propetal effect. Whose undershots and and what size makes a difference too.

Richard, The pictures really don't show how good these look after you do them. As far as doming the head. Shortish story. During saddle week at Sheridan in 2006 several of us on this forum were there. It seems like they'd show some little trick or tip about a tool not many of us had, lunch break came and we'd hotfoot it down to Sheridan Leather to pick one up. The most popular were the rivet sets and Bob Douglas slim blade awls. I hustled off with my pal Jeff and we got rivet sets. That night when my wife picked me up after the class, she saw Don's domed rivets. She asked him where he got them, they looked so nice. He told her about the domer, she told me I NEEDED to get one. One step ahead of you, honey. To this day she will show anyone who comes over, interest in leather or not, how much better the domed heads look. She will also fire up the drill press with the punch chucked in it and punch a few holes too. Those are her two favorite things. She will look at a saddle and the first thing she looks at is whether the rivets are domed or not. Yeah, they look better. The silver cap copper rivets I get will dome up nicely without damaging the engraving too. Mechanically. It sinks the edges into the grain a little. My old pal tells me back in the days of flat leather drive belts, these were used to splice skives together. The heads were flat and countersunk on purpose. They didn't want them domed up or sticking up. What I see sometimes on the ones not domed and installed poorly is the shank was bent when the burr was set and an edge of the head isn't flush. That little edge sticking up catches everything and wears whatever rides over it.

Kelly, You might also be referring to a small pocket sewn to the cantle back on straight up bound cantles. If so, I haven't done any, but have seen a couple on some of the repair I work I do. The ones I have seen have a molded pocket sewn to the cantle back before it is put on. The flaps had a tab and slot or keeper affair rather than a buckle. It is probably not any different than making a pocket for a set of doctoring bags.

Harvey, I don't see any problems with asking. The worst anyone can say when you ask is "no", and we've all heard that word from about the first time we hit daylight. Some people have propriety secrets (that may or may not be secret anyway) they won't share. To be honest I have heard a heck of lot about the secretive leatherworkers. I have been refused a direct technique question or advice exactly twice in 20 years. I have not always been told specifically how to do something, but left to figure some things out on my own.

Skip, Were you in there with us? I took that class at Wickenburg, and it was pretty fun. It was an interesting class, and I'd recommend it if they give it anywhere again. Like anything it is hard to put these styles into strict definitions since they have crossed over, borrowed from each other, evolved as time has gone on, and every practitioner of a certain style will do that style differently. Basically the California style as Jesse laid it out was more of the Visalia style - larger flowers mostly filling the circular elements, flowing stem work, matted background, and veiners on the ends of the stickers. Another "California" I like is the work of Ken Griffin. It is well worth it when you find his book. I sometimes wonder about the patterns we'd be seeing if guys like Ken Griffin and Al Shelton had been picked up by Tandy, or of some of the other guys in the belt book and early writings had gone on and done more.

Holy Sheepskin Scraps, Batman!! Actually Pete, many guys who build or repair saddles end with way more sheepskin scraps than they can ever use. I don't know about other guys, but sometimes I have a couple leaf and garden bags full. There are only so many things a guy can do with them. I look for innovative ways to get rid of them. They multiply worse than zucchini in the church pantry. Check locally first with some makers to save shipping. If not let me know and I'll see what I got.

Richard, Here are some pics of a scrap with some rivets in it. The one on the right is set by hand and peened with a hammer. The middle is set with Bob's peening tool, but the head wasn't domed from the other side. It makes a nice rounded smooth peen. The one on the left was set with the peening tool and then turned over and the head domed. Doming the head after setting the peen will flatten top of the peen a bit and countersink it some. You can also predome them by setting it into a punched piece of scrap, and letting the shank sit down in the pritchel hole of the anvil and dome it. Then when you set the burr, it stays rounded up more if you like that look or effect. I get less scraping by flattening and countersinking it a bit.

Max, For most personal carry stuff hardware, Ohio Travel bag is kind of one stop shopping. You can source a lot of what they have from the manufacturers or other distributers, but they have a lot in one place. Unless things have significantly changed - don't email/tell them upfront how you want to handle backorders. I get most buckles, rings, and snaps from Weavers or Walsall.