Michael Sheldon

Nothing you use is going to help if you go swimming with it. Water *proof* is a myth. That said, a light coat of leather sheen or laquer protects the leather from splashes, drips, dirty fingers, etc. It keeps the leather clean. I like to put on at least a light coat before assembly just to protect from oils on my fingers and such while I'm assembling.

Nicely done!

I've never had the barge fail on me as long as I applied it properly. The suede holds up, but a lot has to do with how it's cared for. If it's brushed and cleaned frequently, it stays looking pretty good. If not, it eventually slicks down. Since these are collars for sighthounds, and they don't tend to have much if any oil in their fur, it's not difficult to keep clean. And usually, fancy collars like that one, don't get left on the dog 24/7.

#14 is sufficient, #12 at most IMO.

There is minimal adjustment for length, +- 1/2" where the strap turns under at the concho. But yes, definitely made to size. Not sure what you mean? The inside is lined with suede, glued in with Barge.

For me, water, saddle soap or trag, I apply, then wait until it's still just barely damp. With trag, I usually cut it 50% with water.

I almost exclusively use #104 tubular rivets. And I spend a significant premium for solid brass ones. Though the brass plated ones are still far better than rapid rivets. But, while they sell hand-peening tools for tubular rivets, you really need a press. And IMO, the "Midas" presses work, but are not fun to use for many rivets, the handle is just shaped badly.

For my newest hound Diva. Backplate in purple, washed with silver. Strap in blue, washed in silver. Conchos were some I picked up a long time ago. Tandy discontinued them at some point. Barry King's Loop Shell stamp gives a great Art Deco look.

Outstanding work. And please don't let my wife see those, she'll want one immediately.

With water, you could try using distilled or reverse-osmosis rather than tap, might help. But really, the best thing is to not let it get onto the face. Use a stiff sponge, not a dauber to apply to the edges. If your water stains do not disappear, you could try wetting the entire piece, but it probably won't work completely. I assume you're leaving these pieces unstained? If so, you might try putting a very light coat of sealer on the face before edge burnishing.

Nice shop, now you have to fill it with toys, um, tools. I boarded up the window in my shop. Sunlight is not good for unfinished veg-tan leather.

Generally, I find backstitching with a machine in leather doesn't work well. I just cut the tails long and then backstitch by hand with a saddle stitch for a couple sets. My light-duty (Thompson Mini walking-foot) backstitches pretty well, but the most it can handle is two layers of suede.

I've had the best luck with black, by using an airbrush to apply it. Good solid black with very little rub-off.

My issue with the cheaper tools isn't that they're weak. I haven't damaged one yet. My issue is that they are poorly cast, leaving a blurry, poor quality imprint, and requiring a much harder strike to get it. The better quality tools leave clean, sharp impressions with less effort. They are also much easier to get lined up properly when doing border, linear or area patterns. All of this results in a better quality product, that takes less time and effort to produce, with a much lower chance of error.

All it takes is for you to use one of the better tools just once, and you will understand why $5 tools only cost $5. You really do get what you pay for.

To be honest, I never was able to get clean, consistent results with the "manual" snap setters. I picked up a press and dies set to do it, and now I get perfect results *every* time. Yeah, not cheap, but a lot less frustrating.

I pulled several from the various bins in my shop, all of them were right on 5/16

Agreed. One thing I've definitely learned over the years of doing reenactment, natural fibers are far superior to anything synthetic, because they breath. Whereas, modern insoles don't breath at all.

If you wear shoes like this frequently enough, you'll probably find yourself walking differently, flat-footed or even toe-heel instead of heel-toe, because of the lack of a hard heel. Two things come from that. #1, your heels will thank you. #2, you will find that you slide less.

Um, have you actually been to their site? They don't *have* a web store. They have an extremely basic website, with a PDF version of their print catalog. Thus, it's not the IT guys responsible for the catalog being out of date, it's the marketing department. And given that their site hasn't been updated at all in a long time, I doubt they even *have* an IT department. As for it being difficult, etc ad nauseum to run a web shop. No, actually, it's pretty easy. I own a hosting business that provides ecommerce setups. We can have a store functional in under 24 hours, ready to enter the inventory. And yeah, entering that inventory is a drag if you've got a lot, but I've had customers with 1000+ item inventories do it in just a couple days. Once the setup is complete, maintenance is a breeze. From my point of view, HC is putting all their energy into local in-store sales, and just taking what they get in phone orders as a bonus. And that's their choice to make. But it does arbitrarily limit their sales. There's a number of folks like me who do the administrative stuff at odd hours, and thus really prefer to place orders online. Because HC has chosen not to provide that, I haven't purchased anything from them in a long time. I have ordered from them before, and I've never been unhappy with them, but it's not convenient for me.

Yup, you can buy it with the grain imprinted. Tandy sells their "mission grain" which I think would work very well for you. Siegel http://www.siegelofca.com/ also carries imprinted pattern leather.

I would probably try "goo-gone" gel. It's the best I've used for removing residue, and I haven't damaged anything with it yet. Once finished, I'd clean up with a bit of saddle soap.

Believe it or not, febreeze will do it. Dunno how it does it, but it really does instantly neutralize odors.

I use a maul for tooling, I use a rawhide mallet for hole punches, belt end cutters, etc. I find the maul gives better results with tooling because I need a controlled, yet forceful hit. For punches, I prefer the mallet, because I need a strong, high-velocity hit without cutting through my bench.

Seriously, if you're only charging $8-$9 an hour, you are seriously ripping yourself off, and may even be losing money. As was said earlier, even fast food joints pay more than that, and it costs them twice that for an employee. As a self-employed business, you have your overhead (property cost, electricity, phone, internet etc), your tools, tax and licenses, health costs, etc to cover. Also keep in mind the time it takes when you're not actually pounding leather. The time talking/writing to the customer, the time packing it up and shipping it out, The time keeping your books, the time you spend ordering supplies, the time spent cleaning up your shop, the time spent learning new skills/keeping up with your trade, etc. When you actually add it up, you'll find it's a lot more time than you think. I won't do a non custom job for anything less than $35 an hour. Custom work starts at $50, and includes all of the time it takes me to conceptualize, design and lay it out. You have to stop thinking of it as your pay as an employee, and start thinking of it as the cost of a business owner *paying* an employee.