bruce johnson

I have had both and more. The American feeds from the back and the Landis feeds from the front. The frame on the Landis is a little beefier but both are durable. The American had a pointer and scale for the adjustment and the Landis has "detent clicks" on the model 30. The click settings are nice, but I've run a bunch more through Americans and Champions and they work well too. If I had to pick between two in identical condition and same price, I'd get the Landis. Otherwise it would depend on the condition differences vs. price difference.

That parallel crease wiuth a border can be done a couple ways. 1). Like Luke mentioned an edge creaser is the tool designed for that. One ridge longer than the other to ride down the edge and the other ridge presses in the crease. These creasers come in a few varieties. The single line creasers make one line parallel with the edge. There are two ranges of sizes. The normal creasers are usually numbered 1-6. There is a wider set that is called layer creasers that are across the board wider and likewise numbered 1-5. I usually have quite a few creasers on hand. edit - There are also double line creasers that will make two crease lines parallel with the edge. 2). The other option is a two stage process. You can use either a stitch groover or wide beveled swivel knife in a border guide to cut a line. Then go over the line with a tickler or beveled tickler to burnish the line. Ticklers are pretty easily had also.

I hate to say this, but it was just practice and doing a ton of them. You really have to tip the stamps for the partial impressions and that is hard on cheap stamps. I bought 6 Hidecrafters one time at a show and George Hurst thought I was nuts. I had gone through that many at least before, and I derstroyed all of those eventually too. I use the rope border a lot. This Barry King I had made is looking the same as when I got it. He has it a stock stamp now I think.

Peter John, "There was movement at the station, for the word had got around, that the colt from old Regret had got away...". I pretty well had it commited to memory a few years ago. Other ones of his I like are "Clancey of the Overflow" and "The Geebung Polo Club". I also like Will Ogilvie's "Hooves of the Horses".Somebody will be reading that at my funeral someday. I read a lot of Robert Service too. My favorite modern poet is Joel Nelson. "Breaker in the Pen" is a good one. I think "The Men Who Ride No More" is pretty powerful. Hard to pick favorites on his CD though, I think they are all good ones. Cheers, Bruce P.S. Here's a link to Songs of Horses on Google books (free one!) - http://books.google.com/ebooks/reader?id=gStLAAAAIAAJ&printsec=frontcover&output=reader . No Rest For The Horse is page 81.

Yes I have tried it on round knives and point knives. I figured a thinner blade with a razor edge would cut easier. It does for about a foot. I chipped out edges and rolled edges on some pretty good steel if I cut leather with any resistance to it. That was my experience. I do have a flat ground skiving knife from England. It is flat ground on one side. It is great for skiving soft chrome tan. That is the only thing I use it for. If you are doing a lot of chrome tan, I'd do it. It is not so bueno for vegtan. I was taught to sharpen my knife at one angle on a stone or wet-dry, and then do a few passes at a higher angle to make a secondary bevel. It can be very slight and still back up that fine edge. Herb French has a handy little book on sharpening leather tools. You can probably still get it from Sheridan Leather Outfitters. A few years back somebody mentioned this link - Sharpening A Convex Edge here on the forum. Basically it is an infinite secondary bevel. This edge has been the best in my hands. Easy to do and way better cutting and edge life than anything I have done before. I don't have this belt lift - Belt Lift, but those who do like it. I do mine a bit different but get the same effect. There used ot be a youtube video on it, but it was taken down. To reiterate, this is not the same as having a blade with a lot of shoulder. This is at the very edge. The blade still needs to bevel some to the edge. I use stones to take down shoulders and profile. I use a slack belt to do the final edges.

Pete, One of my interests in life is reading and collecting old poetry. You have quoted part of one of my favorites. The only place I have seen that particular poem in print is a 1920 book called "Songs of Horses". He lists the author as anonymous. Any idea who might have written it? Randy Rieman does a good job reciting it, but he got it from the same book I did. A couple years ago he still didn't know who wrote it either.

We all have our favorites, but there are at least a couple other makers not mentioned yet to consider too - Henley and Chuck Smith (Ol Smoothie).

Just another affirmation of Art's statement about a flat grind. That is one of the biggest problems I see with people and new round knives. They get a knife and think thinner is better. There is a difference between taking a shoulder down on an edge and doing a flat grind. Terry Knipscheild and I talked about this a couple weeks ago. These are not straight razors. I have seen the video of the guy who can shave with a good edge on an axe, but that you don't chop wood with a razor.The Moran edge or Convex edge is not a new concept. Some people do it with slack belts and others with a stones and straighter secondary bevels. Stropping on softer leather will help make a slightly convex edge too. In any case there needs to be some steel backing up that edge to stabilize it. A flat edge all the way out will chip or roll. If it rolls many new people to round knives don't understand what is going on and will think it is dull. Also not stropping a stoned knife enough to take the foil/wire edge off will seem dull when it is about 10 strokes from being great.

When Shoptalk was running the hide price deal routinely the hides were bringing $50-60 and brands were discounted some, but it wasn't a huge amount. It sure wasn't enough to discourage branding. Southwest Hide was part of the place I did some vet work for 20 some years ago although I never dealt with the owners. They had a hide warehouse in Ripon CA and the palletized salted hides were loaded into containers. We are pretty close to the ports here and I am sure they went to Asian tanneries. The warehouse is something else now and I am not sure if they are still in the hide business somewhere else or not.

Right now I have 8 ready to go. There is a Dixon, some Blanchards, and a couple Mayer-Flamerys. Here's a link to the page with them - Plough Gauges

Dixon and Vergez- Blanchard both still make them. I haven't heard if anyone in North America is selling the Vergez-Blanchard line anymore. Vergez-Blanchard has a website in French. For Dixons, Booth and Co in Massachusetts looks to be the lone NA source and Abbey Saddlery in England is another source. It looks like you might be able to buy directly from Dixon too.

I am with Evan and you will solve most all of your problem with sharpening it first. They do not come close to sharp enough and that means new Tandy, Osborne, and at least the Weaver concho punches I have gotten in. I used to think my strap end punches were sharp enough until I got some wood handled ones. They are meant to push through by hand. Now all my using punches are sharpened that fine. I sharpen them to an edge and then take the burr off the inside edge and back bevel a bit with a round ceramic stick I got someplace. After that, it has already been stated - use something with a little heft behind, but you will find you don't need to bash a sharp punch. My punching surface is LDPE cutting board. It is soft enough to not dull an edge. End grain wood works too. You will find if you are not hitting very hard, that the punch won't bury in your backer much if at all. It cuts through not pops through. Thinner leather should punch easier. Most of the punches have some degree of coning down to the edge. That makes a bit of a bind on the thicker leather, especally hard thick leather/

Billy, If you weren't so far away, I'd be at your table too. Man that sounds some kind of good. Here we'll probably go out on the eve for an early dinner if the House of Beef has rack of lamb with whiskey-peppercorn sauce. If not maybe a drive down to Los Banos for Basque food. New Years Day will be a navy bean soup. It isn't a family tradition handed down, but I've been doing it for several years.

The $1000 limit on non-swiped transactions within a 7 day period and holding anything over for 30 days raises a question for me. There is a place on their site where you can email them about raising the limit. Has anyone done that and what were the results?

Where at in central CA? I am in Oakdale.

CW, What I do for those short stirrup riders is to just make a strap - no fender or minimal fender (like bronc leather flaps). I am out now, but found some 2" Blevins-like buckles a few years ago. They turn easier and don't twist up and lift the seat jockeys as much as even small fenders do. Once they outgrow them, then go to the fenders. I still smile looking at those pictures of your son sitting in his new saddle. Just too cool.

That pattern was patented by Ben Veach and they were called "Fast Buckles". He sold the rights a few years ago. Since then a couple places have come up with them. One place for sure is Walsall Hardware in Scottsdale, AZ.

The pictures say it all. Way too COOL!!! He'll be able to ride that one a long time.

I have only had to deal with an Ebay problem once and they got right on it. There should be some protection through Paypal also. Dealing with postal insurance is not pleasant and the shipper's responsibility anyway. They are the ones who paid for the insurance. For the claim they will want you to save everything - box, packing materials, and all the pieces. The catch is that the the post office can claim the item was not properly packed and deny the claim. From another experience, packing peanuts around cast iron is not proper packing so it wouldn't surprise me to see it denied.

Add one more for the wider throat. You may end up doing some repairs where that will come in handy. I went from an Adler with I want to say 12 or 13 inches to a Ferdco. Even that little width difference made sewing easier. You may find that the other feet and plates are pretty handy also. I got a full set of plates and feet and routinely use three plates and four feet.

Here an example of what I am talking about with using an overstitcher to clena up the bottom stitch. This is a billet strap for a brief case. One scan shows the top stitches. The other scan shows the bottom stitchlines with one side overstitched and the other as it came out of the machine.

Colin, I split a few ways. Most of the time I split my leather dry. I sometimes will crank stirrup leathers through backwards when they are wet to compress some stretch out of them and then the other way to level them. A guy showed me that several years ago. Most of the time I soak and stretch them, then level when they are dry and oiled. Wet or cased leather distorts more when wet for me, but can pull easier. I also will oil patches of skirting scraps and have them sitting. When I need a strap or handle, I cut them to width and split them to whatever thickness I need and they are ready to go. Some leather splits easier than others. I have had some middle weights that are really dense. The tannery people can probably explain the whole tooling side/strap side/holster side jacking they do better than I can. I have some that I can shave a 1/2 at a time off and other leather that defies me to split it very fine. I haven't used a ton of WC, but it seems to have that issue with some that I have used.On the double dipped skirting that Siegels developed with WC I had to split and skive that with some moisture in it most of the time.

Andrew, A couple things to do. First is really sharpen that blade. Off the splitter it should easily slice a piece for skirting i for the whole length if you hold it like a knife. One trick for splitting down to really thin leather ti to spilt upside. It akes a bigger peice than you need to end up with, but if you are having troubles like that, I'd set it up to flip and split grain side up. The piece you are then pulling is waste and there is less stretching on the part you want. Some guys do this on some pull throughs that the roller and blade don't go all the way together. Done right you can split off tissue paper to test a blade. Kind of cool. Repeatable levels - The Landis crank and Krebs have click adjuster (detents) and a scale. The Osborne 84s and the American and Champion crank splitters have a pointer and scale. The Chases and Osborne #86 are trial and error. Still different parts from the same side might split a little different. Skirting might start out at 12 oz. Firm parts of the side might compress to 11 oz between the rollers of a crank splitter so 11 oz is getting fed into the blade. Softer parts might compress to 9oz and that will affect what comes out.

Andrew, According a few of the old guys, pricking wheels were the tool designed for marking out stitch spacing. They make a more distinctive mark to be felt than an overstitcher does. The oversticher came along after the stitching to even out any slightly off stitches and to help "set" the stitches. That meant a person needed to have a set of both. Some enterprising soul decided that you could mark out the spacing withan overstitcher and not need a pricking wheel. Most of my pricking wheels go to other countries where a lot of handstitching is still done. Some say they use both, but seems like most use pricking wheels for layout. Back in the day CS OSborne made overstitchers with narrow wheels and wide wheels. The wider wheel ones do a nice job on backside stitches because they will lay the puckering down a little more and set bigger thread. The narrower ones will open that thread line on the back a little more if the thread pulls in, which sounds like what Nick is dealing with.

Good point Andrew. Some of the old patterns used different width stock for the different sizes. Some makers now use the same width bit stock regardless of size. With the smaller sizes there is too much excess width to get the angle I like and the cutting edge on the leather. You either have to use a flatter angle with the leather on the bench or set the leather on an edge of the bench and let the tool run over the side. Seems to be a common complaint with western and bisonette edgers.