bruce johnson

There were some hardware updates last night on the host server and some of the posts put up yesterday were lost from time of the last backup until the new hardware came on. It is a pain, but hey, not anything like the entire meltdown a few years ago. Thanks for reposting.

I am with Chris, they don't do much if there is resistance. I use mine after I start the concho or once I have it loosened. They do good on the tedious hand turning there. I got mine in a set, I don't know how much they even sell for. For what they do, I wouldn't pay a lot. One little warning is if you chuck them into a drill, be sure you are centered over the screw. Otherwise they turn pretty wildly and slip off easy. SOme of the conchos I deal with don't have the screw exactly centered and that can mess you up.

Pete, I have had some when I was getting yard sale sets. Those weren't much more than a glorified edge creaser with one side sort of sharpened. I have made a couple out of regular Osborne edge creasers. Some wet-dry sandpaper on the appropriate size nail will profile the center groove. Then sharpen the edges of the cutting leg but leave enough bevel to lay open the cut a little.

It's been a while since I posted anything, but here's some of a batch of spur straps I just finished up. The oak pattern is a new one for me. It kind of has a softer look than some, my wife has already claimed a set. There is also a new style for me. This guy ordered a set that is a variation of the rough stock spur leathers that double through a ring and buckle back. I did a running vine kind of pattern on them. They were fun to do.

I don't know if it is a trick or not. I use a round bottom kind of French edger with some sweep to it. If I sew dry to avoid a rat butt pattern on top, then I spritz a little water on the bottom and let it soak in before I trim it. Cutting the binding with this tool and little moisture makes a nice slick edge. I just kind of try to run one rail over the stitchline and so far I haven't cut any off. If you keep the toes ground off the tool, you can run it right up into the corners. My leather is probably 6/7 or so there. This is an old Osborne #1 and it works.

I pretty much do like Jim but an old man showed me a trick after fighting a few. I cut my binders on a slight curve. I don't use a pattern, just kind of do it by eye. I skive like has already been mentioned. Once I have it wet up and cased to be back to right and moldable, I kind of fold it a little down the middle where it will lay over the back of the Cheyenne roll and shape it some. Put a stitch groove in the leading edge with will be the long side of the curve. When I lay it in place, center the binding and tack in the middle and work ymy way out to the corners tacking every so often in the groove line. As you lay that long side down, the shorter back/underneath edge will tuck up underneath almost on its own. There is a lot less bubble to work out underneath for me. I do that like Jim and kind of compress small bubbles at a time. I was taught to start that in the corners and work in about 3" sections at time. By the time I get up on top, most of the time I don't have any bubbles at all. I run a tickler around underneath to push everything up tight ahd throw a few small nails in the from the bottom the hold it up tight.

Valley Mfg Co - Woodburn OR (800) 527-6385 I ordered some from them last summer for covering. They were a little better quality than some of the catalog sellers. I had to wait a couple weeks for some deep ropers, but they had them done when they said they would. Easy enough for that one time I dealt with them.

The only thing I can find is in Graham's book "Old Cowboy Saddles & Spurs". Ab Womack - Hailey, Grangeville, Kooskia, ID 1892-1966

Old men are generally wise, and here's the tip from an old departed friend. He told me about doing this and then sold me the tool to do it with. Besides a marriage license it may have been the best $75 I spent. First off take a freehand stitch groover/gum tool, patent leather tool/whatever you choose to call it. I am attaching an example of one I have. It is basically a very small U-gouge. Run it over the top stitches and cut them off or severely weaken them. It may take two passes. Then just pull the woolskin from the bottom and the stitches all or mostly all pull out. The whole procedure takes maybe 10 minutes. I have used the loop blade type race compasses also, but the freehand groovers do a cleaner job for me. As far as the tool, the only ones making them now are Jeremiah Watt and I believe Bob Douglas. The old ones were made by Dodd, the Osbornes, and Gomph. I had a waiting list for the old ones I have finally cleared, but none to sell right now.

I liked it. It is probably one of the more complete DVDs out there.

Here is my new stamping bench. I built it last summer after seeing several different types and sizes of benches in other shops and advice from guys on the forum here. It is 48" wide to hold longer things like belts and saddle skirts. It is 29" deep so I can easily reach the stamps. The height is 37-3/4 so I can stand or sit on a drafting chair. The rock is a granite insepction plate from Grizzly that is 24x18. I like the larger rock for less noise, bounce, and a bigger area to beat on.

I have added more round knives for sale today to my website. I think there 10 or so left. There are Gomphs, CS Osbornes, a Harrington, and a Rose, along with some other tools as well. Here's a link - Leather Tools for Sale Thanks,

This is one of the places a draw gauge really shines. You make a slit with your knife of choice where you want the cut to be and put the draw gauge blade up through that slit from the bottom. Then you just pull away. I have done them two ways, One was to set the width of the cut for the width of the strap and just hold the previous strands out of the way working from right to left. The other way that worked better for me was to make the width for the width of the strap minus the width of the strand. Make that cut and then readjust the blade for the width minus two strans, and work from left to right. I have never actually braided these, but several years ago cut quite a for a wholesale order for a group to braid. For the bracelets I used a swivel knife in the border edge guide thing and marked out the strands that way. I finished the cuts with a round knife.

I have cleaned up the waiting list for plough gauges and have had chance to use the last two I got for a couple weeks. I have added two 6" Dixons on my website today - here's the link - Plough gauges for Sale

I have not had a problem with using wet-dry over something round. I use everything from small nails on a size 1 or 2 up to larger nails. I rarely have to get much bigger except on the very large sizes. If you are widening the area, I would suspect the rod is too large. I personally use 4 styles of edgers but all of them are round on the bottom. I use the old CSO with the forked points, bisonettes, the round bottoms, and the french type edgers with a half rounded bottom and some sweep to the profile from the side. To bring the edge back to shape I use a coarser wet-dry like 400 on a round base, then go to 600. They are pretty easy to do, a few strokes on whatever wrapped in wet dry and then buff on a wheel with a lighter rouge. I usually go from brown to green. I can pretty well maintain them with the spiral sewn wheel and green rouge and touch them to the corner. I don't like the Osbornes and the Tandys with the slot. They might be alright for a while but still drag and chatter more than any others. They may be the cheapest to buy but for me they were the hardest to sharpen and maintain. For grins I took a few and ground one side off to see what kind of angle the edges were ground at. I should have taken pictures. The angle was pretty steep on some of the ones I dissected. There's a reason for the drag and chatter. To try to get something down in there and maintain an angle is pretty tough. There is some debate, but I think they sharpen up better working on the bottom and then strop out the slot with a hard cardboard or leather disc on a dremel. Still even at their best, not very good compared to a cutting edge with a thinner profile.

I use a 6 foot ruler and a 45 mm roller blade cutter. The roller blade will got through about everything up to 14 oz. With that it wll score it enogh that a quick pass with a roundknife in the cutline will do the job.

Bristles can be actual boar bristles or synthetics like the flexible wire or plastic. I watched a video of a guy using guitar strings and some boot makers use heavy monofilament fishing line. They are flexible and will bend to get into a confined are or follow a curved awl hole. The thread is attrached to the bristle with a wax and whipped on. They can be used in a traditional saddle stitch with the threads crossing in the awl hole. "Pop Stitching" to me basically means a running stitch - in and out with a single thread going in one direction just like using a thread to do a buckstitch pattern. This is used on some overlaid seats with the thread coming up and going down through each scallop. Some makers do it on cantle bindings too. Diifernet people use thread, lacing tape, or artificial sinew. Randy described using a jerk needle well. What it makes is a mechanical lock stitch like a machine. You can reach down into corners and hook a thread underneath and pull a loop back up through the hole. You pass the top thread through and then tension the bottom thread to bring the lock down into the leather. I sew my Cheyenne rolls with a saddle stitch. I start down in the corners nearly horizontal or even angled up slightly so I can get my backside needles in. I may use the same bottom hole twice before moving to the next one. The lets me catch up and keep the same stitch spacing on the bottom as the top. Once I get to where I am in the clear, then I go to the normal saddle stitch sequence. Hard to explain but it is shown in one of the Stohlman books. I usually sew to past center from one side or the other and then start in the other corner and overlap a few stitches. I do the overlap slightly off center of the binding so it is not quite as noticable. Again maybe from Stohlman, maybe someone here gave that tip. Some days I have done this technique with one thread and go all the way across for grins. You need to have the floor clean and things out of the way. It uses a mega-pull of thread and takes a lot of time pulling slack.

Cowdog, Thanks for the compliment and letting me know my impressions were correct. I have to say that in the last year I have dealt with a bunch of good young cowboys and cowgirls. The future looks brighter to me than it probably did to the generation before us. God bless you brother for all you do to keep them safer.

Myriam, I like the graphics a lot. Everytime I think I have something that will make a good graphic I do something I think I'd like better. These all get trumped by running out and making a panic order just like last time. My suggestions are kind of based on who you are giving these out to. I would put your name on them. I think that gives them a more personal feel to have name to go along with the business. Also I had some made up that they put the phone number with the periods to separate things out. Is that a new convention for phone numbers? Several customers didn't figure out that was the phone number. It even took a very close relative who bakes pies and lives with me a minute to figure out that was our phone number. I had them reprint the cards with the area code in parentheses and the seven digit separated with a dash - no more confusion for the traditionalists. Mailing addresses are good, I get a few orders every year that way, and most of my payments. It saves them calling again for the address. My thoughts.

WAIT! WAIT, HERE'S ONE MORE!! I really had good intentions of making a set up for this - doing a cool tooled pattern and all that. Due to a rash of repairs and being sick, I didn't get it done, but had a hot trade going last week on a set of coasters in exchange for a Pendleton cap. (Thanks again Canada for your exports of fine whiskey to be consumed in moderation!). These are some hair-ons with the guy's ranch brand run on them. My thanks go out to the cattleman who raised him, and the roany red steer who came up with the pattern.

Jed, Thanks for asking, but the Champion is sold. Also I got a few emails on the American crank splitter I mentioned in the topic of the American vs. Landis 30. It was sold before I started on it.

I have added more tools for sale on my website. I have a Champion crank splitter, three plough gauges, knives, and a couple overstitchers. Here's a link - Leather Tools for Sale . Edit - I added a couple draw gauges tonight also. Thanks,

Russ, I have had both at different times. The Landis I had fed from the front and the Americans I have had feed from the back. I asked my old tool buddy about the difference one time. His line was "Weeeell, it all depends on whether you want to see the strap go in or come out". I just rebuilt an American and Champion. The Champion came set up with the handle on the opposite side to feed from the front if you crank with the right hand, but it was reversible so I did. The Landis might be also? My thoughts with using both is that in my hands there isn't much difference. The adjustment action on the Landis might be a little smoother, but the rest isn't much different to me. The Landis will usually bring a little more money because of name recognition.

Splitters are used to thin down leather. Skivers are used to taper leather to make joins or to blend back into itself like the fold at the end of a strap. Some bench and power machines are pure splitter, some are pure skivers, and some will do both. In a nutshell splitters have a fixed adjustment and leather is pulled into the blade or pushed in by feed rollers to thin down heavier leather or lace to a consistant thickness. Examples are the Osborne #86 and Chase pattern splitters. Bench and powered skivers will cut a taper from the edge of the leather. Some of these are the Landis and American crank skivers, or powered bell knife skivers. The combination splitter/skivers have an easier adjustment for the thickness of leather and the adjustment is gradually made from thicker to thinner as the leather is being pulled into the blade. It is a finesse of changing the thickness adjustment at a rate that is right for the speed your pulling to get a nice even transition. It is combination of pull on the leather with one hand and push on the depth adjustment with the other. The more common ones are the handled splitters like an Osborne #84, Keystone, and the similar patterns to those or the Osborne #83 or Spittler pattern splitters with the plier type handles. Most people use a splitter when they buy a heavier weight of leather and then split it down for the particular needs at hand. People cutting their own lace use them to even up thickness. I have a few different styles and makers of splitters and prefer one or the other for different things or a particular width I am working with.