Colt W Knight

I stitched this, this morning. I used a creaser and a 138 thread. The thread sits flush with the leather.

A lot of folks will not use a groover, only a creasing tool because the groover cuts away the strong portion of the leather. The Groover cuts a deeper impression and really sinks the thread down below the surface, but if you match the creasing tool with the thread and tap it down with a smooth face hammer, you can set the thread down nicely as well. It is my understanding that over in your part of the world, groovers are rarely used.

Just finished with this horse portrait padfolio. I completed the tooling using my handmade bevelers and tools, except for the pear shader. I am starting to get the hang of my airbrush, learning some cool techniques. One of these days I might actually be able to use it correctly.

I just dusted off my lathe and started refurbishing it, as I have been wanting to make my own mauls. I plan on ordering round stock polymer to make the head. Ill have to look into those wheels.

I have DMT 8" stones in extra coarse through extra fine. I really bought them to level guitar frets, which they do a superior job of. For knife sharpening, I dont like them that much because they are to thin to just sit on the table and use, and too heavy to hold in my hand. They work great for things like swivel knives, chisels, and planes. To sharpen pocket knives, I much prefer my Norto. Double sided oil stone and a leather strop. I sharpened knives for years without a strop, but after i learned some good technique, I can sharpen my pocket knives to a razor edge about as quick as I can unpack my set of DMTs using the Norton and a strop.

Arrotino means Blade Sharpener and I believe Denifl is a common last name. I dont know anything about the maker.

I cut one piece the size I want, cut the other pieces a little larger, glue them together, then trim and sand to fit. I mark the stitch line/groove after sanding the edges flush. That way it looks evenly spaced all the way around.

I buy mine from HideHouse in Napa, California

I don't think anyone makes anything over 1", Bigger letters are carved/tooled.

It's not really a "them", its one guy with another job and some health problems I believe making and shipping everything. Pretty typical of these hobby type production side jobs, they get busy and overwhelmed with orders and things slip the cracks. Not saying it is acceptable or anything.

I don't think it matters, I have always used the yellow Fienbings saddle soap

Howdy, Welcome to the forum. Kentucky is a good place to be, I graduated from UK in 2006, and still miss Kentucky.

Excellent bag. FYI - here is a link stateside for Aluminum Oxide rolls of sandpaper. http://woodworker.com/c-Abrasives/Rolls/ Yellow stuff here http://www.stewmac.com/Luthier_Tools/Tools_by_Job/Tools_for_Fretting/3M_Stikit_Self-adhesive_Abrasives.html

Colored thread is notorious for being stiff and can be hard to sew with. I have a spool of black I can't do anything with.

I don't know why Fiebings calls it pro oil dye, because its alcohol based too. I would clean the leather before using any dye, water based or alcohol.

You probably just didn't use enough dye on the areas you brushed if you could tell a difference. A daubers really lays the dye on heavy. Whenever you use alcohol based dye like Fiebings, I would strongly recommend giving the leather a good cleaning with water and saddle soap to remove stray oils from the tanning and handling process. The alcohol based dye will reveal all that left over oil spots with oil slick discolorations.

I have that same machine, and it is a work horse. Will sew up to 3/8" and #138 thread. I believe the RBs, Rb-1 and RB-2s were made in Japan, and models after that moved to China.

If the design is carved, you can easily dye around it. Get yourself some Fiebings Pro Oil black dye and a couple good fine point painting brushes. Load the brush up with dye, and bring it over to the leather and daub the brush onto the leather. The dye will flow from the brush and flow onto the leather stopping at the cut marks on the tooling. Be careful not to flick the brush or go over top the design with the brush so nothing drips onto the design.

I paid for $ 400 for my Consew 206 rb-1, then upgraded to a servo motor total cost with new needles around $550 Flat Bed Reverse Sews 3/8" Up to #138 thread, Ive read that it will sew 206, but I can't get mine to do it. Ive used up to #25 leather point needles ~4.3 SPI is as large as it will go, but it prefers 5-6 SPI M size bobbin

Ive got the holster makers burnisher from there. Works great, and is made really well. Shipping took longer than expected.

They must have fixed it.

I buy my copper rivets from Weaver by the pound. For about the same money as Tandy, you get a lot more rivets. I use the Heritage setter tool that Weaver sell with excellent results. This a very stout tool, and not made of pot metal with chintzy chrome plating. I use a set of Channellock nippers to cut the copper rivets. The long handles and powerful jaws make easy work of it, plus the bevel on the nippers cutting edge cuts the rivet off at the perfect height.

I used cheap air brushes for a while, and I got some good results with them. However, once I bought my nice Iwata air brush, I was ready to throw rocks at all my cheaper brushes. The iwata stays cleaner longer while spraying, have a better spray pattern, and cleans easier than the cheaper ones I had. Plus, its a lot stronger and doesn't break as quickly and easily as my cheapo HF brushes. I have very large air compressors and the HF table top air brush compressor. The HF table top guy works fine if you aren't trying to cover a large area at once. You need to let it rest a bit and catch up, which is annoying, but also much much quieter than a full compressor. Also, big compressors can create hot air and condense a lot of moisture - both of which lead to poor spraying. I like the air tank the best. Just be sure to use a moisture separator, you can ruin a project real quick if you send water droplets through your air hose. I switched to all water soluble products so I clean my airbrush by simply putting it through my ultrasonic cleaner with warm water and dawn dish soap. No harsh or expensive cleaners required.

On my Galaxy s6, pictures taken from the phone are about 5-6 Mb, which is 5312x2988 resolution. I use to upload my phone pics to photobucket, then share the photos on the website using the photobucket hosting links. That way I didn't have to go through the PITA of reducing image size to upload them directly to the site. With the new site upgrade, I was no longer able to do that. Anyone know if they fixed that or are working on fixing it? Its a major PITA to reduce photo size from my phone. I have to upload them to the computer or email them to myself, then reduce them, then upload them.

I do pretty good with picture tutorials when I can use Photobucket to host my pictures, but editing video takes me forever. I can understand why most folks have long and long winded videos because when you are put on the spot in front of a camera, you can never remember what to say or you stutter or forget the impressive word you were thinking of using. What happens? You get nervous and ramble, then you don't want to spend hours editing the video. At least that is why I hate doing videos. A friend of mine asked me to make a tutorial on how I made some bourbon bottle lamps, so I decided to do a quick video because most of the stuff I saw online didn't have very nice lamps. This 3:30 minute video took me hours to shoot, edit, and upload. As far as videos go, it isn't very good.