bruce johnson

Chris, You probably want it at one end or the other if it is a multipurpose bench. It keeps the granite further away from the dye and working area.

I see a few things with this knife. The tip is broken off the one side. The blade edge is sharpened at too steep of an angle right now. These are both easily fixed on some sharpening stones and will make this nice old knife a user for several more years. I would not attempt to reprofile this knife to a round shape. You will be taking a lot of metal off with no real gain. Tony is right about not changing it. These knives when they get this much wear still are pretty handy for skiving in tight spots and will cut a tighter inside curve than a regular round knife. Mine is getting down to the nub. If this knife hasn't been had anything done with it since the picture, I will trade you straight across for a Clyde round knife ready to use.

I'll bump this thread up and start it off. The modern calf roping saddle pretty much seemed to have evolved into a single purpose saddle. I have built exactly one new one so take that for what it is worth. It has worked out really well for me, but mostly all I do is tie some at home anymore. Several years ago I had several good ropers over for saddle tuneups and we kicked around what made a saddle good. Several things came out of that. First off the shorter seats are the deal, Your feet are more underneath you relative to a longer seat with most trees. You push up and rope with a lot less falling back or pulling yourself up coming out. Some guys are likng the cantles a little higher than they used to for that reason too. They like a wider seat than usual. That helps you to stay out on the side and not be shading to the middle. They aren't riding all day. Their impression was at that time that a wider seat helped them stay out, and also made it easier to slide the left leg over. Skirts left full, heavy leather and heavy plugs, along with doubled up seat jockeys. They didn't like a lot of forward stirrup movement. A couple guys had me put a reverse bind on the right leather to keep it from going too far forward. The dropped double dee rigging kind of works for this, but there are somne other rigging styles that are a little freer to the front. I usually position the front of my rear dee about at the front of the cantle point dpending on the tree and rigging position. They liked them behind that position some. As far as trees, the bar patterns that Jeff(?) uses at Faith have a pretty good following. Lewis trees also are popular. I am sure there are others too, but those are what I hear the most. There are a few guys on here that rope really good and hopefully they can fill in some more blanks.

I have made do with a broken headstone and a 10x20 inspection plate for a stamping surface since the start. They all sat on top of different benches and desks. They worked alright but had some bounce, not much surface area for big pieces, and no place to rest my elbow and rock the wrist. A few months ago I was given a left over piece of 1-1/4 granite countertop that was 20x26. Nice to rest my elbow, good surface area, but bouncy and loud with bigger stamps. That surface area got me serious about making a better place to stamp with an inlaid rock. We have visited several shops when we travel. It is nice to see what everyone uses. I have got some great advice from people on the lists and forums too. The biggest complaint is their benches are too small. It seemed like 28-30x30-36 is a real common size for a free standing stamping bench. I went with a 30" depth and 48" width to be able to stamp most of my stuff and not have much over the edge. The 30" depth is my reach to the back. My ergonomic guru advised a sit-or-stand height. That worked out to be 38" for me. I can have my elbow tucked in and at a 90 degree at impact with a stamp. I have a reclaimed chair that adjusts up high to be comfortable too. The rock is an 18x24 black granite surface plate from Grizzly. It weighs around 150#. Their price and shipping were way better than anyone else I checked with. It is braced underneath with 2x4s glued and screwed together and resting on four 2x6s bolted through the legs. There is a a piece of 1/2 plywood and then the rock. The rock is resting on piece of scrap leather to make it sit up a bit above the surrounding top. I looked at several surfaces for the area around the rock. I ended up and went with wood. I had a bad deal with some nail hole filler, but salvaged that part of the finish job somewhat. Other than that, I am very happy with how it turned out. It is quiet to stamp and no bounce even with a 3# maul on a big geometric stamp. The rack to hold the stamping tools is one I have had for quite a while. Stamps are sorted into green plastic containers with a small hole drilled in the bottom. They hang on pegboard hooks that have been bent up to hold the cups at an angle. The green is an easy color to see the stamps against. I use a small bock that goes on the bench and holds maybe 30 stamps in use. This rack is freestanding and portable so it can go in back or to either side of the bench.

I have pretty well tried them all. The pop bottles work alright but lack the control I need to squeeze a fine bead on zipper tape or glueing an opne pocket around the edge. A little tricky to fill (paper funnels help a lot). Ketchup type squeeze bottles are alright. The brush in the bottle containers or carboy type glue pots have stringers for me. The teflon pots with the conical top are pretty popular. You see them in a lot of shops. The problem I had besides stingers was that if the brush got knocked slightly off vertical, air got in and the glue went bad. Everyone else's mileage varies on these. About 2 months ago I got the chance to try a Kabi glue pot loaned to me by a buddy who has worked in a few shops. It has an oil can type pump that pumps glues through the brush. No stringers, good control for fine work, and goes like a bandit on big areas. A squeeze now and again and just keep spreading. It is at least twice as fast as squeezing from a bottle, setting the bottle down and using a patch/leather scrap/credit type card to to spread the glue. I don't end up with glue on my fingers. You recap the brush when not is use. At the end of the day dip the brush in solvent and clean it. You put a little solvent in the cap and replace it over the brush to store it. The mouth is pretty big and easy to refill. The unit cost me $55 and I ordered a spare brush and cap for $17. They don't give them away, but well worth it for me. My impression is that I am using about half as much glue and getting more even coverage than before. A person will have to decide if they are doing enough glueing to warrant it.

First off, there are a few people who can do a lap on an 86. Some have made a ramped jig and some dial and pull s-l-o-w-l-y. To do a decent lap with a splitter, you need a handled one like an old Osborne 84, Spittler pattern, or I can do decent with moving the lever on a Krebs. I don't think a crank splitter is very handy for laps either. I use a crank skiver a fair amount, but for the precise work you need on watch bands, still not the tool. The bookbinders crank skiver (Schaar-Fix?) might work alright for what you are wanting. I sent mine back and never tried it for that. I don't think any of the safety skivers or super skivers are all that consistant either. I do my best laps with a sharp knife. A round knife works alright, and I have a few skiving knives I really like. I like the flat blade skivers a lot. I just got a Vergez-Blanchard with a handle that is fast becoming my first grab.

Ideally there shouldn't be any dents in the rawhide behind the fork, it should just make a nice transition down to the bars. If you use risers, they should take care of any small dents there. As far as the back of the cantle - any dents or puckers there would be harder to deal with. Anything that is pulled up will make it harder to fit the rear jockeys in there tight. Is there a little rawhide lace to help keep the rawhide pulled down in there?

Sheridan Leather Outfitters.

My suspicion is a Hackbarth. It looks a lot like the impression on one I used to have. Most of my Hackabarths have finer knurling, but a couple larger flower centers have that coarser knurling. I can't remeber what knurling my basket had.

I haven't seen one of those live yet, but had a guy email pics of one he had from his grandad. He was told it was originally from England, his grandad had a lot of Dixon tools so that might fit. Can you show some pics from different angles? That is sure a unique design.

I have done most of my lighter stuff lately on a piece of granite countertop that is 1-1/4". It is large and alright for small things, but noisy and not as good for bigger stamps. It was free. I have a broken headstone and small granite surface plate that are 3". I like them better, but the height is not as handy on top of bench. I am building a bench with an inlaid stone and need the edges square to inlay it. I am going with a 3" granite surface plate. The best deal I found with price and shipping combined in the sizes I am looking at is from Grizzly.

Jeremiah Watt's carving and layout DVD is right in that range.

The Landis, American, and Champions are 6" wide and come from the shoe trade. They are/were used for splitting and leveling soles. The Weaver has an 8" blade and costs $1895. The wider handwheel or motorized fixed blade splitters are going to cost some bucks. One guy used to charge $200 per inch of blade for the ones he refurbishes. You get to the wider widths and a bandknife splitter starts to look more attractive too. There is a guy around Harrison ID that makes or used to make a wider handcrank splitter. His name escapes me right now, but I want to say it was 12" wide. There was one someplace on a used board for $2500 a while back. Artisan sells a motorized 18" wide fixed blade splitter for a little over $2000 too.

Good clean looking work again Steve.

OK, I fought this for years, seeing only two functions of the 3-in-1 and 4 functions of the 5-in-1s. Here's the three functions of the seemingly 2-in-1 machines as told to me separately by two different really old guys. First off the cutting wheel on the end cuts. The skiving balde "Skives" (#2, if you are keeping score). Drummmmmm rooollllll. They both swore function number #3 is... you can set blade level and "split" welting. I have to believe them because as another old timer advised me, "Old guys are generally wise". That said several companies made these - Landis, Champion, American, I had one from a Minneapolis maker that escapes me right now. The skiving function is probably more popular than the cutting function except for horseshoers cutting pads. Yours is probably the least desirable setup for a leatherworker because the top wheel has the aggressive milling to help push the leather through. This will mark or tear the top grain if used to skive tooling leather. It works for skiving ground seat buildups and pieces that are hidden, but not exposed leather that appearance matters. Usually these sell for about $50 in as-found condition. Cleaned up with a smooth wheel, I have seen them sell anywhere from $125-350 on Ebay. I sold one for $300, but buyers aren't as scarce at $200. The aggressive top wheel I had I took $125 for it. One thing that also detracts on yours is the edge guide for the skiving/splitting feature is broken off.

Actually the skeleton is multitasking. She sent me the rough graphics and instructions to make him a dancin', drinkin', shootin' skeleton. I really had a blast doing this one. It is a little out of my style repertoire until recently, but bring 'em now.

Cool idea for a display. I like that idea. I like your work too, but then again I have for a while.

Like most everyone doing leatherwork, I get asked for donations and sure try to accommodate the ones that benefit people or groups I believe in. I normally give things from stock, but this spring I was asked about donating a custom rope can for another fundraiser. It worked out so well to donate a credit to be applied toward a can, I did it again for a college rodeo team fundraiser. Ends up it sold twice, and it was worth the trip to their fundraiser (Auction, silent auction, Ian Tyson concert, dance, and I am gald to report that college kids still party hearty). All three of the girls who bought these came up with challenging designs and I sure liked making them.

I would think a bandage pretty well sums it up. It may not fit today's horses, if the lacing has gapped that much the tree may be twisted. I would clean it up and maybe restore it as a childhood keepsake. I have my great grandfather's saddle in the living room. It is the first saddle I probably ever rode, for sure the first one I was been bucked out of, and my touchstone to a guy who was one of my heros.

If I had got a good Osborne #84 to start with, I wouldn't know as much as I do know. I started off with TLF's knock-off version that a manager sold me for probably close to cost on a "I need to cut inventory drastically by the end of this month" deal. An old friend sold me a Landis crank skiver and an American crank splitter. I bought a Chase pattern splitter and it was a dream for a pull through splitter. After that I sold the TLF to a guy who has some machining expertise and he corrected some of the issues with it. Since then I have developed an interest in splitters and have bought and sold several different splitters. For lap skives I sure like the crank skiver. I have a Landis and it has smooth wheel on top so it doesn't mark the grain of the leather. American has two versions, I think the original version has a milled wheel on top, and the American "B" has the smooth wheel. There is a version that has a wider blade, but mine is the regular 1-3/4" blade and is fine for my needs. There is a skiver on the 3-in-1 and 5-in-1s and they sometimes sell for less than a crank skiver, just watch the feedwheel on top and make sure it is smooth. I like doing longer laps on an old Spittler pattern splitter, it was Osborne's #83 splitter with the plier grip handle. For splitters, I am torn here. I really like the Chase style splitters. The blades are thinner, there are rollers top and bottom to feed the leather square into the blade, and they are pretty safe. There is no exposed blade in use. I have two bolted down - a 10" Osborne left at an 8 oz setting and a 12" Hansen that I adjust for other thicknesses. There is no dial or setting for splitting, you adjust the top roller position kind of by trial and error. My other favorite splitter is the Krebs style. I have a Randall Krebs style right now I like alot. I think there were three manufacturers of them. Osborne called theirs the "#85". They have top and bottom rollers for good feeding and safety too. The bevel on the blade is pretty good. The real plus is they have a pointer and dial on a drum that sets the height. You can write down a measurement and 6 weeks later go back to that position and split the same. Some guys do laps by moving the setting handle as they pull. I have some other oddities and variations of splitters, but the two Chase styles, the Krebs, and an American crank splitter are my users. Like I said earlier, either a good #84 or a Keystone should do you fine. They can tightern down to level split or push the handle as you pull for laps. I just went another way because of how I fell into things. I have had a couple #84s since and liked them well enough. The only real problem is sometimes a strap can hit a hard spot or flip up, ride the bevel of the blade, and chop off. I am not a fan of the #86. The blade has no guard and you can't really do a decent lap on it without making a tapered jig to stick under the piece you are skiving. This is my least favorite type of splitter and the only one Osborne sells now.

For one thing to do all of what you probably want a handled splitter. Good ones to looks for are either an old Osborne #84 splitter or one of the new Keystone ones from Campbell-Randall. You can do level splitting with these and lap skives with a little practice.

Gore Tools and Harper Manufacturing both make or made them in metal versions with handles. About any of the delrin stamp makers that make press plates can do them from delrin. Hidecrafters used to resell some metal plates they got from Richard Fletcher at Green Parrot Laser, and he occasionally has those plates on Ebay too.

This is kind of comparing apples to oranges. A common edger is different than a round edger. Barry makes a round edger too. To compare between Barry's edgers, I would go for either a bisonette or round edger for a double layer of 7/8. The round edgers are easier to sharpen and maintain. The bisonettes are easier to run a consistant edge. For something that thickness, I have a #3 bisonette from Barry. To compare between maker's - besides Barry, Jeremiah Watt, and Ron there is Bob Douglas. He doesn't just sell older tools, he also sells new edgers. Each maker has their own advantages and disadvantages.

Monica, Texas Custom Dies sells a shop press with the top set up what I think you are describing. Someone emailed me a picture a while back. There might be a picture of it on their site. It looks like the framework bolts onto or through the top beam and then beefier return springs. That would sure make things easier for you.

Monica, My plates aren't welded on. The large bottom plate sits on the crossbeams. I have a piece of LDPE cutting board as a pad. I take a piece of steel big enough to cover the die entirely and center it under the ram of the press. When I got my steel, it was going to be pricey to have it cut to my sizes. The office guy sent me to a yard guy who went through the cut-off scrap pile and came up with pieces close to what I wanted. A dozen doughnuts got that deal done. I went back later for some more scrap and it cost me $10. That was still a bargain.