DavidL

excel is 10 a sq foot. at springfield leather company. idk what to tell you about dyed leathers that are cheap. I dye all my leathers by hand. Hand dyed leather for me doesn't look that good. Oil tan, pull up and latigo are leathers you should look at. Bridle, veg tan goat, box calf are the highest on the range, but do not start with these it will be wasted on beginner errors and probably not at all if you do not plan to sell online.

this leather was hand dyed shown at 1:43.

il send them an email. I think they won't know the steps and supplies that go into making the shoes, but its worth a try.

Once you have all the cut outs align the pieces and glue with contact cement, rubbing cement or double sided tape (very thin kind) and then get your scratch compass or ruler and scratch a line for your stitching. Take a pricking iron/pricking wheel or overstitch and run it along the line. For Pricking iron lightly press on the leather and once it looks perfectly aligned on the line hit the iron until you see a mark on the backside of the leather. The mistake i did was that i didn't scratch the line before i glued it in place, this only really matters since the line is slightly farther in the distressed blue wallet.

using glue like contact cement or thin double sided sewing tape. Use a pricking iron to pierce the holes until it goes through the backside. If it is 1mm of chrome tan leather then it will be harder than sewing with vegtan. I find that at least 6 ounces of leather of veg tan is optimum. It depends on what is being sewn. Some members sew with chrome tan, but i find it nearly impossible to go more than 5 stitches without a stitch looking uneven when stitching chrome tan leather.

i like the blue thread looks good with the orange goat leather. Is this glued at the edges or do you use seamstress double sided tape?

forgot to mention, keep the blade facing towards you and the angle at 20 degrees and pull the thread between the blade and the surface.

if they can't refund you and you are still "at the point of madness" send it to me il put it to good use.

a steady hand may be able to cut that out, along with a straight knife

14:43 1:40 what type of dyes do these companies use? Im using professional fiebings oil dyes and angelus and they work well, yet I'm curious if they use fiebings as well or if they chose to use a european type dye.

Any machines out there that can replicate a diamond hole that is seen with a stitching awl. Im comfortable hand stitching leather goods by hand, but for larger objects a sewing machine that can punch out hole like an awl will be useful and time saving. It is only going to be used for punching out the holes and i don't intend to sew on it. The ones I had in mind are the heavy duty manual singer machines that are used for leather. Tippman also comes to mind but comes in at 1 grand and id prefer to pay 100-200.

have you tried holding a knife edge to the thread at an angle and pulling the thread while in contact with the knife. It creates a taper at the end of the thread and makes things easier.

In 5 years i believe i will be as good as hunio and peter nitz. Given that in that time frame I apprentice for a japanese leatherworker or french leather worker, like Peter Nitz did. The construction is what takes years of practice, and then the materials they use make it look incredible. I agree with you, there is a trend of wanting products made in north america for a slightly higher price tag. With the increase of online buyers it cost less for leather workers and craftsman to sell products that can be bought by people from across the world without a physical retail store. Nicer supplies and skill = better craftsmanship and more potential value in the eyes of the consumer from a better made product. Im not trying to clash head with you but I'm trying offer advice. You will see an increase in sales if you bump your price down to 70-80 for the bifold and 30-45 for the simple wallet. The price for a piece of leather to make a simple wallet is 4-5 dollars max, plus 1-2 for supplies. so the mark up is 25 - 35 for lets say 15-20 minutes of work for the simple wallet. The cutting out takes 2 minutes with a stencil, cutting the holes takes 4 minutes and the rest you can attribute to pricking holes and hand stitching plus a quick burnish. The customer also looks at other sellers and they sell items that look similar for 20 - 30 dollars less. You are selling pass the equilibrium point where your price is too high and your quantity is too low. Also there are not items sold that are blue, red, grey, distressed . ect. There are a bunch of different people you should try to attract to your company. When my shipment of leather gets here i will be making a few wallets of different colours and some standard black and brown wallets with contrasting threads, which will look neater than my prototype wallet and sell for more.

my guess, and its only a guess is that the piece of leather was flat first and a round cut was made. He then wet moulded both pieces into a circle. The curve comes from the two pieces bending into that circle shape. So imagine a line and it is cut then both pieces are joined and molded, the angle where the two pieces meet will still be touching but the angle will be changed. I could be wrong, it may have been moulded then cut. I would email him and ask him, he may be incline to give away the process.

the tannery process went wrong. From time to time every company will have a small batch of defects. Best bet is to add resolene, not sure if it will stay on the leather as there is most likely some type of protection/oils not allowing anything to penetrate the leather. Show them a picture of dye coming off your rag. If they don't respond back with a solution call in and ask them personally and insist on a refund. If they send you a bad piece of leather it cost you 200+ for something that is worthless because of the dye issue. If it is just a small 1sq piece you ordered i wouldn't go through the trouble. On a side note get a small piece of cloth and rub at a spot for 2 minutes straight with good pressure. then get a paper towel and see if any dye comes off, if colour shows on the towel the dye is not penetrating through the leather and is sitting on top of the leather and every time there is moisture the die will rub off.

thank you. I've been overpaying for thread. 6 dollars for 800m.

I started out with tandy then to japanese tools and advanced to blanchard and dixons. Would have been cheaper if I would have went straight to blanchard. Also, it is the small milestones that make me happy. I aim high, but am happy with what I have. It was improvement where i got 0 views the first day because I didn't tag any of my photos. The items on my etsy are not what I'm going to put out in the future, those are just the better looking prototypes (i've made 10+). The ones I'm going to put up will look more professional and will be made by die cutter and then hand dyed and edges finished. The most important is that I take this craft seriously. I don't say that I can't achieve anything because that already ruins the chance I do have. Leatherwork, sports, painting is an art form bigger than the person doing it themselves, there will always be improvement, always changes, always new ideas never will you reach the end. As long as you keep improving and doing what it takes whether it is train leather working with a hermes worker or a saddler then turn back with your skills and revamp your business. Its a thing where its all or nothing. All this said it might mean nothing because the USD is going to crash very soon..

Many people on this site make minimum to above minimum wage from leather working (selling belts, custom orders of purses -hunio, selling tools bruce johnson, making knifes knipshield). JooJoobs on Etsy made 300k on leather goods and thats in one year! (their media outlets and planning is amazing). Of course some make pocket change with their items, but its has been done before and it can be repeated. Your items sell more if you price it lower. 100 for a bifold is more than the consumer is willing to pay especially if their are some italian wallets on etsy that are the same price. 100 for a home made bifold is an odd demographic seeing as young people don't normally have a ton of cash. If 5 people are willing to buy at 59 for a good quality iPhone case than its better than 1 person that may buy it 100. Im just starting out and my items i put out are average, but you should start using oil tanned leather and expand your items past veg tanned leather . The issue is repeat customers come back and they see that no new items are in shop and that nothing is selling. You might as well change your mindset and think of a plan to revamp your business because there is potential, but its hard work. I don't know whether it will be popular or not but I might as well give it chance and a good one at that. I've learned from my mistakes and the most important one is - if you think you can't succeed then you won't. I would have done less and achieved less if I thought to my self that I could never do it, because normally I'm very bad at everything i start doing and through hard work and repetition, pounding down at my craft I am able to become better each day.

it could fit into the small pocket if its empty or you could put it in your jean pocket. Minimalist wallets are suppose to be small and used mostly with cards. Some wallets are meant only for cash and change and a few cards. Looks like a small pouch.

Awesome just got 9 views. I know, i know thats nothing but at least its progress. First day of etsy no views. I didn't put tags on my products and it was impossible to find my wallets from the search. Also leatherworker is a good promotion tool, because if i continually show good products(which I haven't) it will spark interest from within the forum and through google viewers who stumble on the forum. Lots of intricacies of google that you need to know, how to get etsy views (following people who have a big amount of favourites, re posting, keywords...) A lot to learn and i will try to get professional help. Check out Onnit.com. I tried to get in touch with the web designer, but unfortunately his fee will be insane, he did other websites like virgin mobiles.

I was really considering not posting this up online because it was a scrap wallet that I made. Wanted to test the waters and see what would work and how to use etsy. Changed my pictures and learned a lot from the listing. Appreciate the stitching comment, I wanted to get something that looked different but your right it looks off. Im considering different patterns/ designs of wallets, dying the edges and matching them with the thread colour ect. I've made a plan of how I'm going to go about selling on etsy, but its not going to be easy or an overnight process. - create social media accounts - Facebook, twitter, pinterest, ect. On those accounts I'm going to do daily updates on my process, finished products ect. Hopefully, find a way to get people onto those media streams maybe through youtube where I can create a video showing the process of making a card wallet and people who are interested will click on the link and follow. Other options are giving out a free wallet every month and people will sign up to get a chance to win a wallet. On youtube there is a reviewer who shows off wallets and he has 20k viewers per video that could be an option. Blogs seem to be the best chance to get people to see your product and they are always looking for new companies that they can right about and a media write up will help. Creating a website would help, but for know an etsy presence will be easier to attain. I have to also create a big line up of items 20 plus so that it creates more buzz and opportunties for viewers to check out my shop. If you know of any more ways or alternatives that could help I would like to hear them. Btw are you hand and sew from etsy?

The thread is french linen fil au chinois. May be hard to see from the picture but appreciate the response. I've underestimated how saturated etsy is with leather goods. Its best if i get all my social media, Facebook, twitter, ect together and put out 20 different products and heavily promote.

id like to know this too happens to me a lot.

tried this today without a guide on the backside (i purchased a 9spi overstitch for the backside holes) and got consistent results for once. Funny enough the only thing i did different was not focus on stitching and let myself stitch without thinking of anything. After a minute its almost like it is automatic and your not doing any work (awesome!). For anyone that reached a barrier where you have the technique and practice down but a few stitches look off try not to pressure yourself because it makes your body subconsciously pull tighter or looser. people who play basketball currently or when they were younger they know that when taking a shot you never think about how much force you need from you legs and your body and arms, it just comes naturally, once you over think you almost always miss.

Thanks for sharing il keep this in mind next time I dye a project.