bruce johnson

I am with Jim. A round knife will do a nice job on thicker leather and should do it in one pass. You can cut straight down on your corners with a round knife and should not have any fraying. Fraying makes me think a dull edge or tearing an incomplete cut.

Jon, I stamp my rope in first,. then basket stamp up pretty close. If I need to extend the leg impression of some basket stamps to get them even, I use a screwdriver blade the same width as the legs of the basket stamp. Sometimes I can do partial impressions with the stamp without overlapping the border though. Last thing I do is bevel the rope.

Jon, I usea rope border stamp quite a bit. Here's an example of some different ways I run it from a thread a while back - Rope Stamp . The second post in that thread has some of my examples. I had Barry make the two sizes he shows on his website. I use the smaller one 90% of the time asa frame for a geometric or basket stamped pattern. About the only time I use the bigger one is either a stand alone border pattern on soemthing plain or to frame a huge waffle stamp I have.

Elliott, I had the same thing happen on a few websites when I got a new computer and the updated explorer. On Lw I have compatibility view checked and the drop down and message deal works right for me that way. Doesn't work for me if I am not in compatiiblity view. Might be the deal for you. Bruce

Much as I would hope they are rawhide like Joel suggests, I am sort of familiar with Billy Royal. It is what it is. The silver is probably plated and so you have to be careful what you might use to dye or prep to dye. I can't enlarge that picture enough to tell, but my suspicion is that they are braided vegtan or some sort of chrome tan and not rawhide. The finish may be a dye, but I would not bet on it. Several of these companies are using a pigmented sprayed on topcoat to get an even color in their finished products. If so, consider it like a coat of paint on top of the leather. Some of them use this on "light oil" saddles to keep the color from darkening. It prevents any sort of conditioning. If it eventually thins out or cranks, any attempts to condition end up blotchy. If you try to change coloron something flexible like reins you might have a problem with peeling or cracking with your coating. It might work for a while if you don't use them much.

It has something put onto the flesh side and then it is glazed, kind of like putting gum trag on a plain belt and then slicking it with a glass slicker, except this is the whole side.

Great advice so far from guys who know a lot more than me. One more maker/machine I would add is a Pfaff 1245. I have a clone, but I haven't talked to many people who have one that don't like them. Mine will do up to 1/2" with #207 as easy as it does #69 thread on 3 oz. On occasion I have run 207 on the bobbin, but my usual set-up is 207 on top and 138 in the bobbin.

I have added about 40 punches for sale to my website. There isa wide range of sizes in slot punches and round end strap punches. Some nice pinking chisels and pinked scalloping piunches also. Here's the link to the tool section of my website - Leather Tools for Sale . Thanks, Bruce

Raquel, CS Osborne started in the US when CS Osborne bought an existing company from Wm Dodd who bought it from Joseph English. It has always been in New Jersey, first a Newark address and now a Harrison address. I have not seen any of the Osborne tools marked with France. There are some punches marked CS Osborne and England that the supposition is were contract made by Dixon. They are nice punches. There are or were some internet references to the different leather tool makers. Probably the most complete book is RA Salaman's book "Dictionary of Leather Working Tools, c 1700-1950" for identifying tools. Alexander Farnham also wrote two books on New Jersey tool makers and there are several leather tool makers from that area. None of these books will give you values or quality measures of the tools. Values change over time and the condition of an individual piece is a big factor. As far as looking at a picture of an old tool or sometimes even the tools themselves and telling if they are going to be useable - experience and judgement. Even with that sometimes you get some goats with the sheep. When you are on Ebay or someone selling a storage auction find, estate sale, or auction pickup then you may know more than the seller. With those sellers everything is "vintage". Once they get past that adjective they are done. If a seller has worked leather and knows the tools, that's an advantage. I have personal favorites of the old makers. Some may be better suited for a particular person than another. Some people like one style of edger than another or person may do better with a particular size or shape knife for example.

I use one.

I have a pretty cool old French pattern Mayer-Flamery knife I skive with. I've had some Mayer-Flamery plough gauges and they are pretty comparable with the old Blanchards.

CW, They were originally called Fast Buckles and Ben Veach patented them. A few years ago he sold the patent and couldn't or wouldn't say who bought the rights. Since then a few places have knockoffs - pretty sure I saw some on Walsall's site and one of the saddle tree companies had a variation too. I haven't seen anyone come out and advertise they have the original Veach design. You were good to put a keeper on, they need one. I used quite a few of them. They are pretty quick to adjust. The big advantage I saw was that they twisted over a shorter length. That makes them really nice for short legged riders. They also ride over a latigo pretty smoothly too. I put a bunch of them on barrel saddles.

I have a bobbin wnder on one machine, bobbin winder that runs off the belt on another and never use them. I still use the spindle that came with the Boss for all of them. I sold the Boss several years ago but Tippmann had packed two winders in the tool kit. I keep a pretty good separation between the hand that feeds the thread and the bobbin being wound. I tension the thread between my thumb and forefinger and start off slow until I have the threads laying in, then hit the gas and let it rip. I get more even bobbins doing that than with the winders. I can do them up faster than setting one up on the machine and am not distracted by watching a bobbin fill while I am sewing.

I have a couple Harringtons, one I use. They are good knives and not very common.

I don't think anyone sells new Blanchards in the US. I believe there is a Dixon distributer on the east coast somewhere. If it doesn't have to be a new knife, I know I have a Dixon and may have a Blanchard too.

Cool looking work. I only see a couple things I'd change. I like the floral tooling to go down the cheeks rather than up, but that's a personal preference. I would also round off the bit ends or at least chip off those square corners.

Thanks for the link.That site is a lot easier to get through. I have a few concerns. When somebody is selling a punch for more money than a round knife and sewing palm for the same money that makes me wonder which is off there. If the plough gauge they show is a new one, I would be suspect of anything new they make. I use an old Barnsley plough and that one they are showing isn't in the same league. It isn't even close.

My hat is off to you for being able to navigate the Hale and Co website. If I want an exercise in frustration, I start about here - Hale and Co and see how many windows open up and unfinished pages there are. All I keep finding are lnks and quotes that The best tools for (insert trade here) come from Hale and Co. Maybe they do, but where do I find out what and why? Please post a link to the page that has prices or more information, I just can't find it. Other than a couple Blanchards, I haven't had any new European knives to compare against the old ones. Barnsley has been out of business for some time and the story is that these are NOS tools that were found in a warehouse. Dixon and Blanchard are still making tools. I have had old Barnsley, Dixon, MF, and Blanchard knives and plough gauge knives and really don't have an opinion that would rank one consistantly over the other.

I do a bunch of them. The pages are nealry all three ring standard binders. Occasionally there to spiral bond one used. Just use a strandard three ring 1-1/2" binder. Use tyhose dimesions or slightly larger, cut off the vinly and use the siffeners. Drill the rivets on the binder clip and a stard Chicago screw will work.

I use three types of tools to cut straps depending on material and width. for thinner and softer material I use a wooden strap cutter. I use a single edge razor blade. For most anything wider than 1-1/4" I use a plough gauge. I have them up to 8" and can cut an 8" strip as easily as a a 1-1/2" belt. I use a draw gauge for most anything from 1/2" to 1-1/4" and the occasional 1-1/2" belt if it is the first grab tool. I have quite a few draw gauges and they have different handle shapes and sizes. Some of the slab handle/perfect handle/scaled or scabbed handled CS Osbornes are pretty beefy. The Latta patterns and rosewood inlay brass framed ones tend to be smaller and more contoured. The cast handled ones are middle of the road. Some people like triggers, some don't. I have some really old ones without triggers. I don't mind using them. There are probably a few variations on the grip. Here's how I was taught and use them. My thumb is extending forward on the left side of the frame. It keeps the leather tucked in. My index finger points forward and lays to the right of the frame, pushing in slightly. By pointing it I tend to keep it pushed over more and run straighter. My middle finger is on the trigger and the other two are the grippers. I have seen some pretty handfy people use their index finger on the trigger too, so whatever works. The big key for all of these is a sharp blade. The new Osborne draw gauge blades for me are too thick near the edge, steep bevel, and not sharp. I thin them some, put a flatter bevel on and a slightly convex edge. I usually round over the point at the top. I never cut with it and that is what has bit me when I have reached across. They need to be sharp enough to easily pull into the leather you are cutting.

I usually cut my lines for the cross first and then basketstamp. Then I go back and bevel the cross. I fade with a checkered matting tool held at an angle to lessen the halo of the bevelers and fade into the basket.

Really looking good there. They ought to like them!

You can use a crew punch and overlap end to end and it works OK. It doesn't work as well to make a wider slot for me. Because of the taper it is hard to get them even and the ends are ragged without some cleanup.

Adam, Good advice so far. Just adding my 2 cents worth. Most of the time there is a time savings to batching things up but I learned a few things along the way. . Plan your work so you get at least some items completed in a reasonable amount of time. Ten years ago right now I was looking for anything that paid. I had an order for 35 leather toilet lid covers for decorator working for a guest ranch. I cut all 35, stamped and tooled them all, oiled them, finshed them, tacked them on. It seemed like it took forever and I was bored out of my skull. After that I had an order for 80 hide-inlay spotted belts. I did the same thing - each piece a step at a time on all of them. That about killed me. I was sitting there out about 20 days on an order that was due in a month and I hadn't actually completed the first one. I did but man that ate on me that they weren't getting done. My small business advisor told me to batch things in some kind of numbers that could be completed in 6 days. That way I could have an extra day if something came up, but mentally I could tell myself that I had actually accomplished something that week. I had something tangible to look at. Most of the time that is how I scheduled my work. I get to tweaking it around later for some things. I would cut one day, stamp half the next and leave them sit, oil those the day after and stamp the other half. Next day oil the second batch and line the first and so on. That way I wasn't doing the same thing each at each work session. Mixing things up but keeping the work flowing helped the sanity some too.

It is called a Bluegrass Easy Edger or somethng close like that. They also make a larger one with 4 wheels. Might try Weavers.