Tim Schroeder

Hi jayjay, Thanks. It's all made out of 3-4 oz. An Econo hide from Tandy.

Hi Kathi, Thanks. My machine is the same as a Cobra Class 18. $1695. Mine is a Mitzi. I bought my machine from a local sewing repair man. ($750 for just the machine new) and bought a stand ($49) then built a much bigger top than most you can buy. Piece of Corion counter top out of a place I remodeled. I built my own speed reducer. 12" pulley to a 2" pulley. 6:1 reduction and I can sew thru 1/2" veg tan leather as slow as I want, still have variable speed and it feels like you are sewing thru fabric. There are many different servo motors. I paid $125 for a half horse Consew Servo motor and it is more than you would ever need for 1/2" and under with a speed reducer. It is a walking foot needle feed machine. Thanks Tim

Thanks for the compliments. Here is a couple of pictures of the front. I did have it done for the first day of school so she was happy. She already knew what she wanted with the Fighting Farmer Logo, her name and initials then said I could put tooling anywhere I wanted. Just used an old backpack to get some starting numbers. Thanks to Leatherworker .net I am drawing my own patterns and my tooling is much better. Thanks Bob Park. I do have some leather zipper pulls made and need really small black D Rings to attach them to the zippers. Thanks again Tim

My daughters backpack for school. It's not finished yet, still have a pocket with tooling and her name on it to hand sew on the front. She starts school Monday.

Looks Great!!! Love your style of tooling. Tim

This is actually a remake for some good friends. I like the way it looks before dye.

I have a BK swivel knife with a 1/4" thin blade I have used for at least a year without sharpening once. When I first got it I resharpened it using #320, 400, 600, 800, 1000,1500 and 2000 grit wet/dry sandpaper laying on a piece of granite. Just spray the granite before you put the paper on it. I have a 9" wetstone sharpener with a leather wheel for a strop on it. I usually can carve 2 flowers in one of my patterns and then a couple turns on the strop and it's like a hot knife thru butter. I can easily cut all the way thru properly cased 6/7 oz leather. I would like to try Leather Wranglers, Bob Beard and all the rest just to see the difference in how long you can cut before having to strop the blade again. Hard to beat the price of a BK. I have 4 with different size blades but do everything with a 1/4" angled thin blade. Proper casing is key to getting the right results. Tim

Looks great! Good Luck at the show. I wish I could make some money doing leather.

Thanks for the comments. I really like black tooled items but my wife still likes the saddletan stuff she already has. To Jazznow, my grandparents were German immigrants.

Padded Tablet case for my wife.

Thanks for the comments. The inside and outside are 3/4 oz.. Spent some time skiving the insides down so they were really thin. Sanding the edges up to 400 grit made the burnishing fast and easy. I burnish everything by hand. The block of wood really straightens everything out nice.

I try to use the same method as Bob Park. His method is desribed in the How Do You Do It Forum. First I sand the edges with 150, 220, 320 and then 400 grit sandpaper wrapped around a block of wood. The only way to get anything flat or straight is to sand with a block and never with just your hand. Then wet the edges lightly, glycerine bar soap rubbed in and burnished with canvas with saddlesoap rubbed into it. Dye and then rub wax and burnish with canvas with wax rubbed into it. Then several thin coats of Wyo Sheen. Sorry for the poor pictures. I will try to post some better pictures today. Thanks to everybody.

Christmas present for some very good friends.

New wallet for my boat mechanic. Can't waite to build one for myself. I like the Kangaroo on the inside.

New wallet for my boat mechanic. Can't waite to build one for myself. I like the Kangaroo on the inside.

This wallet is for my wife's boss. Kangaroo inside.

Thanks. Magnets in the outside flap and part of a cork backed steel ruler for the case side. I checked for the magnets messing with the phone with my wife's Blackberry. The first case I built my wife had her Blackberry typing backwards in Chinese after a night in the case. The Blackberry case has a magnet in to turn it off when you slide it in a case.

A Grandma's phone case for work. She's cool, likes peace signs and drives a bug.

Had a customer who wanted the Kangaroo leather on the inside and veg tan outside. Holds checkbook, pen, 3"x5" notepad, 7 cards and a big pocket in every section. The Kangaroo leather is thin and is easy to skive to paper thin. Much easier to skive than the pig skin I normally use. It is very expensive but looks and feels really nice.

Here is another picture of a home made speed reducer. I have about $75 in this setup. 12" pulley to a 2" pulley. Most speed reducers are 3:1. This one is 6:1. I can sew at 10 stitches per min thru anything that will fit under the presser foot (1/2" of solid tooling leather) like a real hot knife thru butter with a #25 needle and 277 thread and still have variable speed control. That's speed control. The wood mounting box is really just a mock up. My metal worker buddy was supposed to build me one out of steel but didn't get to it before his surgery. I would recommend a speed reducer of some kind for anybody trying to sew heavy leather.

I build all of my wallets from scratch and can make it any way you want it. Here is a couple of pictures to what my work looks like. timscustomleather.com timschroeder6363@yahoo.com Thanks Tim

Yes, I agree on the operator skill part. I will probably have to use this machine for some time. When I first tried this machine the marks were more like cuts and could not be rubbed out. I didn't hesitate to start working on the feeddog rite away since you can replace it pretty easily. Cutting down the presser foot tension nut made a big difference. The lightest setting I felt was way to much pressure. I have ground and filed the feeddog down so much that it requires a little more skill than normal. I can just hold the material and the feeddog would just slip and it will sew in the same hole. But as you can see in the picture there is not any marks at all. I am completely satisfied with those results. I try to think I'm a perfectionist and one bad stitch will drive me crazy. If I hadn't been to lazy to build a support table to help hold it up it might have helped. No excuses, you should be able to make this machine work fine, especially for the price. I paid $600 with shipping for just the machine. I mounted it on a spare piece of Corion and can just set it in the hole my other machine sets in. I can change my machines out in just a couple of minutes.

I have a GA5-1 for lack of funds for a 441 clone. I ground the feed dog down enough to knock down the sharp edge on the teeth. I also cut off the presser foot tension nut. There was to much pressure to start with. The only problem I have found is stitch length because of the bottom feed. With a little practice I'm sure I could produce better results. I have another machine (basically the same as Cobra class 18) that is triple feed and it produces a really consistent stitch length. One day soon I'll have one of the 441 clones. Here is a picture of the backside of a notepad I made. I didn't rub out any marks. Like I said about the stitch length, it was hard to keep it consistent. This was the first project I had sewn on this machine. Thanks Tim