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A friend of mine's wife bought a new leather purse (he said it is florentine- vacchetta leather ?) , he said it was fairly expensive. She had vinegar and oil salad dressing spilled on it and it stained it a little. My question is, what (if anything) would be good to remove these stains? thank you

That is a beautiful holster, i love the colors.

I'm not an expert, but i think you did a really nice job. Maybe for a little neater job slick the edges.

It is a hydraulic press, that presses dies into leather to cut out shapes such as holsters. or any item that you need to produce alot of. It basically saves you time vs. cutting the item out by hand. Alot of leather supply companies sell high dollar electric/hydraulic presses for several thousand dollars. You can get by with with a shop press, modified (if needed) to use the dies, and save yourself alot of money.

I assume you are talking about Cowboy Sew. I got a 441 shortarm machine from Neel's Saddlery. It is almost identically equipped as the Artisan Toro 3000 (I say almost because i have only read specs. on the artisan website or flyers). Anyways, i know you asked about Cowboy sewing machines, my point is they(Cowboy Sew and Neel's saddelry) from what i was told have some kind of business thing going. They sell the same machines. If you look at Cowboy Sew website Ryan Neel is listed on there as some sort of engineer. I know I am rambling now, I have been very happy with my machine so far. I drove up to Neel's Saddlery and picked up my machine and they took about 2- 2 1/2 hours going over how to set up and use my machine. They were very friendly, and if i called them with "dumb" questions Ryan did not make me feel like a dummy. Plus, his price was about $100 to $200 cheaper than artisan. I am just trying to pass along my experience, i have only heard good things about Artisan, but for me i had to go with the money.

Very nice job

My only comment is that it is freekin' cool. very nice work

That's funny. It reminded me of my 4 year old daughter the other day, i was laying something out, and she pulled up a chair to help. I ended up holding the stamp or whatever it was i had and she got to swing the 2 lb maul, it only took about two good hits to the hand before i found something else for her to do.

hey my email is russellg74@yahoo.com, email me and i will call my buddy and find out if he is still willing.

I don't have any advice but they look very nice, especially considering they are your first couple. I have made a couple recently and each one required that i start over twice to make one good one. Keep up the good work.

Weaver Leather sells a slicker made of plastic or wood (whichever you prefer) that you can chuck up in a drill press. It has several angles and grooves for slicking leather. I don't believe it has a groove large enough for 3/4", but if you know someone with a wood lathe they could make the same thing to your specifications in a few minutes. Hope this helps

Beautiful work.

Thats pretty awesome, the sheath and the knife.

Luke that is pretty interesting that your stitching horse has a history like that, it definitely looks like it was built to last. I probably need to add some padding to my seat, you' re just giving me all sorts of ideas. Barra, draw the outline of your clamp on your board and use a bandsaw to cut it out, cut as close to the line as you dare and then just sand it from there. that is the way my buddy did this one, you could leave some of the saw marks in to give some character or give that made on the farm look.

I hope mine holds up for 20 years. What is your seat made out of? It looks like spray foam from here. My buddy said if he makes any more he wants to make some improvements to the legs, as far as the nylon is concerned he would have to make wider slots probably, the ones on mine are only an inch wide once that leather wears out i will probably widen the slots like yours and use nylon. thanks for the the idea

Yeah i used a welt in it. Origionally i tried to use the welt to lock the blade in the sheath instead of snaps but because the edge runs the length blade clear to the back, it chewewd the welt up pretty quick. this was only my second sheath so i learned a couple things. Thanks for the comments

nylon may be a better idea, i may check into it in the future if the leather gives up. thanks

Here is a picture of a stitching horse my buddy made for me using the plans from "Farm Woodwork." He said that if anyone is interested he would make some to sell after he makes some changes to the plans.

Here is a sheath that i made for my wife's friend's husband. It took me about three mistakes 'til i got it this. I'm not sure that i care too much for skinning knives now.

I don't know if i understand you correctly, is this your first holster or your first one for a blackhawk ? Either way it looks pretty good to me. I don't know the look you are going for ( as far as something new or something that is used and broken in). (this is just my ameture opinion)If you want something that looks new maybe add some edge dye and crease the perimeter where your stamps are. Your stitching looks pretty good from what i can tell. All in all i like it.

It's the Model 441, i'm not sure what the model 6 is , the model 441 is very near identical to a Toro 3000 in looks and how it is equipped. I tried to post some better pictures earlier, but was unable to. I will check into the feeddogless needleplates. thanks

I got a Neel's saddlery model 441 the other day, so far i am happy with the machine. I still have to get used to using and making adjustments to it. Ryan Neel and his buddy were very nice and helpful. They took about two hours to go over setting up the machine and letting me sew with it( plus we BS'ed a bit also). Really nice guys and their prices are good too. Now my question is (if you can tell from the pictures) how much can i adjust the machine to get rid of the marks on the back side of the leather? It looks as though the leather is really being forced down into the opening in the needle plate( a holster needle plate). sorry about the pictures i am having trouble posting them

That is some very nice work, i like yours snap also . I have used the indian head snap before, i like the looks of them.

Hey thanks for the advice and the comments. I don't quite understand about rounding the edges, do you mean cut the ends of the straps round where the snaps are ? sorry, i'm not sure what you mean, i'm kinda dense sometimes.

just leather balm w/ atom wax on the dyed part, nothing on the rough out