Colt W Knight

Essentially, they are similar machines except the 18 is flatbed and the 227 is a cylinder arm. A cylinder arm is as handy as a pocket on a shirt. You can reach things on bags, clothes and such that you can't with a flatbed.

If I were buying new, I would buy a cylinder arm. If you could get a good deal on a used Consew 206, I wouldn't hesitate. Like Art said, I think the Cowboy 227R which is the equivalent of the Artisan 335 B mentioned earlier, would be ideal for what you mention I think the Cobra class 18 is the equivalent of the Consew 206. Looks like the cobra comes with a servo and speed reducer installed ( which gives you more torque to punch through leather).

I do everything you mention on my Consew 206 RB. Will sew up to 3/8" leather and uses up to 138 thread. Some say it can be adjusted to sew 207 thread. But the 3200 will sew much heavier leather with much larger thread. The cylinder arm design on the 3200 would be nice for sewing bags and things. You will want to check with Bob Kovar at Toledo to see if the 3200 will work with thinner leather like your wallets.

I use an airbrush so I don't get dye bleed through

Here are two ways I do it. I sew them inside out, then trim flush

I do not use tracing paper either. I just print whatever I want to transfer on regular printer paper and trace over it with a stylus or modeling spoon. The paper is ruined after, but you can always print another.

What is the cut off date for technology for respecting the history of the craft?

I went to JoAnne fabric and bought some vinyl to practice on first. It let me work out some of the kinks before moving on to leather. Thanks, I have made a ton of mistakes. I hope I am learning from them.

Kind of a burned dog hair smell. I would think you would want to setup an exhaust fan. If you get veg tan leather hot it will get hard, and too much heat will make it shink/shivel- but I don't think a laser cutter would do that like drying it in an oven. If the char is too bad, you can always sand it away and burnish as normal. I would think edge cote would work great on the slightly charred leather too

My experience with strap end punches Weaver Master tools are the best I have used, and come sharp enough to use right out of the box. C. S. Osborne are second to Weaver Master tools, and usually need some work to get them sharp enough to work and sometimes they are not ground flush, and it takes a lot of sharpening to get them into shape. Once they are sharp, they are built much HD than Weaver, but I haven't broken or messed up any of my Weavers yet. I wouldn't even fool with lesser quality punches. They have caused me a lot of trouble and banged up fingers in the past.

I bet that is where the money difference comes in right there. The Cobra and Cowboys come with leather feet.

Thanks all. These purses are time consuming to make, but not all that hard. The girls really like how soft the deer skin is.

Deerskin leather on the bag, 7 ounce vegtan strap and tooling. Copper finish hardware and iridescent peacock feather cloth lining I got some dirt on it but it wiped off

I have a Consew 206 RB-1 and find it to be a wonderful machine that will sew up to 3/8" leather with up to #138 thread without any issues. With that being said, a Cylinder arm would be super nice when making bags. If I were to buy one new, and I wanted to make purses and things, I would opt for a cylinder arm over a flat bed because the saddle stitching machines are going to be too heavy for garment weight leather.

Spray bottles will spit out droplets. Tandy leather in Tucson had some cheap pump spray bottles that would work better than a plain bottle from like ace hardware designed for cleaning solution.

My cousins wife is a ladies basketball coach for the local middle school. This purse is for her. Made from black and red deerskin. The strap and tooling are 7 ounce vegtan. I used some fabric designed for cosplay as the lining, pretty neat because it's holographic. I added magnetic clasps for the first time.

That pelican is great. Good work, people's faces are very tough to translate to leather. I have a lot of trouble doing faces.

Been dealing with Bob for a few years now, great guy. I think you will be better off in the long run getting the big machine if you can afford. You'll find uses for that extra sewing capacity quicker than you could ever imagine

Do you have many Saguaros and Javelinas up your way? Nice sling, I wish I could tool things that small.

Could it be a device that triggers the machine to stop instantly preventing the needle from sewing a person's hand? Like sawstop technology? It works off the conductivity of the human body.

In addition to the good comments above, I would say work on keeping your knife straight and not leaning. I can see some cuts that were cut at an angle and not square with the leather. Those slanted cuts will not look nearly as good as straight cuts when beveled.

Nice, When I build guitars with rosewood, ebony or cocobolo, I have to wear goggles, gloves, long sleeve shirt and respirator. It gets in the pores of my skin and feels like a chemical burn. They abalone and Mother of pearl dust from the inlays is also really bad for your health and I take similar precautions.

In my opinion, Weaver Master tools are the best punches with C. S. Osborne punches coming in second. I think they both have distributors in Europe, but I could be mistaken. They both hold up well when used with a proper hammer and backing, like your tree trunk. I keep mine very sharp and strop them regularly so I don't have to hit the punch very hard at all to get nice clean easy holes. They are often referred to as Drive Punches or Belt Punches ( Although some refer to belt punches as drive punches that punch oblong holes like you see on belts).

I finally broke down and bought an Iwata airbrush and it runs 10x better and cleaner than my cheap brushes. Still needs cleaned frequently though. I think I am going to invest in an ultrasonic cleaner. I really like using an airbrush on my leather work, I get a lot better result than when I did everything by hand.

The CS Osbourne is the only brand of rotary punch I have ever used that worked well after use. Even those, you have dress the brass anvil and sharpen the punches frequently. If you can set the work down on a table, the Weaver master punches or Cs. Osborne drive punches you strike with a mallet are the way to go. Growing up, we used a lot of rotary punches on horse tack, and I can't tell you how many times that damn punch pinched the hell out my palm.