bruce johnson

Wolvenstein, I used to store my stamps in 4x6 sections of fencepost that I cut to length to fit into tool boxes. I drilled the holes in the grid pattern, and it worked out just OK. Whenever I got new stamps, I had to the left shift/right shift to make a place for them. I would take some out for my working rack. When I put them back, invariably I would forget one, start in the wrong hole, and not have room for everyone. PIA to keep organized, had to open 3 boxes to get all I needed for one project, but they did look nice. I went to a more open system. I bought a stack of plastic juice cups on the aisle end display at Target, drilled a hole in the bottom for the pegboard organizer to go through and hung them up. I sort them by type of stamp only now. The old guys used to use soup cans on their bench, my stamp bench is a little shy on space so this way works out for me. These are my most used stamps. The extras that I can't quite part with yet are rubberbanded together by type and kept in an old tacklebox. The only problem with my system is that I have a few stamps by one maker whose stamps are about 3/16" shorter than most, and they tend to hide under the others in the cups. Probably ought to just put all his together in one cup. I have a little block holder for the project at hand. Usually 10-20 stamps are out, and then they go back into the cups when done. For travel, I made a little rollup bag to carry the stamps and knives. My tooling neighbors at the Wickenburg classes gave me crap about having an 18" strop, and then carrying tools in ziplock bags. Since one guy was going to be at the Elko class too, I made it to shut him up. I attached pics of my wall, the at-hand block, and the tool roll.

Randy mentioned lasering on quotes, and for vegtan leather I think it works well. I am attaching a pic of an item we bought last year. If you are doing very many of these, looks like lasering is the way to go for me. I recently did a planner with pretty small lettering and a logo. It was too small and detailed for knife work. My neighbor has a laser and it worked out well. Johanna mentioned foil leaf, and I have a bit of experience with that too. Several years ago I had an order for some report covers, and "souvenir" coasters for a meeting. They wanted dark chrome tan leather, a logo, and each director's name on them. A local printing shop had the equipment and did it for me. They have since moved out of state, but I did have a local Christian bookstore do some foil names on a couple things since. They have a lettering foil press set up for doing names on Bible covers. That might be a suggestion too. I think their press handled up to a little bigger than business card size. If a person knows what they are doing, and looks around, there are several models and price ranges of foil stamping setups, I just don't have the demand.

Ryan and Calleather, The electroforming deal sounds kind of neat. They don't give that processing away. but like you say for 4000 pieces, that dilutes it out quite a bit. I found the info and sample on the stuff from Reno. It is a hard plastic material. The design is pretty crisp, probably lasered, and like I said the price was good. I think it was priced for one or several designs on the sheet. This company exhibited at the last LCSJ show they had in Reno. It was Nevada Rubber Stamp Company. This stuff is a dark amber to greenish looking color and hard. They stuck it on a wood block and used a hand arbor press to press it into the leather when they demo'd it at the show. I don't know of anyone who has tried the magnesium embossing plates, but it looks like it is not handwork so might be priced OK and should work. With all the different people getting the laser engravers (Ryan, our neighbor has one), there are more sources for getting that done too. I know Richard and Jeff both laser maker's stamps out of delrin rod, and they seem to hold up really well, and are not all that spendy. The detail on some of my press plates is pretty impressive. Some of my delrin plates have quite a few pressings on them, and they are still good.

The cutting plates I have are more for use within a pattern or outlines, not doing a whole pattern if I understand what you are asking. I have outline plates, some people call them cheater stamps or plates, that will press just the outline of a flower or leaf. Gore used to make them, I think the stamp place in Las Vegas may still do them, probably others. Basically they make a reproducible outline, every flower or leaf is the same cookie cutter pattern. The line stands up enough that you can lightly press them, and they make "reverse" tapoff. The lines in the leather are depressed instead of raised like with a regular tapoff. If you press or tap them with enough force, they will cut the line, replacing swivel knifing for that element. I have most of these in metal, and a custom flower or two I had done in delrin. The delrin is cheaper than metal. He makes a master from the delrin on the laser, then uses that to make the pour for the metal plates. I think Jeff does the reverse tapoffs (lower lines), but not cutting plates. The pressplates I have are three dimensional. I have all of the standard rodeo events, plus cutting and the "kneeling cowboy at the cross". These are dimensional, and make a 3d impression in the leather. Some people refer to these as embossing plates. I have them in delrin and some metal too. Richard Fletcher does these custom also. I don't know if Jeff is doing the dimensional plates. I know that the bigger saddle companies using clickers and then heavy presses and embossing plates for the whole design like on a fender or jockey. These are pricy. Richard Fletcher has/had some plates for checkbooks and maybe wallets. I tend to remember them as being outline patterns though and not full embossing plates. A while back he would do custom embossing plates, but you needed to have a bunch of the same orders to make it pencil out as the user. At one time I was looking at an order for 150 dayplanners with all the same cover. I think he quoted me about $700 for the plate. That would have been great and worth it in time savings, but the order fell through for other reasons. I have seen some of the embossed basket stamp patterns. They never get the impressions round enough, and it never looks right to me. One of the guys who used to work for a big saddlery told me that they can press florals or oaks and add some cuts to make them look pretty real, but they can train a chimp to basket and it looks better than pressed baskets.

Ryan, I have some press plates that are cast metal, some in Delrin. I think Delrin will work for what you are needing. The guys with the laser engravers can do them with Delrin. A couple are Richard Fletcher (www.leathertool.com) or Jeff Mosby (www.greyghostgraphics.com). Call me on this. There is another guy who just got a laser engraver, but I don't know if he is up and taking orders yet, and so don't want to steal his thunder until he says so (and he gets my other stuff done). There is also another material that some places have tried, a tannish colored hard plastic that is light activated and makes a 3D plate. Supposed to be good for about a hundred pressings at least. A few years ago, as many as you could fit on an 8-1/2x11 sheet for about $100. The Delrin will outlast it. I'll see if I can find their contact info. They were in Reno.

Darcy, I like reading and talking this stuff. Good points, and just a little clarification. My questioning conventional wisdom is a little tongue-in-cheek. I am not real old, but am kind of a student of history, and have read and seen examples through the years. The individual sadldemaker is probably a pretty recent phenomenon. In the glory days, the shops produced the higher caliber saddles - Visalia, Hamley, Porters, and such. Hard to name many individually made saddles stamped with a makers name from that era with the same weight as a shop saddle. Saddlemakers may have moved around, but when they built saddles it was mostly in a shop, with the shop's name on it. The shops (production saddleries) lived on their reputations and tried for the best employees, best materials, and generally put out a better product. The guys buying from them were serious horseman, and demanded it. Saddle were also sold by Sears, Montgomery Wards, and other in lower quality, but the buyers and sellers knew it. When leisure time came in, and horses became a hobby and recreation, so did factory saddles. Horse were not used as hard, and saddles became a price point item rather than materials, workmanship, and quality first. It opened the door for the individual maker to cater to the market that wanted quality. That is where the guys we look up to now developed their name and reputation. The roles became reversed, and the production saddles became second fiddle to the individual maker. Unfortunately for many of the customers and new makers today, Circle Y, TexTan, and Billy Cook are the yardsticks. New people are taking up horse activities - team roping, barrel racing, cutting. Pay enough and buy a good horse, have them trained, lessons form the trainer, and go after it. These are the guys riding the trees "with room to round up into", shallow cut Arizona bars, fiberglass strainer seats, embossed tooling, running stitched bindings, and the like. These have been around long enough, they are now accepted as the norm, and good technique by some. For a lot of the new makers, that is all they have seen, and is accepted as conventional wisdom. Personally I think the best thing to happen in the last few years was for a reasonbly popular "name" production maker to sell out to Equibrand. They raised the price to $2500, farmed some of the work to Brazil or someplace, and put out a lower quality product. Makes it easier for the guy who is starting out to justify raising the base enough to make something back and get experience. These middle ground guys are not a threat to the upper level makers, and I doubt Equibrand is particularly worried either. But they are the guys who the new tools, shows, and resources are pointed at. Dale Harwood, Jeremiah Watt, and others didn't make those DVDs to sell to Don Butler, Troy West, and Chuck Stormes, there is a middle market segment that wasn't there 10 years ago. That is where a lot of us are coming from. Whether we will go on, become fulltime and hit the upper 20% or make two for ourselves and quit, time will tell. I am on another forum that deals with boot making. I will probably not make boots but they are really philosophical and I like to follow them - traditional back to the 1600s or to 2007 depending. But they are in much the same condition as us. There are 2 week schools, DVDs, forums, classes, and such. They are handmaking a product, and having foreign factory competition. There are not the numbers of new young people coming into the trade to make $3000 custom boots, but there are the midlevel makers learning from the high end. It is middle-aged hobby or retirement age guys mostly. Celastic and some man mades are viewed as "conventional". a real parallel.

Good Topic, Denise, I would probably wager that due to books, videos, classes, and a more open attitude, there are more individual saddlemakers on some level than ever before. Saddlemaking has followed leathercrafting (and all crafts for that matter), and moved from a vocation to a hobby. Until the mid 50s and 60s most people were making a living at their "job", not going home from a job to make a wallet, belt, or saddle. The information explosion in the last 20 years has accelerated that. Twentysome years ago, I had some free time one winter. I learned to handsew my own repairs, stamp a little, and watched over some guys' shoulders as they built saddles and did repairs in a shop. I didn't ask too many questions, but did learn from what they shared. Some water under the bridge since then, and some mangled leather. As time progressed I got more into it, and have only had one or two guys flat refuse to help me. Some guys feel threatened with sharing, and some guys feel like they are passing on what they were taught. Some do it willingly, and others paid for their education with time and/or money. You can't expect to learn everything for free, nor should it be closed and carried to the grave either. The answer is somewhere in the middle. This is not unique to saddlemaking - horse trainers, silversmiths, knitters, quilters, fishermen, and golfers all do it too. There is a difference to some guys with questions being distracting or questioning the conventional wisdom, and a sincere quest for "I don't know, and if I don't get it soon, everything that builds on my ignorance is too much". As an example for saddle week at Sheridan. I was there last year, as was Mike Craw, David Morris, and Go2Tex, maybe some others. The first year was 60 guys in chairs sitting for 10 hours daily or so watching of 5 people making a saddle. The next year was reportedly a little freer with getting a closer look. The year I went, I didn't know what to expect. First morning we were sitting there. Two hours later, nothing was being done on saddles, one guy was asking a lot questions, and I was thinking " Five hundred dollars for this, shut up already, and let them get on with it!" I realized that I was learning more from his questions than watching a guy cover a horn at that point. Ok, Bruce - patience. They kept it going, did build the saddle in three days and some change. We spent the time getting up and standing around whoever was doing the most interesting thing to us at the time. I spent more time with flat feet than a flat butt. A lot of questions with the instructors, probably learned as much again from each other, and shared a lot of philosophy of life - "Don't weaken NOW!" Biggest things I see are the books videos, and classes available. People who never would have thought of building a saddle can make a stab at it. There are fulltime big-time saddlemakers and the guy who will make two. If he makes two better ones because of something that someone helped him out with - that's as good as it gets. Now what I see as some problem areas. Materials and tools. With more guys making saddles on some level, there are choke points. Tools have changed. Some are better than they used to be, some are worse, and some aren't made anymore. Some guys need a rack of tools, and if you watch Bruce Cheaney's videos, a pocket knife, strop, hammer, and some pipe nipples and fittings to make a drawdown about do it for him. Some of the not-made-anymores show up on ebay, estate auctions, and Bob Douglas' tables. There only so many of these oldies that are out there, and more guys wanting/needing them. Same with materials. As an example, I guess we don't need to tell anyone there is a shortage of handmakers of trees. Some of these customers riding grandpa's old saddle want a new one. Ideally we would all like to stick Dennis' cards on their horse, call up Rod/Ric/Bill/Ben/whoever and order one and have it in a few months. Real life, not everyone can do that, and the guys looking for trees need to know whose would work better, even if not ideal. Even the basest current production tree might be an improvement over what these customers are riding now. Since we all have different backgrounds, expectations for ourselves, customer economics, and customer expectations, there can't be a single right answer. Hopefully we can be pointed to some closer choices. I have had some good people help me with telephone questions, going to their shop, classes/books/videos/DVDs, and the sharing here. I have paid for some of it, some has been free, and all is appreciated.

Ed, Yessir, it can get red. Must be some kind of oxidation reaction to air or metal. Should have told you, what I do now is to line my lube pot with a small plastic bag. Stick it in, and fold the sides back over the top edge of the lubepot and fill it. I haven't had it discolor in the bag as much (it still will a little), but easy to lift out and replace if need be. I figured this out after taking the pot off and washing it for the 4th or 5th time. LOng enough ago that I forget some of the learning curve.

One other consideration is the name itself of your business. If you don't use your name, then some places require you to file for a "fictitious business name", and have different hoops to jump through. In some areas you have to use your complete name (like mine is "Bruce Johnson Leatherwork") in the business avoid that. Bruce's Leatherwork or Johnson Leatherwork would be fictitious in some jurisdictions. By using my whole name and having the business at home, I can have the same phone number and have Bruce Johnson Leatherwork as part of the answering machine greeting, and it works. If I was Snaffle Bit Saddlery, it would be harder to track me down. I would need a business phone listing and that expense. Some suppliers won't sell to you if you don't have a separate business phone, storefront, and/or posted retail hours but they have been few for me. Weavers equine side stands out in memory. I had one company that told me that, and then we got to an agreement. Since I only wanted one or two things they sold, they agreed to sell to me those specifically with a minimum/maximum order deal. Anything else was straight retail and on another order and shipment. UPS is always a little iffy on whether I am a business or residence. The criteria seems to change with the day. Attached vs. not attached to the house? Signage visible from the road? The best one driver told me was whether there was a bathroom in the shop, or is it in the house? My bank required a business license to open the account, but treats me well. Like Kevin said, I can transfer with a click. I can keep everything separate. One of the best things was when I first got my business license. At that time there were small business advisers similar to SCORE. Retired guys who liked to help out fledgelings, invitations to seminars, that sort of thing. I think I got a year or something like that - the golden period when most new businesses fail or set themselves up to fail.

Kevin, Yep, I think about them constantly, as in, will it ever rain here so we don't have to feed? Why did my son decide to buy a few bred cows to trade? Well, we did have some feed then and they were cheap. There are a couple of allied threads considering our bovine hide donors in the "Off Topic" section. One has to do with the best steaks, another is suggested bumpersticker slogans for meat producer groups to consider. I drive a card-carrying "Beef - It's What's For Dinner" stickered pickup. I come from a cattlefeedin', packer buyer, upper midwest family, and my son is an auctioneer/cattle buyer.

As some of you know, I am the board president of out local cowboy museum. We were recently contacted by an older maker who wanted to donate some of his work. We get these requests from time to time, but this one is different. This guy is from North Dakota, and his shop is 6x10 with bars. He is 76 years old, and he won't be changing shops. He is limited on tools obviously. This first saddle he sent us has a 2-3/4" seat and a 7/8" gullet. He based it on the California equitation seat western saddle. Obviously his tooling is a bit large, but he is working with what he has, and I am sure age is a factor too. He made everything but the hardware. He wove the cinch and made the stand. Everything pretty well lines up the way it should, and is to scale. We have quite a few saddles from different makers, and are glad to have work from this maker too. I attached some pictures.

Mike, As Wolvenstein pointed out, each state is different. I think the biggest reason to get a business name, license, the resale certificate is to be legitimate. Before I go any further, being legitimate has nothing to do with the quality of work produced. The business name and license shows customers that you are serious. It costs a nominal amount of money here, something like $50 for 2 years. Even for home businesses it is a plus. I also have a resale certificate. What an advantage. I can order from suppliers who deal with wholesale accounts only. I get preferred wholesale rates from suppliers that also sell retail, but would charge to join their club to get the same rates. Sometimes business rates that are lower than wholesale. The resale certificates are no cost here. Many craft and trade shows around here want a copy of the certificates to exhibit. I do have a separate bank account. It is a low activity business account. Lets me write about 15 checks a month and unlimited debit transactions for $5 a month. The separate account and bookkeeping are one of the factors the IRS looks at to establish hobby vs. "real business". Here at least you don't need to have a separate phone number. The down sides. I have to keep records of my business. I am anyway. I collect sales tax on retail sales, I don't charge it. Collecting sales tax in itself I have found adds legitimacy to your business. I get it every place I buy something for personal use. Makes you look a little more "real". It is also really nice to have these things in place when you get a big order away from someone else. This happened, and I had my ducks in the puddle, a week before he turned me in. My sales tax is due once a year. MY chance to live on the government's money for a change. You have to keep income tax records and in my case, file a Schedule C with my income taxes. The records needed for this I keep anyway. TurboTax does it in a flash. Income tax? Yep, I also look at business deductions. I can write off mileage to get supplies, even though I am going to Walmart next door anyway. I can write off travel to things I am going to anyway, they have a tradeshow and I am meeting a customer there when I was doing wholesale - market research at the very least. Trips to leather shows like Sheridan or Wickenburg - the whole expense comes off. Dues, magazines, books, DVDs, tools all are deductible. Some equipment purchases can be depreciated, others you can take a 179 directly against income. Lets me build up equipment and skills at a time when the other income helps support it. When the leather income becomes THE factor, I am not reducing what I eat to get something.

Ed, A poorman's thread wiper suggestion. I had one of the lube pots like yours. What I did was to cut a 1" cube of dry cellulose sponge, then cut a diagonal slit part way in. Lay it under the thread between the hole in the lid (where the thread exits the pot) and the loopy thread guide to aim it to the primary tensioner. lay the thread in the slit, and its tension with the thread in it, and up against that guide will hold it in place. That 1" cube will strip alot of lube before it gets saturated. Then squeeze it out back into the pot, and cut another cube. You can also wash the sponge cubes in soapy water and let them dry to recycle them. My new lube pot has the wipers, but I still use the sponge. Easier to change thread without tying on and pulling the new thread through.

Chris, I think Kate has a picture somewhere, but I sure can't find it. The photobooth thing is a box framework of pvc pipe and connectors. I glued some joints, and left others loose, so It is not a total pain to put together, but will store flat. I cover it with a clearish white shower curtain. My light sources are some clip on floodlights that I clamp onto the frame and use directly or diffused through the shower curtain (read - fire danger if left on and forgotten). With this light I don't need flash. For the prop, i take a box and toss a bath towel over it. I lean whatever project I have against that. I also either really stabilize my elbows on the table, or use a small tripod. Art used to make fun of my techniques and background choices on another list, so I am movin' on up. Besides a sewing machine guy, Art is pretty sharp on this camera stuff too. I am attaching a couple pics of two using the booth, and one of the "old way". I am now playing with different background colors, and light angles.

Chris, I had one of the smaller boxy digitals, 3 mb or close to that, and small lens with 3X zoom and the optical zoom on top of that. Pretty mediocre leather pics, but OK for general use. A couple years ago my wife got a Canon Powershot S2. Nice camera, has the macro, better optical zoom, and something like 5 mb (?). It is much handier that the small one, better lens, much better pics, especially closeups. They say you don't need all those mb for web-sized pics. I say that you do, because the smaller mb cameras also have crappier lenses and less features. You can always downsize the picture later for web posting. Last week my wife (the photo person of the family) hit some hot deal on a Canon 40D digital SLR, so I have now officially inherited the S2. I also made up the PVC frame/shower curtain photo booth that I think Kate showed. Worth the $21.47 I have in it.

Mike, I oil the goat and commercial oak with my ProDye/NF oil mix. A light coat (goat is pretty thin) rolled on with the paint roller. After the oil has settled in, I seal with LeatherSheen. I do the same on all my veg tan linings and pockets. It seals the oil in and prevents it from bleeding.

Mike, The veg tan split for the vests doesn't have the grain, at least it didn't use to. It is what is split off from making the thinner leathers. View it as a big skiving. Vegtan splits are not very durable, chrometan splits more so. I haven't used much of the mission grain for quite a while. I have used quite a lot of TLF glazed pig linings. They variably stock them in a copper color or lately a really nice golden color. Maybe we are talking about different things, but mine are about 1 to 1-1/2 oz and very flexible. They are in fact too flexible for some of the chap leather items I make that need some body. I also use the boot lining pig. For items that I need some medium body, I go to goat. I get vegtan goat from Siegel and oil it to color. They have some colors too. For stiffer linings on belts, albums, and portfolios, I go to Siegel's commercial oak. It is a stiffer vegtan, and oils up to color well too. Makes good checkbook pockets too. It is comparable to the lower grade leather that others sell but normally, other than a brand, pretty clean. Not a very good tooling leather, but priced right for a good looking liner.

Daniel, I had a Boss. I bought one of the early ones (cast iron) and have no regrets about that machine. In the same situation I would do it again in a heartbeat. It was also my first machine. I was doing a lot of what you are anticipating running under it, and found no downfalls with the machine other than you power it. At the time I bought it, the Boss was $1600 with no accessories. The equivalent in a powered machine was $5000. Mine would sew anything I could cram under the foot, and feed it. I sewed 10 oz tooled wear leathers on 1" felt saddle pads. I sewed wallet interiors. A ton of belts, checkbooks, and planners went through it. A bunch of saddle skirts (two layers of skirting plus the woolskin). I did some pad things for a guy's carriage out of 3 layers of heavy harness. You can sew holsters. I just mounted mine on a little benchtop tool stand from Harbor Freight, like you mount a little table saw or belt sander on. I wouldn't butcher a Ken Allen stitching horse to mount a Boss. You will still find use for the horse. I have three machines and still use my stitching horse. As far as accessories, they didn't make the center presser foot then that I knew of. I had a regular foot, right and left toe foot for sewing around spots and inlays, and a stirrup plate. The stirrup plate raises the work and shortens the turn radius of the cylinder arm. For sewing 90 degree corners like bags and shaving kits - very handy. I didn't have the edge guide, but that would have been nice for the unpaid help. My Boss required little attention other than oiling. Once I got the bottom tension where I liked it (first day), I really didn't have to mess with anything other than stitch length, and a tweak or two on the top tensions depending on thread size and material. I ran a little tighter tensions than some people do, but it worked well. I run a little tighter tensions on my powered machines too. I taught two wives and my son how to sew on it. Learning curve of about 5 minutes. I was doing a lot of wholesale work and award orders then. I could sit them down with a stack of belts or whatever, and not have to worry about them running off an edge while I was doing something else. Skip asked about the resale value. Looks like on ebay the ones from private sellers bring a fair to pretty good return. Some bring more than some of the sale prices the sellers probably paid for them. I don't know how many of the dealer machines sell. I sold mine outright on another list for about half what I paid for it, probably for less than I could have got on ebay. It had already paid for itself in about the first few months, so the rest was gravy. Tippmann seems to stand behind them. On the few parts that I broke, they were happy to overnight them on their nickle. They were parts that were beefed up as time went on, an arm lifter, and the block that the handle attaches to. The original capscrew size was too small and the handle could fatigue it and shear it off. They were rebuilding anybody's Boss (not just the original owner) for something like $100, and warranteeing them like new. If you are buying used, check with Tippmanns about that. I was going to send mine for rebuild, and then have them ship it on to whoever bought it. Jim at Tippmann figured everyone was further ahead to ask $100 less, let the new buyer use it. If it ever needed work, then they would get even more time out of it. One thing nice too. It is a heck of a lot easier to ship a Boss than any other stitcher. There are very few guys who have the luxury of a local mechanic qualified to work on any stitcher.

Kevin, I just sew it with my normal setup on my machines and sews like about anything else. I was warned that the beads will deflect the needles, but haven't had that happen. I am not sewing across the areas with the big beads or the white spots though. I have not had the need to hand sew it yet.

Wolvie, I am running IE. I am not sure if it was something that got changed during one of the updates to Windows, a Norton update or what. Where do I look for the cookie settings? Be easy, I am not a computer guy.

Seems like something has cropped up in the last month or so. I am not sure if it is my computer setting, or something with the board. In the good old days, I would log in, and be logged in forever. I could come back in an hour or a couple days, and still be logged in. Now, if I leave the site, I may be logged in or maybe not. Sometimes a couple hours later I am still in. Other times I leave for 5 minutes, or the connection is interrupted momentarily, and I have to log back in. There doesn't seem to be a pattern. The frustrating thing is that while typing a post, sometimes my connection is interrupted. When I go to post it, it tells me I am not authorized, takes me to the log-in page, and eats my homework.

Timbo, The first thing you need is the book Sheridan Style Carving by Bob Likewise, Clint Fay, and Billy Gardner. It describes the tools you need and why they differ from other stamping tools. It also describes how to lay out patterns, simple and more complex. It also has examples of work by the masters to shoot for. Most all of the leathercraft sellers have it. Realistically 10-15 tools can do a single Sheridan pattern. You need different sizes then for different size patterns. Most all of my tools are from Barry King. His are designed for the style and priced affordably. He usually has them in stock, and ready to ship. Later on you will find different flower centers, and such to mix it up. I have some other tools by Ellis Barnes, Wayne Jueschke, Jeremiah Watt, and some Hidecrafters and TLF stamps that fit.

Brent, A belated welcome. You perked my ears up when you mentioned Logansport. I lived there from 1968 through 1984. I am a fine graduate of Logansport HS (Yes folks we were the "Logan Berries" - no joke), worked in the slaughterhouse, and went to college at Purdue. I ended up in California, but my folks still live there. I was back once in 2003 for the HS reunion. When I was growing up there, Harold Streu had the Bar S Saddle shop. I spent a bit of time there. They auctioned off his estate a while back, and I sent my dad to buy me a "nostalgia" tool. I am kind of curious who is doing leatherwork in Logansport now, get them to join us here. Best of luck to the reformed guild.

I was just looking at the website for Frank Hansen, and saw that they have a a rein rounder they sell, in addition to the string cutter/beveler. Has anybody used or seen one? The picture looks Ok, the step-downs are 1/32" (good) and looks smooth. The website is www.hansenstringcutter.com , go to the order tab, and it is listed at the bottom under the string cutter. Click the rein rounder underline and it comes up. Looks like a good piece, and might be the source to refer to if it works better than the guys back east sell.

Pete, I use the Pro-Dye/oil combo. I have not had the pigment sludging you describe. I am still using the spirit dyes. One thing I have had people tell me with spirit dyes is that they are a saturated solution. If the lid is left off very long, solvent will evaporate, and excess pigment will settle to the bottom. If you shake them they will suspend, but not go back into solution and settle, be darker, or be blotchy. I use dye in quarts, and they are only opened a few times to dump 6-8 oz out. Evaporation probably is not a concern with mine. Even so, once you mix it with the oil the solvent probably evaporates off, and all you have is pigment. It seems to stay mixed pretty well. I give the jug a shake or two and pour it into the paint roller tray. The new dye formulas are different. They are mostly water based, and so probably won't mix. I'll find the substitute when I start running low.