bruce johnson

These tend to heat up quickly if you drill copper rivets. Get too hot and they scorch the leather and will glaze and spin. A new quality bit or a cobalt bit is my choice and go slow. The other old-timer technique I've been shown and use successfully is to punch the burr with a small chisel. it will fold up slightly and you can get a grip with an end nipper to cut and then pull off the burr.

Thank you, Bob! It morphed from my leather working website. About 12 years ago I put an extra page on my website to sell some duplicate tools. I made an announcement here and they all sold that day. Eight more the next day and they sold. Eventually the tool refurbishing and selling took over my time and I had to scale back the leather work to fun stuff and not customer orders. Not counting the Craftools we mainly sell at shows we are up to almost 15000 tools and 2500 stamps handled. It’s fun!

I sell Wayne Jueschke tools on-line through my website. Wayne does not have a website and only sells direct at shows or through mail/phone orders and payment by check, no international shipping. If you have seen or used his tools then you know the quality. I have been selling his mauls and lace cutters/bevelers for a while and started stocking stamps a little over a year ago. The stamp inventory on hand has grown and we are stocking about 150 different stamps from him. These tools are all priced the exact same as buying direct with the convenience of viewing on a website and I take payment by PayPal or a card over the phone. I also do international shipping. Here is the link to my website page with the Jueschke tool line up - https://brucejohnsonleather.com/leather-tools-sale/wayne-jueschke-mauls-and-tools/ . Thank you! - Bruce

I cut on HDPE and blades do not penetrate nearly as much as LDPE. If you buy an unknown plastic cutting board and can put a knife blade very far in it - likely LDPE. LDPE is my preferred punching surface.

If you are looking for DIY project and time is no object, then go for it and see how it works out. If you have constraints, there are other sources. I'd look at an ignition point file blade or cobalt blade from Chuck Smith, blade from Barry King, Lonnie Height, Leatherwrangler, or Clay MIller.

My experience. Store in a dry container with a dessicant like Damp-Rid if you can. Wipe well after each use and then you can apply a myriad of rust preventatives - oils, greases, Boeshield, Bostick GlideCoat, WD40- Specialist, Johnson Paste wax, RainX, Renaissance Wax are some I use depending on use of the piece.

They are a dental dam punch. You can buy them at a lot of price points. Quick look found Ebay sellers for new from $8-9. Quality professional grade can be over $100. Fred is right about watching the tips. I get them in some sets I buy and usually throw them away because of bad tips.

Here's a few short punch observations and experiences. The steep angle cheap drive punches will drive you nuts in anything but thin leather. The bevel binds and more so the thicker the leather. Osborne cutting and punching tools didn't come sharp a hundred years ago and still don't. They were tools for the professional worker and just like most of the users now, everybody had an opinion how they should be sharpened -what taper, what angle, and how fine the edge needed to be. It was left up to the user to do the final edge to suit themselves. You can chuck a round punch into a variable speed drill and turn it slowly against your favorite abrasive or do it by hand to sharpen to whatever arbitrary angle somebody likes. Most of the new punches need some tune up. If you leave the edge dull, you hit harder and holes are not as clean usually. I punch into low density polyethylene (LDPE) on a shoeing anvil. My personal drive and strap end punches are sharp enough to use by hand if I want. I have also put probably 100,000+ holes in leather using screw in punch tubes in a minipunch or maxi punch handle chucked into a drill press and turned on. Even in wet skirting leather they don't stick if they are spinning. Sharpen the tube every so often with fine wet-dry and go on. The punchings will fly out of the tube in random directions so wear eye protection if you choose this. I've had punches that do exactly what you say - 4-5 punchings and they hang up. They pack tight and stop clearing. It can be something like corrsion or a rough spot in the tube catching them or the tube not having allowance to clear. I give them a chance- I wind some coarse steel wool onto a slow spinning drill bit and make a steel wool QTip. I run that in and out of the tube a few times from the top end to clean the inside of the tube and punch some Paraffin. If it still sticks, I throw the tube or punch away, life's too short to mess with it any more. I like the cone shaped punch sharpeners and also used a tapered diamond file for smaller punch tubes. I sharpen and make my bevel from the outside and I am going to make a bur that will fold in when I buff the end of the punch. A few light twists and that inside burr is removed.

I use a band saw - slower speed and wax my blade

I had it is a spray bottle and misted it on until pretty damp. Does not have to be soaking soppy wet but evenly damp all the way through.

Shoe and boot makers mold chrome tan every day and some all day over lasts. I've done a bunch over wooden forms for bucking rolls. From your question, it sounds like you are fastening this to another piece of leather. Are you sewing this down to the leather cover as inlay or overlay piece? If so - yes it will keep the same shape as the piece it is attached to. I've done a lot of inlays with chrome tan and molded it to the inlay plug. I used 50% alcohol/50% water to make solution to help mold the chrome tan. Commercially you can probably still buy Shoe Stretch. Some people use pretty warm water to help mold chrome tan also. The pigsuede I've worked with usually has a little more body than equivalent thicknesses of other chrome tanned species. If this is a stand alone chrome tan without much body, line it with some thin vegtan and form it over a mold to to dry if that would work for the project. it sounds like will be supported by the stock underneath so should not be a problem.

The old Dixon irons with the olive shape had a different groove on each side. I did some 5 oz edges with the smaller side that worked well. They were OK for bigger stuff up to about 12 oz. but once I sold them out - hard to find in the US. The advantage of the edge iron that Cary had made was having four faces each with a different sized groove to suit a particular thickness. Once his machinist stopped making them and no longer available I repurposed some copper head soldering irons. I started by cleaning them up and then working different grooves and they worked well too. The heads have a lot of heat mass and hold a good temperature.

No I don't sell the markers, and since he wrote this tutorial he has started selling the felt marker blanks and an edge slicking solution himself.

Looks really nice - clean work!

He has bought and referred people to me to buy Gomph round bottom and Gomph common edgers from me.

I clean rusty tools and stamps on a near daily basis. I would not use an acid but that's just me after having a few etch several years ago. I use EvapoRust. You can buy it at most auto parts stores (O'Reilly's is my go to), Harbor Freight carries it, and some home improvement stores. It is an oxide and rust chelator - removes rust and not good metal. It's magic sh*t. You can soak from 12 to 48 hours. Rinse and wire brush any carbon staining. To speed the process along - you can lightly warm it in a pan with the stamps. My thermometer is my finger - Cool enough I can stick a finger into the solution, too hot to leave it there. A 5-7 minute simmer and rinse then brush. You can strain the solution and reuse it until it stops working. The one caveat - it removes oxide finishes so if you have any Robert Beard stamps it will remove the black oxide finish he uses. safe for hands, wood, rubber, etc. WD-40 makes a similar product and Metal Rescue is another. Once clean, you can apply a finish to prevent rust - wax, light oil, WD-40, Boeschield, there's a bunch.

No, I am talking about using an overstitch wheel on the bottom side of the stitching after machine sewing. This will dress the stitches and make them look more like the top stitches.

Tandy sold them for a while. I’ve had several and two on hand now in collection of cool tools. I’m gone from the shop and can’t get pictures of the originals.

Danny Duncan made the first version of the Punch Machine. Chuck Smith was a friend and met him in LA. Chuck makes the Punch O Matic now. I found this story at the craft store at the Montana prison in Deer Lodge. There is a long tradition of leather work and horsehair hitching that still comes from Deer Lodge. Well worth the stop - tour the old prison then go across the street to the craft shop. Gorgeous work. The inmates price the work themselves, along with a tag describing it. From the money 1/4 goes to running the craft store, 1/2 goes to a victim relief fund, and they keep 1/4. Don't blame me if you spend a few hundred bucks. My belt was made by a guy "proudly boasting 27 years experience".

Actually the design is really kind of old. I'll post the story. He also came up with a wood handed lace punch and a swivel knife sharpener jig.

A really nice and well built tool. The back story on the original tool version is interesting too.

Late to this party but I can address a few things The creasers you mentioned - I buy them a couple dozen at a time. They bear no resemblance to the original style creasers that worked. The new ones have the sharp edge you described. The head is all the same no matter the size, the channel is what changes on them now. sometimes the channel is somewhat in line with the axis of the head to the tool and sometimes not. Do not confuse these with real creasers. I make other tools out of the new ones. The hammer - some new ones come smoother than that, some don't. You can use some sandpaper on a soft surface (mouse pad) and smooth the surface and break over that sharp transition without affecting the slightly domed face too much. Go through a few grits up about 2000 and then polishing compound. I probably end up with as many used hammers as anybody, and maybe half end up in the garbage. Too many deep pits to make them worth the time (even using mechanical means to grind) or cracks is the usual reason. The cracks don't always show up until you get them almost finished and the surface really smooth to highlight the defect. I rehandle a bunch in the summer when the humidity is low. I enjoy that but it is really a time drag and by the time I'm done, not worth it if I was a production accountant.

Following up - I got two of these in yesterday. Here are my thoughts. They are pretty solid and I didn't have the issue with loose pivot bolts as mentioned previously. As-is blades were as expected - not quite sharp enough like most utility blades. A bit of time on a few different buffing wheel/compound combinations and they performed much better but...(read below). The adjustments were pretty straight forward. You set the thickness you'd like with the two independent set screws, Push the handle forward, insert the leather, and pull. Simple enough. As I mentioned above I like my splitters so the edge of the blade is at the top dead center of the roller or just a minute touch behind it. Too far in front and the leather rolls under the blade edge. Too far behind and the leather tends to right up the blade chop off. This is true of several types of splitters. There is some forward and back leeway with the blade to position it for different thickness setting. I got pretty good hold down ability of the splitter to hold blade position even with the blade extending pretty far forward. (as an aside, I got a regular utility knife blade to work also) Issues - 1. You can put a really fine edge on the snap off utility blade. Out of the box I thought the snap off blades were OK for narrower work, but on a belt width they drug a bunch. Buffed up and they did one belt, then the edge curled halfway through the second. The bimetal regular utility knife blades hold an edge much longer and are more durable, but narrower. The snapoff blades were good for several 1/2 inch and 3/4 straps. as were the regular utility blades 2. Even through the springs are pretty strong I had a problem or two crop up. On thicker firm veg tan I tried to push forward, put the leather in, let go and pull. A couple straps split unevenly because the spring allowed the roller to push away from the set position. A few the roller never pulled back under the leather and it just skidded through. I pulled up on the handle while I pulled a few more straps from that leather and it worked. Not ideal but sort of workable. Upside - these are inexpensive and relatively well made. My takeaway - These are going to eat up some blades so there is that future cost. These are actually pretty good for narrow straps (3/4 and under), latigo ties and saddle strings - no issues. A couple people have reported them to work well for leveling rawhide lace for braiding. Belts - these would not be my first, second, or third pick even if I was doing one every so often. I've got some $150 Amazon versions that are better in my hands than these and worth the difference. Even those still aren't a good Osborne but fit a price and performance point better for meatier work.

The price is right with these but they do have some issues in use. . I've got one coming in on a trade so Ill have one in my hands to try in a week or so. Pretty much the experience of a few guys who bought them was universal. With most splitters you want the edge of the blade to be top center of the roller or a hair behind. With this design the roller-blade edge relationship changes with the thickness. It can make for some uneven splits especially the thicker you go. The 3 person consensus was "OK/surprisingly - pretty good/worth it" for splitting lace and saddle strings. For belts from skirting or heavier leather - two thumbs down, one "it was OK for a couple belts but wouldn't want to do a bunch, please send me the next Osborne #86 you have ready".

The newer Osborne creasers bear no resemblance to the vintage originals. They went to a once size fits all head, grind out a groove that may or may not be consistently sized from one to the next, may or may not be in line with the shaft, leave the creasing edge sharp or with a bur. Creasers are not the only tools they have decided to change up.