Sona

Nice job done here! Well, be sure that I´ve seen a lot of people who just suck a lot more than you do Exspecially with those things: don´t always think about perfection! If it is a tool you make for yourself for use, than there should be just one main criteria: Does it work? If that´s the case everything is all right, as you don´t seem to try making your money with woodworking even more (besides that: that handle looks quite good for me for someone who just do a little woodworking and just from time to time) Did you glue the rod into the handle? And did you glues thos cut out pieces together or did you just used the nut + rod to clamp it together? If you wanna go for a nice look I´d propably do some sanding on the head, but all in all it looks good. And as said before: If it works.... it works

The way camano ridge uses is exactly the way I do it. Even if you say they should measure their waist with a measuring tape you can´t be sure they measured at the right point. So using an old/actual belt is quite good. And it is really important to send such a picture with the explanation! I tried to describe it on the phone a few times, let them explain it to me again to be sure they understood, what I talked about.... but it seems as it isn´t clear at all to some people who than will contact you, because the belt doesn´t fit like it should. You may add a hole or two, but there might be customers who don´t like that option... or maybe who live hundreds of miles/kilometers away where you can´t just stop by. And if it should be i.e. a present for the husband/wife/what ever: ask them to verify their measurement with another belt. Had a situation where somebody had quite thin and quite thick pants and where the measurement just differs so that might be the point to decide what the belt should be used for

Just got a new one the daybefore yesterday: don´t even think about using the time your contact cement (NOT waterbased...) needs to dry to melt down some end of a polythread.... right where you applied the cement...o.O

Well, just looked this straplocks up on youtube and I think you´re just right The only think I don´t like about them (referring to the video I saw) is that they have a quite huge buildup on the flesh side and... all in all they got some big dimensions I think. I first thought (as ask above) that this might be tenax-fasteners. I don´t know, whether they are available/common in the USA, but over here in Germany it´s a fastener for sails on boats, coming in brass, nickle, nearly what ever you like. They are smaller (I think, as I just got some tenax at my place, so I have to compare bye eye to the locks shown in the video/on the pictures above), they got nearly no buildup on the flesh side, the parts for screwing it into the leather got some kind of teeth which go into the leather (should be harder to unravel) and you got different male pieces for wood, leather and other stuff. As this is a video without sound anyway, I think you might be able to ignore the german text (say "tenax, complete set".... nothing more ^^) http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lHXDpxv1FxE. If you know them, I´d like to know what you folks prefere and why, if not, i just want to mention another option Anyway, well made straps

On the first picture the edge looks like it could need some more mork, but besides that this are some nice looking straps! Are those tenax-fasteners you used? I am not quite sure about it as I can´t see the female one.

well done. looks nice and clean. About the colours: I guess you use some sort of DSLR? Just try out the manual white balance with a white sheet of paper or sth like that instead of an automatic one. You might get better results that way if you are looking for the real colours.

thanks a lot to both of you

Really beautifull work! Like it a lot.

So I made a belt again. This time as part of a gift for my fathers 60ths birthday. As I am getting used to making this sort of belts I think I improved a lot from my very first one to this one, even if I made two little mistakes (happily I was able to remove them in an invisible way). I might finish of the belt-keepers edge a bit better, but besides that I am quite happy with the result. And actually his reaction just showed me that he likes it a lot, too. Made from cowhide (croupon), dyed and stitched bye hand using 8 SPI all around. The buckle is made of solid brass.

Well, the Royal Blue is just a beast IMO. But I´d like to know whether you wiped of the blue stuff just to have some purple spots left behind? Expecially with blue and green I got to the point that you need to let it dry completely (!) and buff it like hell before applying any kind of sealing. I used resolene for the top layer some time ago and it was quite a challenge. But in the end it worked out fine bye letting it dry for a quite longer time (I let it sit for about 24 hours, might be more than needed but i wanted to be sure) and really intense buffing afterwards until no pigments are left on the surface (clean towel stays clean). After that I applied Resolene cut 1:1 with water with a cloth wrapped around a sponge using rarely any pressure and let it sit for about 15 to 30 minutes. It turns into some blue-purple-mixed colour (looks like ruined). After I applied a second layer of the resolene it returned to a really nice and full blue looking exactly like I wanted. I never trid atom wax, but maybe you just try it on a scrap piece of leather...

even if it´s an old thread... doesn´t matter Germany, origins in the very north, now living in the very south

We got one called "Forellenfaden" (sth like troutthread) in Germany, but I doubt that this would help you....

For most edge braidings like the mexican one you don´t need to splice the string. You rather hide the thread either between two layers of leather (if you use multilayers) or cut a split into the leather edge (for one-layers) and start with a new string to "overbraid" that point. For edge braiding, i´d recommend to use single strings with a length of ~1m (like 40 inches (?)). If you use too long strings, the surface of the strings may suffer to the abrasion of pulling them through all those holes (exspecially if you use a chisel rather than a hole punch for tighter holes. And believe me, tight slit-like holes look much better than round ones) and starts to look worn which shouldn´t be the aim. Bye using strings of one meter you got a good length to cover that problem, even if you have to thread your needle more often And whether you need 9 times the length of the braid as string or just four times doesn´t matter in this case. just be sure, you have enough strings to complete the item. And yes, tandy got some booklets about this where the main braiding techniques are covored. If you want the big one, look for the book "leather braiding" by Bruce Grant. This book also covers a more types of braiding than just covering an edge And if you say "8-string braid" or "4-string braid", are you refering to the look? Because most edge braiding techniques I know (didn´t do it a lot, just from time to time) just use one string going back and forth to look like more strings. Just to keep that in mind. greetings and good luck with your first braiding

I know what you mean David, but it is still the "you want custom - you pay custom"-thing. If your customers want a special eyecatcher, they gotta pay for it. I made a sheath (larp sword) for a guy for about 166,- dollars and he really thought about taking two buckles which were zinc diecasted and painted "like brass" rather than taking two brass-buckles just to save like what.... 9 dollars? That was the point where I just decided, to use solid brass or solid brass, nickel-plated. Since then I never mentioned the idea of this zinc-stuff anymore and I never had this problem again. And if I´d like to use solid silver stuff, I just need to finde people who wanna buy it. BUT, I can´t say "they won´t sell for this price, so I expect a solid brass buckle for 1,50, I mean, it´s just machine-made". It just doesn´t work like this. If you get some of this caps and find some customers: wonderfull. If you finde customers who´ll pay the higher price, even better. But if you want everything on lowcost, because you are afraid of loosing customers if it gets more pricey, you´ll follow the line of mass production and believe me: there are a lot of companies who have a quite better set up for that kind of buisness than you do! And to the money-thing: I know that type of payment and I don´t like it. Maybe there are a lot people who work like that but it seems more like the time of industrialization to me than a proper kind of payment. Actually we are still human beeings and no machines. I don´t know, whether it is crazy, ´cause we got a totally different money-system over here. And I am not sure, whether you mean that they get 17 to 100 bucks/hour, or you have to pay 17 to 100/hour, if you hire them. Over here that´s quite a difference!

Well, as a carpenter I actually see it the same way, raven does. That´s not wood.... not at all, even if it has some wooden ingredients. And even if it might have those ingredients it could never ever compete for the look of wood.... but that´s actually not the main point here. David, I just get the feeling you might not realize, what you are talking about. Please don´t get me wrong: yes, there might be someone who does this sets for you... anywhere on this world, of course. And I really wish that you´ll find this person. But I still don´t get why you insist on this "male/femal" stuff, where you really don´t need it. And no, actually you are not offering 30 dollar/hour, you are offering 300 dollar for 100 caps, because you think they might be made on the fly. But if a carpenter, a woodcarver and other people who have some experience in woodworking tell you, that this is just not right, you seem to ignore or misunderstand it. I still don´t know how much you pay an american woodworker per hour, but as I said: over here you pay like 65 dollar (!) per hour. Nobody would love to do this job for that payment, even IF you were right.... There are just a lot of facts and factors you seem not to understand or see..... As said before: I honestly hope you find your guy and I´d love to see the result. But I think you might have to admit some other prices than you expect.

Haha, you don´´t have to be sorry. It was just a tip for he next time

nice one! Exspecially for your very first Leather-item! I like it But for the next one: There is a "show off" section here in this forum which is for presenting your stuff. More people will have a look at it over there than in this thread I think^^. keep it up and start to have fun!

Mmm... well, if you got no buddy/friend who´s a woodworker or a carpenter nearby who thinks of this like a little advertisement you might getting problems getting these for 1,50 dollars. I don´t know anything about the wages/prices in the USA as I live in Germany, but over here you pay like 47,50 € (about 65$) for each hour of work a carpenter works for you (he get´s just a fraction of that, but let´s not talk about that ^^) You might have a look around the web for those in different kinds of wood and maybe with a thicker base (they exist for sure... anywhere out there ^^). If you want a cap of 10mm you might find one with a base of 8mm would be perfect. And forget about that contact cement if you are glueing wood. Just use white/wood glue, D3 for normal issues, D4 for use outside (D4 is waterproof). Much cheaper and performs way better on wood than contact cement would do. Also you don´t need any male and female ends. If you got a base of 8mm, punch an 8mm-hole, attach a cap-base (with the base sanded down to half of the leather thickness, maybe a little less so it won´t get loose) from each side to the hole and press it as I wrote. That´s it

Well, to make some chicago screws out of woold would be more difficult for a woodworker than you think, as they are normally not set up for that stuff. Even if they are, it would take it´s time to produce them. You´d need some drills of this kind (http://i.ebayimg.com/t/5tlg-Satz-WS-Zapfenschneider-Scheibenschneider-15-20-25-30-35mm-/00/s/MTAyNFgxMDI0/z/MUoAAMXQPatTHDTO/$_12.JPG) in a very small dimension für the shaft. Normally they start at about 10-15mm but that might be the dimension of the cap you are looking for. If you don´t want to have some standart-beech-stuff they´d have to drill it out some other wood, after that drill the shaft (IF they have such kind of a drill, otherwise they´d have to cut it at a table saw or sth else), drill a hole fitting to the winding. After that they gotta drill the winding by hand, which might be a little risky for the inner winding because of the dimensions of the wood (might break), form the cap, sand it, apply some top coat/laquer/oil/whatever and hope that it fits. MUCH easier and less expensive might be another option: Just look at your hardwarestore for some wooden screwcaps like these (http://i.ebayimg.com/00/s/MTYwMFgxNjAw/z/O-4AAOxyTjNSpL6O/$_12.JPG -just maybe with a thicker shaft) in the desired sort of wood and dimension. Cut the shaft to a little less than half of your leather thicknes (or one to a little less than the complete thicknes and cut the other one just off) sand it, apply some oil and let it dry over night. After that you punch a hole where you want to set it, take two of the caps, apply some white glue to the shaft and clamp it gently for at least an hour. Be sure not to use too much pressure to take care of the wooden surface. and instead of maybe 50bucks for a pair of wooden chicago-screws it costs you just about some peanuts. Just my two cents Hope it helps.

You could use some sort of a "beader" (I thinkit is called like this in english) and run it across the cut of the swivel knife. One possibility might be to run over it several times and create the chanel with this tool, or just mark it the cutting line with it and cut it afterwards. The nice side-effect of this tool is the created wider line getting rounded evenly so you just have to bevel/work on the other side of the line. I used this tool on this sheath (http://leatherworker.net/forum/index.php?showtopic=50060&hl=%2Bkingfisher+%2Bsheath) for the upper edge and the parallel lines above the eyes. Workes just fine

Some time ago my leather supplier told me that the asian market is booming on leather products as elegant and classy elements. Exspecially for car seats, couches and stuff. So they start to buy raw untanned leather unseen before the tanneries may have look at it. So at least here in germany leather tends to increase in price and it might be more difficult to get the good stuff. Actually I don´t recognize this fact that much and I don´t know whether it might be the same for you in the USA, but - just as an example - I bought a 100m spool of roo-lace for 95,-€ about three and a half years ago which costs sth like 140,- € if I´d order it right now. And he says that his profit right now is less than three years ago for that stuff. As I said I don´t know whether this is completely right and I don´t know whether it might be a global thing or more some sort of a regional issue. But if it´s true it could be kind of an explanation.

good point. I´ll keep that in mind for the next belt. Thanks!

thank you kwelna, the belts are not finished but made of 3,5 mm (croupon). I didn´t grove the stitching line, but tapped the thread with a hammer after stitching. So it is bedded into the leather on both sides. As it is a synth. and no linen thread it shouldn´t fray that much. The loop around the corner next to the buckle closes the gap and I just like the look of it .

So as the birthdays of my girlfriends parents were right before eastern and we planed to visit them. I had to make them a nice present . I decided to make a handstitched belt for each of them, but sadly I forgot to take a picture of the other one ;( This one is about 20mm wide with a nickel-plated brass buckle and 8 SPI handstitched all around. The second one was a black one, 35mm wide, plated brass buckle and 8 SPI, stitched with a beige/white thread as a nice contrast. But as mentioned above, I just forgot to take pictures. The stitching took some time, but I think it paid off, as the new owner is just happy with it

Yay, Jimbob you just made my day ^^. All in all it´s very interesting, how many of you guys lived in germany for a while ^^. But you might be just right: back to the leather stuff (even if this topic is quite amusing ^^)