DavidL

The way I see it done is people will bound both the ends of the zipper with leather (vertically on both zippers or separately). Another way I seen it done is the excess is stitched onto the inside. In the stohlman books he talks about the more traditional way of zipper installation. He takes pliers to crimp the zipper stop to connect the ends together.

Are you trying to dye the entire piece in your design or thin lines Dye sort of soaks into the leather like moisturizer does on your skin, creating a water paint on paper look, only less washed out. I never tried it so it could work out great. Acrylics sit on top and give a solid colour. Maybe. Just a random thought. Try to get acrylic medium in a store and add your own pigments. Ask the employees if that might work. Im guessing that acrylic medium is the exact same substance found in acrylic paints minus the pigment and some other ingredients.

Most likely one of the oldest, still running company (most established) to saddle stitch, since the early 1800s. The angle of the stitch and the separation of each stitch with thinner thread would be why he called it hermes saddle stitch. Not entirely right, or wrong. Id be interested in a tutorial if you are willing to share how you make it. Very unique looking bag.

These are worth 20-30 dollars a piece brand new.

From the book leather working handbook by valerie michael her recommendation is to apply saddle soap and water and wipe off the excess. Others say to buff between coats of dye. The whole process takes 1 full day at the least. I still haven't got it right because I'm too impatient to wait for it to dry..

For your next bag I would suggest you hit the iron on one panel and on the joining panel before assembly mark it up and hit with a pricking iron, that way the marks will look the same front and back. According to a post by another forum member (who works with an ex hermes worker) that is the way Hermes does it on some of the construction if not all that isn't machine stitched. Monica - The vergez and dixon's measuring system is different according to the measurements I made. The finished product shouldn't look that different from 8 TPI or 8 SPI, just to the craftsman, the customer will not notice. I wouldn't be too worried about your order. 7 TPI = 6 complete stitches that you can count with a ruler per inch. 7 SPI would = 7 complete stitches that you can count with a ruler per inch. It would take 8 teeth to marks to make 7 stitches. Vergez I looked at = TPI - so my 9 iron produced 8 stitches per inch. Dixon regular (thinned down) = SPI - my 7 iron produced 7 stitches per inch. Slimline dixon ( SPI?) The difference would be down to .Xmm, a fraction of a mm difference between each stitch for vergez and dixon. It does make a little bit of a change. Each iron, from japanese irons, vergez, dixon, osborne has a difference in teeth size and measurement. It would work out best to just stick with an entire set of one maker.

Great brief case. Are you using a vergez? My 9 vergez i found out recently is 8 spi = 9 tpi. is yours the same?

I took a chance and grinded the steel blade until it had two bevels. Then splashed water on the stone and finished it off. Now it cuts chrome tan like I'm cutting through paper. Needs a bit of polishing now with jewellers rouge to get rid of the marks. For some dumb reason I thought green compound can produce a cutting edge and I was stropping 30 - 40 times a side.. Now I know its just to touch up the edge for a few swipes with the strop or sharpening steel. One thing I found odd is that the blade never developed a burr. I guess the steel is so hard the burr is microscopic? Hope this helps anyone who has a clicker knife.

Spring field is trying to increase their profit margins. They buy in huge lots (4000sq feet for one veg tan minimum order from brazil last time I emailed) from low end tanneries in developing nations for really low prices. Then they turn around and sell them at a huge markup. no surprise there. The only thing is the products he gets are so poor quality that a lot of the pieces have things like mosquito bites, holes, brands and really bad characteristics, majority low end and fewer that are okay. No high end leathers, mostly at cheap leather for beginners or the non discerning craftsman. The one I received had at least 200 mosquito bites and it was "A" quality. Anyone who checked it would have noticed immediately it was scrap. They try to pawn off some of the bad stuff into peoples shipments knowing that there is a 25-40 percent change that the person will call to get it replaced depending on how bad the hide is and they take those odds. Bottom line they don't care about the customers and make up for the bad quality by acting like it was a mistake and they send you a new hide thats one of the good ones. In your mind you think its great customer service. Not blaming them though, thats just how bad some of these hides from undeveloped countries tanneries are and there is no other way to get rid of them and they won't admit its garbage quality otherwise it will scare away customers. So if you call in they give you a good one and pay for shipping too. Out of the people that bought from SLC there has to be a bunch that had to get something returned or didn't bother calling in.

No.. It was news that someone fabricated to look like it was real, never knew people would spend time doing that, so I was under the assumption It was real. Just one of those things that are interesting and it tied into the discussion.. about copyright design. Also I couldn't care less about the issue before I knew it was fake. The number was off but who really cares.. you still understood its.. a bunch of money.

Of course I didn't its not even real or important news.

Im trying to figure out if its possible to completely stop dye bleeding on items that you hand dye yourself without using 3 coats of thin resolene. Aniline dyed leather with a chemical sealant added I have confidence that the flesh side and grain side won't bleed off, straight from the factory untouched. Drum dyed leather the dye looks like something was added to the process of the drum dying process and the process itself makes sure that the dye penetrates deep and won't bleed, again I am confident that it won't bleed in rain or sweat. With a sample of thoroughbred latigo I rubbed it with a bit of beeswax and polished with a cloth and black dye bled onto the cloth. So, I wouldn't be 100 percent comfortable using this leather . Same goes with a piece of aniline dyed goat skin that I put it under the tap for a full minute and the excess dye came off the whole time. Also wouldn't be comfortable using it in a product. Hand dyed I'm most concerned because it will bleed the most dye. Products like selvage jeans and shirts will bleed for a while new, but after a dip in water most of the excess comes off. With vegtan the leather after its wet gets hard and shrinks so its not ideal from what I understand just like car clear coats and wood clear coats you need 3-4 thin coats to seal. I guess it would be the same with leather or even more because dye doesnt harden like acrylics paint on cars. What would be the way for 1. Hand dyeing the leather and sealing with a matte finisher like bees wax and neats foot or a product I can buy (not resolene) that will make it as resistant to bleeding as the aniline dyed leather. I have aussie and atom wax with leather balm, beeswax and olive oil. Would like a product like resolene that seals leather and is matte no gloss. Maybe even a matte additive 2. It feels like I could rub a small piece of leather for an hour just to get rid of all access of dye. Would it be best to let the access sit on the dye and then airbrush 4 coats of matte sealant and the excess dye would be sealed to the leather?

Im curious what some business owners would do in this situation, entirely fictitious numbers: if your item cost 10 dollars for materials and your fixed cost like your electricity, labour and rent, website fees, supplies ect..: push that item to 18 dollars a piece if you make 300 pieces. The price you set will also change the supply and demand. In that situation I would sell at say 45 making 27 dollars per piece. if it cost 10 dollars in materials... fixed cost...rent,website,fees, supplies ect...: push that item to 24 dollars because of raise in prices of supplies and rent for 300 pieces. Would you attempt to continue to sell at 45 making 21 dollars profit to not effect the Supply and demand and take a loss or would you raise prices up to 50.

lol. I would of sent them coins. And the payment was 1 billion..

samsung had a phone that had a similar curve design to the iPhone 4 or 5 and apple sued samsung for a million and won . Which is ridiculous. Samsung sent them trucks filled with pennies... I think that that its impossible to stop fakes from being sold. A new store by the same person will come up in a few days after the site is taken down. Any one who buys a fake for 300 instead of the real for 5k is more into fashion than luxury, so hermes probably doesnt care.

.7mm thread is a bit thick, not the proper size you want. It will still work. Go for some linen or machine thread .58mm. Maybe use glover needles? Never used before but you should be able to pierce through 4 ounces of chrome tan. Also look up videos on youtube and download them to your desktop and watch and re watch to get the steps right.

That website is just selling fake handbags, that say made in france and also hermes. Perhaps if it had their company name and not taken some of the patented birkin design it would be okay. I think the difference is like zen said they have to buy a real bag from hermes then your service is to customize the bag and create your art work whether its painting or reconstructing. All of custom shoe reconstructers require you to first buy a nike shoe then send it in and they offer a service to customize it. Similar to a person buying a car and customizing the seats, doors and paint by an auto shop.

Folds are hard to remove. Good that you received a refund. When I first started I received a piece like that and wasn't sure what to do with it. I ended up rolling the piece around a cylinder then working with my hands to smooth the crease. I also rested it on the towel rack and the steam from the shower helped soften the creases.

Welcome to the forum. Lots of good info on here about medieval armour and tooling leather. Also a few that are interested in making luxury goods in the future, me being on of them.

Its 18 per square foot from Annonay and 15 after 5 skins right? I think thats a good price since the price of shipping from france or italy is already calculated. Any one know the real square foot price is if you were able to buy it from the tannery? Im interested in Japanese leathers, however there isn't any that openly sell on the web. Also hard to find leather trade shows information and where they gather.

I'd rather learn to do it myself so I can fine tune the knives, so I can sharpen on the fly and let the knife makers make the knives (He may not know how to put a bevel on a curve blade or doesnt have the right machine, otherwise he would have put the bevel on when he shipped it out I suppose) I'll send him an email to see if that is the case or if it was on purpose. If I have no success I'll let one of those guys that ride around in those vans sharpening peoples knives and lawn mower blades fix it up for me. Do you know if no bevels on a knife is worse than having a dual bevel blade? Is there any instance that anyone would use a no bevel knife? The point is gradually curved until they both meet . The edge is probably as thin as a scalpel blade if you look at it straight down. I have one of those, a bit used up. Not ceramic though I will look into a ceramic one.

I have a custom clicker knife that has hard steel and is sturdy. The blade came sharp at first, afterwards it was difficult to sharpen the blade as it is curved and also had no bevels. The front end slowly started to become more horizontal instead of curved and the first 2 centimetre of blade overtime created a bevel. Compared to the clicker knifes I seen in videos my knife doesnt cut any where as close. What tools would I need to either put a bevel. Do i need a higher grit stone and create a better bevel? What I have right now is a 200 - 400 grit combination stone, green compound, jewellers rouge, a strop, and a cutlery sharpener.

http://leatherworker.net/forum/index.php?showtopic=58233&hl= To sum it up. Figure out if you want a HVLP sprayer (shoots more material but needs a more expensive tank) or LVLP sprayer (shoots paint slower and needs less PSI, less overspray). LVLP shoots at lower PSI and needs a 20 gallon tank at minimum, 6 gallon may do for very small pieces as the tank needs to refill more frequently. Price for LVLP and a tank is 200 for a cheap 20 gallon tank and 50 for a lvlp gun, grizzly gun was highly recommended. Spray guns can do very large pieces like entire hides. Airbrushes can do artwork and small pieces well but takes longer than a spray gun. you can also achieve fades better because of the accuracy. Price is around 50-100 for a airbrush and 100 for a compressor. Iwata eclipse is a good gun, siphon feed or paasche talon with the fan tip. Both can spray 1 inch to 2.5 inch patterns. If you need to do a base coat on a messenger bag it will take a while. On an entire hide you might as well just get a sprayer or dye the whole thing. You can also get an electrical sprayer that isn't as durable. According to the user in the link, it works fine. Both will need a mask, spraying outdoors or spraying some sort of clean air unit like the type for airbrushes that you can find on amazon.

Just a thought. You could carefully double layer the area with semi strong tape that is paper backed and cement the leather onto the tape. You can remove the tape clean off the wood without messing up the grain. No glue residue.

thanks. That makes sense.