Colt W Knight

Can you post a picture of the bottom and top stitch? I have a feeling I know what's wrong, but want to see what's actually happening first

This is my opinion. Your leather wasn't "cased" long enough, or you were being to delicate striking your beveleresume because I am not seeing any burinating on your stamp impressions. I think your swivel knife marks are a bit shallow-they should be 1/2 the thickness of the leather. The beveling looks a bit weak, could be due to the casing, the swivel knife marks, or simply not using a heavy enough maul. A checkered beveler would really improve the contrast Also, using a background ingredients tool would make that shape pop out. If that shape is suppose to be wood, using a modeling spoon to add some wood grain would look nice. I am no expert, been learning slowly for a few years. These are things I would work on if it were my piece.

I use automotive Rubbing compounds because I have big bottles on hand because I build guitars, and I use the compounds to buff out the lacquer. They come in progressively finer grits, and when rubbed on the flesh side of leather, make great stropping compounds. When I get the notion to sharpen a bunch of stuff, I will even do up 2-3 strops of varrying grit polishing compound. You can see yourself in the edge after I get done.

Thanks Jon and Chief

I get mine from Toledo Industrial Sewing supply, Bob Kovar.

If you put the effort into burnishing, water and saddle soap will yield an amazing result.

Thank you

What weight leather do you use for your nonlined banjo straps? Do you do anything to the back to keep dye from rubbing off? Tooling looks great.

They use to carry that edge molding at Lowes, but if they don't have it anymore you can order t from wood working supply/cabinet places like Rockler.com

I really enjoy carving animals, and I seem to make a lot of padfolios for friends and professors at school. One of these days, I hope to improve to the point where I can call myself a real leather tooler. 7/8 ounce Vegtan leather with turquoise pigskin suede lining. I have used a lot of different materials for lining, and by far, this pig suede is my favorite. Love the texture, color, and the fact you can see the hair pores. Plus its thin, and doesn't wrinkle in the corner like goat and lambskins I used. The down side is you can't clean it as easy as a non suede liner. I haven't decided whether I am going to continue using suede or not. Guess Ill wait to see how it all holds up. Leather is from Hide House, Napa, CA finish Before tooling I give the leather a good scrubbing with water and saddle soap during the casing process. Tool I gave the edges a coat of fiebings light brown, the covered it in Tandy ecoflow Saddle Tan gel antigue. Rub the finish dry, coat with 50/50 mop and glow from an airbrush, they finish with a coat of my homemade wax ( bees wax, tallow, olive oil)

I made these as a gift for a friend of mine. I got the pattern for these dove wing spur straps from the internet. They were said to be late 19th century design. I cut out the letters, and sandwhiched some turquoise pig skin seude between two pieces of vegtan leather. I don't know the thickness because I put the vegtan pieces on the belt sander to thin it down a lot. I hope I got them to around 4 ounces a piece. Sanded and burnished the edges. Gave them a healthy cleaning with saddle soap, trained them to shape, and then gave it a coat of beeswax so I could see the turquoise stripe on the edge. Then I finished them off with a hand rubbed finish of 1/3 beeswax, 1/3 olive oil, 1/3 tallow. I really like the look and feel this finish adds to a project. I debated with which way to put the initials. Do you put them where the person wearing them can read them, or other folks looking down? I chose the riders perspective.

Those 66 machines are a thing of beauty for sewing light duty material. I loved mine for cloth and such, but never could get it to sew 2 pieces of leather together consistently, so I sold it and bought a nice consew 206. The 206, setup for leather, doesn't do a good job on anything lighter than felt

Those 66 machines are a thing of beauty for sewing light duty material. I loved mine for cloth and such, but never could get it to sew 2 pieces of leather together consistently, so I sold it and bought a nice consew 206. The 206, setup for leather, doesn't do a good job on anything lighter than felt

You do good work. Much better than the purses I make

I have heard of folks gluing canvas to metal burnishers to make them effective.

Once I got my machine, I felt freed up creatively because I wasn't dreading the hours of hand stitching.

Your experience with the Boss is not uncommon. Once you ever sewn an entire saddle belt on an electric machine in about 60 seconds, you may not have the same feeling towards an electric machine.

I had a chance to actually use the hole punch this weekend. Here was my experience. I made 30 GPS cattle tracking collars. On the collar, I sewed a leather pouch to hold a polycarbonate box which houses the GPS. I needed to punch holes in the flap to accept a chicago screw. I didn't punch the holes before I sewed the pouch up, so I was having a tough time punching the holes with my maul and drive punch. Then I remembered, Hey, I have that rotary hole punch. I wont have to put in a piece of wood as a backer or nothing. Just mark the holes, and punch. Well, that hole punch worked like butter for about 12 holes. Then, it wouldn't cut all around the holes, and I would have to rotate the pliers. After about 16 holes, the punch was punching through no more. So- the verdict. The plier part of the punch works great. Required no effort to punch the holes, but the bad news is that the punch inserts just didn't hold up to use. I wish I could get harder punches for this tool. I used those old CS Osborne style rotary punches for years when we showing horses to punch holes in bridles, saddles, and etc, and they were hard to squeeze and punch. Plus that spring steel would bite the meat of your hand and give you a nice blood blister. I think the nature of the beast is that these rotary punches are just not the way to go. Tracking collars Pouches

The actual project that got me into leather working was making a nice leather carry case for my M4. I learned a lot working on that bag. I used sheep wool to line the case. I actually used Weldwood contact cement to, and left the outer 1.5" without glue so I could sandwhich the zipper in there. I really prefer the contact cement when gluing leather to leather, but 3m77 is great for gluing leather to cloth or gluing vegtan leather to something soft like suede, lambskin, or goatskin. After hand sewing that, I realized I needed a sewing machine. Ughhh, that was miserable.

If you want really good punches, you have to pony up for the Weaver Master Tools, IMHO. The new CS Osborne hole punches I bought are not that great. They come very dull, and don't stay sharp as long as my Weaver stuff. I never really had a chance to wear out leather tools until I started making GPS tracking collars for cattle. When you make 30 collars at a time, you can wear out punches quick on that thick leather. I was amazed at how much better the Weaver tools performed. I also got in the habit of using a beeswax block. If you tap the punch end on the block before punches, it doesn't get stuck in the leather, and you don't have to wiggle it back and forth to get it out.

I also use it all the time, Especially to glue lining in things like purses. Ive found that it works even better, if i run an iron over the piece after Ive glued it together. Really gets the two pieces stuck together well.

You made the right call. You have a nice machine, making it work nicely for your purpose will increase your enjoyment and creativity

These are things I make up on the fly, so I don't have a pattern. But next time I make one, I will take some pictures of the process that way you can see my thought process at the order of operations.

Weldwood works so well, I see no reason to pay for anything more expense. Plus, I can go to any hardware store and even walmart to buy Weldwood. I would be willing to bet, your separation was caused by an error in applying/pressing the leather together or just some loose fibers in the leather.

I would think hammertone paint would be too thick to spray in an airbrush. I have sprayed it through a regular hvlp gun, but I had to use a big tip. Thinning it really kills the hammered look. I do a lot of custom paint on firearms and guitars, and the trick to removing plugs and masking is to let it dry enough that you can remove the plug/tape and the paint will heal itself, but not so dry that pulling the masking off with chip the hard paint. When you let it set just right, you can peel that stuff like a banana. Still soft, but dry enough not to hurt anything