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I've got a Klic N Kut which is similiar, it will cut up to 1mm thick veg tan leather. I've also cut acetate but can't remember the thickness of it,you can also put a stylus in them and trace on veg tan leather which is what I do for intricate decorative sewing designs. The handibot is kind of expensive for the leather use, you should be able to find a cheaper flat bed which would be easier to set up for leather. Aluminium and brass will also work on the lighter duty cnc's but if you want to use Stainless you will need something heavy duty.

I'm not sure if you realise or not the leather you get from the tannery directly is already months old, veg tanning isn't a quick process and isn't as new as you think it might be. I've worked with leather that was twenty years old and there was nothing wrong with it, the main things to do is to keep it out of the light and make sure it doesn't get damp so it can go moldy.

Apart from Trencilo, the only other braided threads that I know of that might be available directly to you in America is Classic by Coats Industrial, Serabraid by the Amann Group and the stuff Tandy sells. I've seen or have samples of these three and the braid isn't quite as tight as Tiger Ritza. None of the others really have the variety of Tiger Ritza though for colours or sizing.

RavenAus, Copydex is latex based isn't it. I use a latex based adhesive from Algeos and I believe Leffler also sell one they are 5 litres though. If you need a smaller quantity Tear mender seems to be available from pet supply places, no idea what they use it for though.

Speak to a lawyer that specialises in copyright and trademarks or at the very least read through the information here http://www.cipo.ic.gc.ca Yes celebrities can sue you for using their likeness there has been numerous cases regarding it.

For things that old I would contact The Leather Conservation Centre in England www.leatherconservation.org They specialise in older stuff and would likely be able to give you the best advice or put you onto a conservator in America. I contacted them regarding some old leather sports equipment and they were very helpful.

Same here that's come up really well after the repair, well done.

I think Xianleather has some as well not sure if they were on his website or his clubchopper thread.

Thankyou everyone for the kind words and to you Wyoming Slick thats just what I needed to read it has been a difficult few years without her as a lot of others can also attest to by losing someone to that horrible disease. My family also seemed to be pleased that the wood has been put to good use. For the leatherwood from what I could find out, I was actually interested in the origins myself as it had the name written on it might be called leatherwood due to the waxy, leather coloured sheath that covers the young leaves and petals. The cut timber though is also pretty similiar in colour to the natual veg tan leather that the local tanneries used to produce so the general consensus seems to be that it's from the colour. I had fun building it but I'm not sure I could make more to sell it would mean my leather work room would be eternally covered in wood dust as I don't have anywhere else to build things, I would love to see someone else build a checkerboard design though with their local woods as I reckon some would be absolutely stunning. If anyone wants any pointers though such as on the opening/closing mechanism I would be happy to help out.

Very cool, I like a well organized room myself.

After finally having enough of sewing on that woeful Tandy pony for the last few years I decided to make my own stitching horse. I'm definitely not a wood worker by any means thinking yeah it will be alright to cut and sand wood in my leather work room ha ha ha big mistake that was, took two days to clean all the dust up. Anyhow a little about the horse it's made with West Australian Jarrah (red looking wood) and Tasmanian woods (Myrtle,Huen Pine,Blackwood,Leatherwood,Celery Top Pine and Sassafras) for the top checker look. It's a hybrid of Al Stohlman design and the one with the rotating jaws on Cascity,I made it with straight legs though as it needs to fit in a certain spot in my room. The rotating jaws work from brass tube going through a skate bearing that is recessed into the seat it has a nut at the top of the wood block that can be tightened to stop it rotating. Also made another couple of modifications with the scissor and thread holders. I left a bare space at the front in case I wanted to add any more tool holders at a later date The Tasmanian wood is kind of special to me as I was with my sister when she picked it out from the mill in Tasmania when we did a trip there in 2007 with all the girls of my family. My sister on the other hand was a brilliant wood worker and had planned to make some cool stuff with it. Sadly she didn't get to and it was the last trip I got to do with her as she passed away from cancer in 2010. I wasn't quite sure what to do with the wood as there wasn't a lot there and with my limited skills but I wanted to tackle something myself with it, I think she would of liked it's end use though as she was the one who also got me interested in leatherwork. Anyway here it is I hope it also might give some additional ideas for those who want to tackle making their own stiching horse.

RavenAus if you try the latex mask get the Winsor Newton latex masking fluid from an art store the general stuff used for making casting moulds here has a high ammonia content and turns the leather grey ok on stuff that will have a dark background but not on natural or light coloured dyes as the grey doesn't come out.

You can get cut resistant gloves that are made with fabric and stainless wire or you could put a vinyl disposable glove over the top of the chain one.

I buy the quart bottles as well and all have had the glossy yellow labels. Are you able to put a picture up then someone might be able to say exactly if Fiebings did actually use a different type of paper at one time as some might have seen it before.

I use a lot of the oil dye blue and generally thin it down some before using it I also airbrush it on. The purple would be a normal colour occurrance for the blue all leather dyes drop colour after being soaked in water it's better to thin the dye first as soaking in water will cause unexpected colours. The Fiebings oil dye has labels like this http://shop.fiebing.com/c/leathercraft_dyes_professional-oil-dye if yours don't they may been rebottled from larger containers,all the Fiebings oil dye I have bought has had glossy yellow labels where did you buy yours from ?

Here is a thread where Leatheroo tried something similiar on leather http://leatherworker.net/forum/index.php?showtopic=54298&hl=%2Binkjet+%2Bprinting I don't have a colour printer at home anymore so haven't tried it myself yet, both methods definitely are interesting though.

There is no pre mixed grey dye in spirit based so water based will be your only option it's available from Japan, the two brands are Craftsha and Batik. I bought them through goodsjapan.jp they don't seem to have the Craftsha listed at the moment but should be able to get it in. I prefer the Craftsha as Batik has a strange vinegar smell to it.

New Tiger rolls are wrapped in plastic and have a green Tiger label or white small label on the outside. Does yours have this if not I'd say they are old stock, if they do the 350m one has been rewrapped as 0.8mm comes in 500m rolls only the bigger sizes from 1.4mm come in smaller lengths of 250m. I've never had any problems with discolouration through out the thread and I've used a fair bit through most of the colours available so without seeing your photos at the moment I'd still go with that they are old stock.

I've bought thread from there as well, took about two weeks to get it. The thread stretches a lot more than Tiger which I didn't care for on the stuff I make but it does come in some nice colours and I occasionally still do use it on decorative stuff. It would go well on wallets, watch straps etc I'm not that I would trust it on anything concerning use for animals though.

That's a really cool experiment roo, if your printer uses pigment ink it will be a lot more lightfast than normal leather dye as well.

Hi minimal Oz it's set out in points 1-7 of how I do it and underneath that is the dye and pigment I use, you can buy Fiebings and Art Spectrum pigment ink in Australia. Fiebings from Birdsall and any art supply store should have the Art Spectrum pigment ink. The Craftsha grey dye was bought from goodsjapan I only use that as it's a premixed grey dye. No it's not dyeing the wax if it was that it would rub off by the time I got through the 5ft of thread which it doesn't also if you pinch tiger thread together the single threads separate and what I dye looks no different than what the dyed thread from Julius Koch looks like. I believe it works due to the small surface area of the thread I doubt very much that it would work on wider polyester stuff.

Sorry it’s taken a little while to get back to you been flat out this week trying to get some stuff done. Anyhow here you go these are just small test pieces I usually do these before dyeing whole sewing strands of about 5ft From left to right emerald green, purple, mid grey, navy blue, royal blue, orange, mahogany & magenta in 1.2mm size Some of these colours are available from Abbey but not in the 1.2mm size which I use the most, the original thread colour was white. Turquoise and gold in 1mm size These two colours aren't available at all in Tiger, original thread colour was silver grey as I had run out of white but its light enough not to really make a difference. They might look a bit uneven but they aren't in person, the unevenness is due to my scanner Now the process to do it isn't hard but can be messy and is more time consuming than dyeing linen. 1. Get a fairly longish plastic container pour the colour dye you want into it. 2. Make large loops of your thread (dependant on length of your container) 3. Place into dye bath and leave a few minutes 4. Remove thread from dye bath place on paper towel and let dry for ten minutes. 5. Wearing disposable gloves unravel the thread and run your fingers down it you will notice that a bit of wax residue comes off this is normal and is what you want to happen, you will notice that the colour isn't even at the moment so with that. 6. Re loop the thread and place back into dye bath for another five minutes then repeat first part of step 4 then leave to dry for at least an hour. 7. Unravel thread and run your fingers down it again to redistribute and seal the wax. If it is still uneven you may need to do another dip some colours do take better than others this is mostly a trial and error thing so make sure you write notes down if you want to replicate the same colour. I don't use the thread until the next day just to make sure it's completely dry. Now for what dye or pigment to use, the mahogany shown above is Fiebings oil dye, the navy blue is Fiebings water based the mid grey is Craftsha water based and the rest are Art Spectrum pigment ink which is also water based. Now for the important part with the water based stuff you need to add a bit of methylated spirits ( US = denatured alcohol) to get the colours to absorb into the thread otherwise it won't work. The Art Spectrum pigment ink is an Australian brand so I'm not sure if it is available overseas but I expect FW ink would work as well. I plan on doing a test with that but it won't be for a little a while as I have a bit of work to get through first. I mostly use the Art Spectrum ink as they are more lightfast compared to the leather dyes, I put an example of the gold on a window sill for six months and it has probably dropped only a quarter shade whereas the leather dye was three quarters gone. I would love to be able to get some of these colours directly from Abbey or Julius Koch and although I use a fair bit of thread it's not enough to get custom colours made up. Like I said before its not hard just time consuming, if you’re still interested let me know and I will do up and take some photos of some new sewing examples. As I can’t show what I have at the moment as they have personal details on them and I don’t have the clearance to show them at the moment. Hope this helps if you want to have a go at it yourself

No, Tiger is polyester and it is possible to dye it though most will tell you that you can't. If your interested I can put up some photos of the custom colours I have done.

From the research I did awhile ago monofilament 40lb (0.6mm) seems to be the most common size and I tried it with that. To split it you get a sharp scalpel blade and push the line into it once it has a small opening you can use a fingernail to open it up a bit more then it can be pulled apart fairly easily. I just discarded it afterwards as fishing line is cheap, I don't really need to use this method for sewing so haven't kept up with it For a bit more in depth information on the process try The Crispin Colloquy http://www.thehcc.org/forum/index.php as there seems to be quite a few there who still sew with bristles both fishing line and boar and I know there has been a few discussions on it.

No there isn't any large spool for the Tandy braided cord, I enquired about it a year ago as I needed a larger amount of a colour that wasn't available in Tiger (Turquoise) none of the other braided thread manufacturers had it either and Tandy ended up discontinueing that colour anyway so I made do with dyeing some Tiger which worked out fine. The main difference between Tiger and the Tandy braided cord is that Tiger has a smaller tighter braid. Out of all the other braided thread available, Mox from Paskals in Australia is probably the closest in looks and feel to Tiger.