bruce johnson

Good latigo will be your best choice and I like around a 6 oz weight. Most saddle strings are cut 1/2" wide. One thing that helps them to stay tied is to "crown" them. Basically bevel the edges of the flesh side back with a French edger or string beveler at a pretty flat angle. Then pull them through a round hole in a block of wood, firm heavy leather, or rein rounder to kind of "curl" them. If you case them up in warmish water first they will hold that curl a little better.

I am with J Hayes. I like my blades just slightly behind the dead center top on most all splitters. Some people like them centered. If the edge is the least bit in front of the dead center top then the leather wants to slide under the blade and not bite.

I used to wonder how many different kinds of splitters were made. Every time I think I must be getting close to the end of the list, I see something different yet again. Splitters are the leather kingdom's version of the never ending story. I've had or have most all of the one's BSS has, plus I have a Dixon lap skiver. I sold another a while back. Yep, they are cool... HH has had good luck with the Chase splitting chrome tan. That was a real concern for me when I sent it, and sounds like it is still doing what I wasn't sure it could. You can't see me, so here's a cyber fist pump!

I have a lot of heroes in the leather business and it'd be hard to pick one. Don Butler is one of them. This is a print of a saddle that Don Butler made. He sent me this print after telling me the story behind the picture, another laugh a second tale by him. It has hung in the entry to our house since I got it framed. I had the pleasure of taking "Saddle Week" at Sheridan with Don and Al Gould several years ago. Don and I share the same history of breaking our pelvis on a bucking horse and staying in the saddle. We hit it off from then on. I met Don at other shows, the NFR, and it was always a pleasure and a lot of laughs. I took a carving class from him at the Elko show a few years ago. In my eye, that is still the one single best piece of carving I have ever done. Last year at the Sheridan show we stopped by Don's shop a couple times and he wasn't there. He had been weak from the surgeries and not out much. I went one last time and he was there. I was glad we made the extra effort to see him at Sheridan. He had heard about me changing my focus from the leatherwork to leather tools. We had a good talk (and laughs are a given). His parting words to me were some he had used before - "Well, don't weaken now!". My world shrunk a little when I heard he had died, and I think Nick Pernokas did a great tribute article about him in ShopTalk.

Yes they did Lippy. It was a trade and they were making a living. They were trained by other workers as they worked their up the food chain or generationally through a family business. Not many people in 1890 came home from a day at the mine and thought "Maybe I'll take up belt making as a hobby". What impresses me the most is how some of the big things were powered. I am enamored with a pedal powered heavy stitcher. Yeah, pre airconditioning and a guy sits pedaling away in some sweaty shop in Mississippi sewing harness for cane mules. One of my favorite buys was an old harness set. There was about 200 tools in it -Gomph, HF Osborne, and old CS Osborne. This guy had full sets of large round creasers, layer creasersd, single line and double line creasers plus fine edgers, round bottom edgers, Concord edgers, round and English point punches, and loop end creasers. I could tell a few things about him. He never threw anything away and if numerology means anything, He was a "3" man. about half the tools were wornout or broken #3 single lines, double lines, layers, and all manner of edgers. There wasn't another duplicate in the chest that wasn't a #3. That man liked his 3's. I use the Rose knife from that set and have thought about stamping a #3 into it in his honor.

Yep, I know that feeling every day. Cool, isn't it!

I have attached a PDF of an instructional that I put together for my upcoming website revamping. Rein Rounder Use.pdf

Smaller lettering on the maker mark for the Rose would be earlier. The later ones have larger lettering. I have been told that the steel ferrules were early also. HF Osborne seemed to have been pretty consistent with their marks so not much help there.

You can pull or push. It has a slight curve on the bottom to go either way.

Here is a picture of my current Patent Leather Countersink for recessing stitching or running a sharp crease line.

Good looking narrowed up jaws on that. Looks like it'd be nice work on.

I'll get a picture of mine tonight and post it here.

Great work yet again!

To make slots in the tree I used a rotary cutting bit on a Dremel. I remove the rawhide between the holes to let in the strings so there isn't a lump and then revarnish to help seal them.

I like how Big Sioux Saddlery did the folded leather and did a lot of repairs that way too. That makes a nice smooth look and is stout. I am attaching pics of one of my own saddles. I put a tab on the front for the breast collar dee and another tab coming up off the back for the cross-over rope strap buckle. The right side just has the front breast collar dee tab. I just like how the breast collar hangs on this horse mounted up higher. I used really good latigo and did my bleeds down tight. The strings are through the tree but not the skirts. I put slots in the tree to run them through instead of drilling round holes and that left enough wood to feel good about screws and nails having a solid bite. I also attached a picture of a tab on a leather concho. This is a saddle I did without strings so there is plenty of wood to screw into. I did a screw above and below the concho screw so they wouldn't be in a horizontal line and chance splitting the grain in the tree. I did more of these on cowboying saddles than arena saddles.

So maybe Craftsman tools aren't what they used to be either, but you can hand a damaged one to anybody in the Sears hardware dept. and they'll give you a new one on the spot. They don't wait to see what happens when they send it back to the maker. I guess I'd expect any seller of a "name" tool to do the same and then they can deal with the manufacturer. You can look at a punch with a rolled end and tell if a guy tried to pry open a can of paint with it or the thing wasn't up to snuff to begin with. An old man told me once, "A cat that breaks a leg catching a mouse probably wasn't much of a cat to begin with". Seems appropriate here. As far as creasers and edgers, no need for repetition so I'll defer to my friend in South Dakota. Let's just say Osborne must have lost the old tried and true patterns somewhere along the way.

Paul. Problem is that you are also rubbing abrasive against the cutting edge and will dull the edge or roll a burr back up the edge.. Roll your edge on a strop to do the outside or chuck it up and hold your strop against it on a lower speed drill press. Inside you can use a narrow strip of leather rubbed with compound. Push it through from the top of hole and rub it around the inside edge as you tension it and slowly pull it through. This will pull the burr away from the edge and rub it off leaving a clear edge.

What about using an overstitch wheel? The other option is a Patent Leather Countersink. This is an old line tool designed for just what you are talking about. It is a handled push tool with a raised center ridge. You push it along and the ridge depresses the stitch line while the shoulders of the ridge while slick the cut edges of the groover. They are rare to find but easy to repurpose from a more common tool like a creaser. Handy thing to have.

He is trying to use a Dixon type blade with one slot in a Blanchard which likely uses a 2 slot blade. Most of the Blanchard frames I get have a screw on the back edge of the blade slot that catches the rear slot on the blade. The front slot catches a little nib further forward in the slot. Interesting plough gauge. Besides being very pretty, it looks to only be marked in inches. Most I get are marked in centimeters with the occasional one dual marked in cm and inches. If you run into a snag and just can't get a Blanchard blade, I have a drawer of them here.

Kevin, The descendent is Chris Williamson. He is a nice guy. I had posted a picture somewhere of an old Dixon plough gauge I have. He emailed me for better pictures so he could show his grandmother. Kind of neat. .

The overstitch wheel is used after sewing to clean up the backside stitches. Yes, you need to have the size wheel that will match your stitch length. If you have good wheels with good points they will follow the stitch line even if it wanders a bit. The problem I see is that most of the modern made overstitchers have gotten so poor that the points are shallow and blunt even on the 5/6/7 common sizes. They will not press into the hole or round over the stitch. I have attached a picture of a pretty good old #7 wheel. It'll still do the job 100 years later.

Overstitchers can sure help clean up the appearance of stitches on the backside. Here's an oldie but a goodie example I have of the backside of two stitchlines. The one on the left is as came out of the machine, The line in the right was rolled with an appropriate sized overstitch wheel.

It looks like a continuous two strap bleed knot/slit braid. The two straps are riveted through each other and the collar at each end. Basically you cut a slit or hole on one strap, feed the tag end of other strap down through and pull snug. Cut a slit or hole in the second strap, feed the tag end from the first up through and pull snug. Hole or slit in the first strap again, down through, and keep on slitting and pulling until you get the length you need. A light tapping with a smooth faced hammer will help to smooth and set the braid once you are done.

Please let me know when they will be for sale. There are several I am interested in.

Tor, The Newark stamp will make yours an oldie for sure. I have had some of the round handles that had a rosewood looking handle and some with a hardwood handle. Most of the older ones were pretty tight. The varnish is still pretty shiny on this one, so it may just have been never handled much. I got one a while back with a similar handle finish and it had the receipts for some of the tools all from the 1950s. A little spit and rub on the maker marking will help date it. One of my friends likes the blades that flex. Whenever I get a few together I send them over to him.