bruce johnson

Andrew, There are several designs for pull through splitters. The Chase and Krebs pattern ones have top and bottom rollers to feed the leather square into the blade and prevent chopping off. The Osborne #84 has a brass rod in front of the blade that has the same function. The Osborne #86 doesn't have anyhting in front of the blade. Each one has their own benefits and drawbacks. Chopping straps can come from a flew things. If you are not pulling from below the level of the roller the strap can ride up the bevel of the blade and chop. A hard spot in the leather can do the same. If the strap is not laid out and flips up it will chop. Stretching the grain can be a problem with the leather being soft or the blade being dull. I wouold suspect you are dealing with a dull blade. As far as how wide, with a really sharp blade I can do up to about 4" on any of them without a lot of effort. After that I go to the Chases, They have a thinner blade and less drag. I can split within about 3-4" of the blade width pretty easy. It is easier for me to take off about 2 oz at time on the wider stuff, just the way I have the gap set on my blade/bottom roller. I have a 12" Chase I can level an 11" piece with. I don't think I could split much, but can level skirting with it. Crank splitters are nice for vegtan leather. They are limited in width and not very good for soft leather. Soft leather can wad up against the blade and not feed evenly. They will feed little pieces that you could never get a hold on for a pull through splitter. The blades still need to be sharp. Yoiu might be able to crank against a dull blade, but the split is not as nice. The Landis feeds from the front, the Americans and Champions feed from the back. I just got a Landis and so now I can say I have used most of them. The ratchet adjustment on the Landis is nice for repeatable levels, but I have cranked a lot through the others with the pointer on a scale that got the job done too. I will have a couple crank splitters to sell in a month or so, but right now am backed up on leather orders.

You can run an overstitcher in the appropriate size over those back stitches and improve the look also.

There is no standardization of sizes between makers or between different types of edge bevelers within the same maker some times. For instance a #1 round bottom edger from Jeremiah Watt is about three times as big as a #1 Tandy edger. Normally a #1 bisonette edger from CS Osborne is larger than their #1 edger in the 126 style. The old line makers like Gomph, CS OSborne, and HF Osborne are all bigger than the equivalent Tandy edger sizes too. On 5/6 I'd use a #1 for what I have, so probably a #2 Tandy if that is what you have. I sand a lot of edges but do it before I go over with an edge beveler. I use a benchtop 4x36 belt sander. I lightly go over to true up edges and remove glue that went over an edge. Keep everything moving, but the belt sander is slower than a drum sander or Dremel. You can scorch pretty easy with those.

I ship a fair amount of things internationally. Lobo hit most of the points to consider. Here's a couple more; I have dealt using Paypal-only in every other country but Canada. I have two guys who don't use Paypal. They use Canadian Postal Money Orders denominated in US dollars. It has not been a problem for me. My post office cashes them immediately after verifying them (3-4 minute deal). My bank will honor them but puts a hold on the funds up to 21 days. It won't apply in your case, but small Priority Mail flat rate boxes and flat rate envelopes will not be tracked once they leave the US. The same items in your own box will be tracked, but for a higher price than International Flat Rate. I have not had a problem with tracking the mail internationally, although Express Mail gives you more tracks along the way than Priority Mail. When you pursue it with the post office they get down to definitions - Express Mail is "tracked". Scans are done along the way as a usual routine. Priority Mail is sent "delivery confirmation". Scans may be done along the way, but they only are really saying that the final scan at delivery is all they are obligating themselves to. The humor of that is I have several packages in the US that have been tracked along the way and not scanned as delivered. They were delivered, just not scanned as delivered. I haven't seen that with internationals yet - they have all been scanned as delivered with either shippping option. Take a really good look at International Express Mail rates vs. International Priority Mail rates. It is usually not much more in cost and about twice as fast in my experience. The tracking is better and some insurance is included. Additional insurance seems less expensive but I haven't put a pencil to that. The estimate delivery times are not 100% accurate on the USPS website. You can add about 2-3 days for Express and 7 days for Priority Mail and be closer. Canada seems pretty slow on average to get things through their customs. The only country who has taken longer is England. Customers seem used to it.

Terry, I worked labor in a hog slaughter plant for several years going through college, but never worked a cow kill. Two of my uncles were/are cattle buyers and my dad was a hog buyer. Yep, it is a pretty fast process. One uncle buys for IBP and he said they do some hide processing themselves. I don't know how far they carry it or where their hides go from there. Out here one of our clients had a hide business. They sourced hides from small to medium packing plants and rendering plants. They had a warehouse of salted hides that were palleted. I think most were packed into containers and went to Asian tanneries. I never really dealt with anyone on that side of their business to find out how it all worked. My brother graded/sorted carcasses in a beef plant. At that time, some went to the high end restaurant trade, some to other markets, and then the normal boxed beef channels. At least in the hog plant when I was working by-products were a big deal and the make or break deal. They used to say the glands out of the hogs paid for the kill floor labor and the by-products paid the operating labor costs. They harvested the replacement heart valves there sometimes too. What I mostly know about the hide sales comes from the hide report in ShopTalk. There are categories and classifications of hide grades but I don't know who does it and where in the process. If weight is part of the criteria you'd think it is done at the plants. WC has ties to the Canadian plant. HO used to say they get eastern hides because they have less brands and insect problems. I don't know which plants they get them from or whether they go through brokers to get what they want.

Mine has never been real goopy. It is about like Barge or Weldwood. I pour from the gallon to a glue spreader and replace the cap immediately on the gallon. I haven't had it get too thick yet, I wouldn't use it in my house or around kids.I mostly use it outside in the winter. My shop is along single car garage with a covered patio directly out the back door so that is handy. It seems to dry faster than Barge and tacks up stronger, and I can bring it in sooner. If I use it inside I wear a mask when I apply it. I don't use it inside if I am going to be working out there any longer. For things of any size I glue up last thing and leave them sit with an outside door cracked overnight. The summer time I can open the rollup door and the back door and it catches the prevailing breeze. I glue in there more often, but wear a mask when I apply it and take a break to let it tack up.

Randy, The Angus people have done a good job with their promotion of the Certified Angus beef for sure. With better prices it is real plus for the people than run them. With the exception of one major feeder, most of the cattle in our area are shipped to the midwest for finishing. There is a lot of fall calving here and they are a source to fill pens and complement the spring calving in the upper midwest. My uncle is a packer buyer back there and sees a lot cattle that originate right around here. It used to he'd complain about the mix of breeds - it looked like every breed composite, and crossbred was represented in a load (and they were). Now things have shifted and there is a lot more uniformity. The way cattle are now fed and sold in penlots made that a bigger necessity. There probably aren't many individual sorts within pens as there was back in the day. In the last while the southern drought that has brought some older cattle to the market. That may be a bubble for bigger and thicker hides due to age. I think Ken hit on a few other factors of breed and age. The northern cattle are thicker hided and Canadian cattle bigger due to more continental cattle breeds. The big spready cowsides from Europe used to be mostly destined for the Asian market according the to hide report they run in ShopTalk. They didn't have the insect problem and branding that we do here. When they had the foot and mouth disease problem a few years back that shifted those tanners buying more in the US market and that changed things here. When you think of all the leather that is tanned into upholstery leather, easy to see the demand. It used to be leather car seats were a big deal, we all rode around on vinyl. Now leather seats are pretty common. Figure in the manufacturing of shoes and clothes and pretty easy to see that the vegtan market is a smaller slice. I'd be curious to hear how the hides are sorted in the big plants for tanneries or hide brokers. I have heard brands/no brands and weight are it. I don't know how many of them are contracted or sold direct and how many go through brokers either.

A good percentage of the slaughtered cattle have been coming out of feedlots for decades. It is more than just that one factor. They may be younger due to selection for genetics with faster growth or feed conversion efficiency. I think the amount of fat may play a part in all of this too. Cattle are maybe not fed up to the same amount of fat they were in the past, so if they want to follow that argument then hides should be improving. There is a lot of things at work here like the premiums for black hided cattle, feed costs, and overall cattle numbers reportedly world-wide. The bigger factor probably in all of this is the veg tanning industry is pretty small compared to the export market.

Folks, these are some good stamps. Here I thought I was just getting an inside deal because Elton and I did a bit of a couple years ago.

I have tried to stay out of this since I am sort of in the business as well, although from a different angle. There are a few things that have been skipped over. She needs a smaller handle and she wants it to be no wider than 4". I can understand that and that limits what she can buy off the rack. The Marlin/Weavers have a generally bigger handle but are a pretty good value and I think they may sell them that width. The new Osbornes are going to maybe take some time to work the handle size down, and only come one width. To get the specs she asked about, all steel characteristics aside, she is going to have to buy either a handmade or a used knife that will work. Sharpening - I have probably had my hands on most all of the old makers and some of the new makers. I have favorites that last a long time and are hard steel. I have favorites that are more forgiving to sharpen (or fix when they have been mucked up) but still have an edge that lasts reasonably. Sharpening for me has been an evolving process. Probably the best advice I can give is to use a really sharp knife and remember what it feels like. When it doesn't feel like that, it is time to fix it - now. That is tactile and none of us can write about it, it has to be felt. The other thing is that if you never let a blade get very far away from you - the finest stone you can get, fine wet-dry, Japan stone, fine ceramic, whatever and a strop are probably all you need. Just because they sell a tri-hone does not mean you have to use all three sides every time to redress an edge. More knives are messed up with those stones than anyhting else I would wager. You put deep grooves in and you will spend a lot of time taking them out when all you really needed to do was clean up the very fine edge. My observation is that people new to sharpening let knives get too far gone to start with, make bigger problems than they have with coarse grit whatevers, and then when it seems like it takes too long to sharpen they quit before the knife is all the way back to right.

That is a pretty generic design for a cutter and several shops made similar ones. I had to do a double take when I saw your pictures. I rode a Circle Y for about 20 years that looked the same and I sold it last year. I had back dees under the rear jockey conchos to carry skid boot and strung them before I sold it. I also put some "take-off" star conchos and aluminum stirrups on it. What turned the tide for me was the horn and I had replaced the fenders with basket stamped ones about 10 years before. Mine had a little shorter horn and not the pitch to the horncap like yours. I got one a year or two after that first one and they put the horn on like yours. I never liked that higher horn and peddled it off. It was always in the way two-handing a colt in a snaffle and my shirt sleeve tended to get hooked by it.

Colin, I have been shown a few ways and here is my current method. I use both depending on the situation. If I need to follow a lot of curves on a border, I use a blade. If I am following a straight edge, I use a push beader. In either case I lightly cut my outside line first with a swivel knife and then use that to track one side of the beader blade or push beader. I go back over the inside line with a swivel knife and break the grain there too. Then I go back to a push beader and work the bead to round it up and burnish. If I am using a sharp push beader or beader blade I tend to cut new lines when I am shaping and burnishing and that is trainwreck for me.

Colby, Merry Christmas to you too!! I know the look you are going for, and have done several. Kings made them for years and seems like now everyone wants a belt like Trevor's. I do resist the tooled area before I buff the black dye around it. Otherwise I have gotten some smudges and they don't come off very easily.You might get smudges with the resist, but they tend to come off easier. I kind of smooth my edges and then dye them. I buff up everything, and then go back and slick my edges. If I really slick them up first I sometimes don't get as good a penetration with the black. One tip - I think there is a lot less rub off of Angelus black dye than the Feibings varieties of black. I started using it about year ago. The new Feibings black dye (Leather Colors?) also seems to wick and run more than the other Feibings do.

Steve, Unless things have changed the lower priced draw gauge you are referring to may have a hollow back beam on it. I am not sure if the newer Osbornes do or not. If you are looking for something that you want to pass down in the future, I have some that already have a track record of a few generations behind them. I haven't priced new ones lately, but have some equivalent older all metal ones that are 100 years old and probably comparable in price. I have several other draw gauges as well. These all come with a new blade that has been reprofiled and sharpened. Here's a link to the tool intorduction page on my website - Leather Tools For Sale . If you scroll down there is a link to the cutting tools page where the draw gauges are.

I wouldn't be totally dead in the water without a belt sander, but I would feel like I had one tied behind my back. Mine is turned around so the belt goes away from me. I have a 4x36 benchtop belt skiver. I use it to do skives on small areas like the tip of narrow straps that I am going to have to cram into a metal tip. Some of these tips are made for thinner straps. I am using them on things that need strength (like headstalls) and the tips are just mnot made to accomodate that thickness. Some of these tips are made to be let into the straps and the outside width is the width of the strap. For those I need to narrow up just the tip of the strap. Pushing the tip of the strap sideways againt the roller on the end gives me a lot of control to take off a little at time and notch for a precise fit. On some things that fold like card cases I need a thinned gouge in the middle for easier folding. Even with gouges and french edgers, I still sometimes just need to take a skosh off thin leather. I have more control with the belt sander and light touch in the fold area, especially for thin leather. I don't do an edge without running it over the belt sander first. I run them over the edge to remove glue boogers and true up the lining after sewing. On the folds of straps where they go over a buckle or dee, I can do the strap by pressing that area against the roller and leave it full thickness before and after. I don't do long laps or skives on it. I use a handled splitter for long laps, and crank skiver for tapered skives up to 1-3/4".

Ken, I have heard of them in different widths but have never had other than a +/- 8 inch blade. Cleaned up with a good blade it ought to be worth $400-500 in sort of average condition.. I have never had two blades that interchange on a Krebs. I heard a while back that they just drilled them individually and didn't use a jig.

Nick, I would probably go with all I could find. I have seen a guy use a one ton with some makers stamp size plates and do OK. Yours is a pretty good sized plate. It kind of depends on the leather and how cased it is also. On mine I get the best results by casing them up good and letting the surface get back to drier than I would for stamping. Then I press and leave the pressure on for a good 20-30 seconds. They color up well doing that and the detail holds better for me.

Nick, On something that size you are going to need to use some kind of a press. I use a hydraulic jack shop press with my plates. I put a scrap piece of steel over them big enough to cover and spread the force out.

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I have some bevelers from Clay. I also had Elton Joorisity make me some stamps too. I sent him a lifter I liked the particular effect it did and wanted some other sizes, Elton did great job on them. End of last week I got some veiner/wigglers and some tunrbacks he did - good ones there too.

Colin, I use a regular 4x36 benchtop belt sander. I am mostly not needing to profile from a blank. Any major profiling I use either a heavy grit like 120 or diamond stone spending on how much there is to do. I do my final edge on a belt sander. I have some fine grit belts and some pretty wore out ones I use. There used to be a youtube video of how I do it. I take a piece of scotchbrite pad and put in under the supported part of the belt. A pice of duct tape front and back holds it in place. This makes a little cushion under the belt and I let it run wit out tension. It has enough slack to let the blade in a bit and end up with a slight convex final edge, sort of like an infinite angle secondary bevel. I also have a 1x30 belt sander. It is easier to buy fine grit belts for it. I get them from Lee Valley. I use it in the slack part of the belt close to the top wheel. I just keep chasing burs with finer and finer grits until I get a clean edge and then do a final strop with green. I keep a finger on them like Art does to watch for heat. I just saw your other post. For no particular reason I go from point to point and back, then flip over and the same on the other side. I watch for a uniform bur and then go to finer grit.

I am just down the hill from you, sort of. I do my carving patterns first and then fill in with the basket or geometric. After I Ihave that done I go back and use a matter or shallow beveler to halo the bevel around the floral and fade it into the set stamping. I think it helps define the carving better. Otherwise it looks pressed into the set stamp pattern to me.

Rob, If you can buy one really cheap, they work just alright for clicking out with small dies centered under the screw. They do work better for press molding with forms. The problem is that the antique dealers have some demand for them from decoraters and prices are usually $150 on up at the shops I see them at. I saw one at a shop for $75 last year and by the time I went to the ATM and came back a lady was carting it out. She designs in "country French" and bought it for the only reason that it had a Paris label on it. Wasn't meant to be. For the going price a decent shop press and some scrap steel plates is only a little more money and a lot more useful.

I do a lot of them. I have done them a few ways depending on what kind of look customers prefer and how I have sort of evolved. Burning. - tricky to do right.. . There is some really great and artistic pyrography done on leather but is shallow. For a brand it needs to be deep enough to matter if you are doing any kind of stamping or tooling pattern around it. Burn too shallow and it fades into the background. Too deep and you have are through the leather or it flakes out in short order and you are through then. You have to be careful with a regular iron and somebody who thinks they know what they are doing. They will burn through and wreck a piece pretty fast. They are used to burning through hair and into the toplayer of the hide enough to scar when it grows back. This hide isn't growing back. Inverted carving - I trace on the brand, lightly use a swivel knife to score the grain, bevel inside the lines and then use a fine matting backgrounder like a 104 to mat everything down level. I dye the brand with a black Sharpie marker. It looks burned in without scorching leather. Traditional carving - raised - I trace the brand, swivel cut lightly and bevel outside the line with a steep beveler. I basket stamp the remaing pattern. After that I go back and use a matting stamp to highlight the brand and fade into the basketstamping. I do this by far the most now. I do some brands on hair-on hide. For those I use the spoon looking burning tip and go slow just scorching off the hair. If you go really slow you might end up with that nice coppery color sometimes on the leather like a fresh brand should look on a calf. I flake that off and then dye the bare area with a Sharpie. I seal it with Feibing's Leathersheen brushed on in a few layers. The brand stays pretty distinct for a long time that way.

Another stamp maker to add to your list is Elton Joorisity in Canada. Elton is a member here also. He duplicated a stamp for me last summer and I had him make some other sizes to the same specs. He was dead on with them. I just got some wiggler/veiners and a set of turnbacks from him this week.He did a great job on those too.