Tim Schroeder

Thanks Chuck. Started tooling in the 7th grade. The teacher let me make him a belt and we entered it in the State fair, and it got second. My dad and his friends always had tooled wallets from kits from Tandy. My daughter walked in with this the other day. One of the first things I made not from a kit. I thought that tooling was good at that time. When I found Leatherworker.net I saw some of Hidepounders work and new I wanted my tooling to look like his. I tooled the same pattern every day for 6 days until it started to look something like his. Carl Chappell, may he rest in peace, gave me a lot of pointers. He said he judged a lot of competitions. He would always look at a piece for 5 or 10 minutes and then find some fingernail mark somewhere and ask me what tool I used to make that mark. He gave me the tip about rounding over every edge with a modeling tool. He said with out that everything looked flat. I do have 40 or 50 Barry King stamps and 2 Leatherwrangler swivel knifes. IMHO Paul makes the best blades.

Finished just in time. Christmas present for my daughter. She's been carrying my wife's old one but has since gotten married. She needed one with the correct initials.

This is the side of a Tote Bag I'm making my daughter for Christmas.

Made these for Pops for Christmas. He has some of those Nocona suspenders and they are really heavy. These are 1/3 the weight. I put the cheap spring latches because of weight. They are 4/5oz. HO lined with the thinnest veg tan I've ever seen. I bought it to make the inside of wallets. I would like to know if anybody knows how to keep the slide buckle from moving every time the elastic stretches. I had his other ones to measure so I know the shortest length. I put the slide buckle all the way to the bottom so it couldn't get longer. You can make them shorter if they stretch.

Thanks. That is a El Creek Buckle set I bought from Cavenders 20 yrs ago. Sometimes I use Ebay to buy buckles for belts I'm making. There is a Judge Leo Smith on Ebay that will make anything you want. He is here in Texas.

Thanks everybody for the kind comments. Yes sir Ross there is a magnetic strip all the way across. Saves space.

Thanks everybody. I really needed some lace up boots. My ankle just rolls completely over on any kind of sloped terrain with slip on boots. I'm ready to make another pair and have them decorated with my signature logo.

Thanks Chuck and Tom There's a piece of 3/4 oz veg tan just the width of the swell with the edges beveled glued on the back first, then the front laid on top. I make everything big and then cut it to size after it's glued together. I have the tooling between the billets with a good swell as well. It's a 21 needle with 207 thread and 135 in the bottom. . I was playing with the stitch length and thought I had it back at 8 spi, it's really closer to 9spi. I have a Class 26 now, I had a class 4 but was to big, so I traded it for this class 26. I was gonna modify a needle plate and feeddog on the class 4 myself. Now you can buy it already done. The class 26 does 95% of what I do and the Class 4 was good for about 5%. Wish I had it back now.

Needed a belt to wear when going out instead of my work belt.

Thanks for the comments. Here's a couple of better pictures. The boots are some Bison leather. The dye on the belt is a 50/50 mix of light brown and chocalate Feibing's diluted 50/50 and sprayed.

Just curious if anybody puts anything in their belts to keep them from bending in the middle of the back.

Is the T in their backwards sheilajeanne? Isn't it the wrong kind of T fitting? Unbelievable

It was for a door panel in a Old International Travel All. I had to tool another one, so that one is just a conversation piece. I have no use for it. I just let sit around to remind me to be careful.

It’s just trash now. Oh well live and learn. I’m a lot more careful now.

It Happens. Here's a good one. I put the dye in a very small round plastic container. Very hard to turn over. Barely a cap full of dye. Then I put a piece of plastic (trash bag) with a hand size hole cut in for the area I'm working on that covers the rest of the project. Still managed to pull this off. One of those ID 10 T errrerrs.

Bad ass is red neck for gorgeous, beautiful, wowser, and anything everybody else said. Maybe some of the best tooling I've ever seen.

That tooling is bad ass!!!! Makes me want to make something to see if I can improve mine to that level.

Thanks. Front and back are 5/6 oz Hermann Oak.

This one is for that ole boy my daughter is married to. It kinda matches his boots. I'll make him a roper wallet for Christmas and he'll be set.

Looks great Chuck. Making stuff for family is the best. I really want to make pen/pencil sets. My wife is in the corporate world so a lot of people would see them.

It’s something I cobbled up myself.

Finally found a good use for this servo motor. It is variable speed and reversible.

I was trying to make something thread couldn't get hung on. The small nut has the the big long nut locked on to the bolt so when you turn the handle it turns the bolt. There is a T nut in that block of wood so turning the bolt moves the T nut which moves the hinged side. You can tighten the long nut up against the stationary side until it moves freely but has no slack then tighten the jamb nut and it locks the long one onto the bolt. Half a turn and you can adjust the item you are sewing. You can always slide the handle off the nuts and reposition the handle depending on the thickness of what you are sewing so it's pointed slightly towards you. Half a turn away from you loosens it enough to reposition.