Nuttish

Look at various Vilene, Pellon, Pelmet, Peltex, or Timtex interfacing materials and template plastic. There is a huge variety. Some will be lighter, stiffer, and more durable than chipboard.

Assuming you have a Fortuna type machine. On the point of sharpening, it's easy to be mistaken about whether you're actually dressing the edge at all rather than hitting the back or center of the bevel. It's helpful to run the machine with a marker over the bell knife so you can then see where the wheel is removing color as it grinds. It's ok to just start over and put a new edge on. Just make sure you grind the new bevel from the back to edge. The Fortuna manual recommends an OEM carborundum stick to roll the burr on the inside of the bell knife over after sharpening, but the smooth end of a high speed steel drill bit will do a fine job if you very very carefully, very very lightly, and very very quickly touch it to the inside of the bell knife. You may also be getting a jagged edge because your grinding wheel is dished out in the middle. If your machine still has the diamond dressing tool inside the left cover, you can knock the edges off to get a relatively flat grinding surface. Another problem that can contribute to premature knife dulling is slop in the linkage between the back gear box and the bushing or bearing the close end of the feel roll spindle rests in. It can slap around and occasionally hit your knife when you're working close to the presser foot. If this is the case, you'll just need to order a replacement part.

Machining your own receiver is a neat project! I don't have access to the tools to do that, or I'd at least try more modest projects. Kudos.

Machining your own receiver is a neat project! I don't have access to the tools to do that, or I'd at least try more modest projects. Kudos.

No offense, but why would anyone do this when you can get nice used Brown & Sharpe or Starrett dividers on eBay for less than new Osborne or Tandy dividers cost?

Attorneys General cannot force anyone to do anything without suing them, which they rarely do. Check the National Association of Consumer Advocates at NACA.net for a consumer attorney who specializes in consumer fraud and related issues. Don't worry that nobody would pay an attorney's hourly rate to handle a $7000 case — some consumer protection statutes provide that the defendant pay your attorney's fee if they lose.

1. Arbor presses will work fine depending on the mark. They'll all lose their crispness, though won't necessarily disappear completely. Be very very careful not to apply too much pressure or fine lines/typesetting will go through the grain. 2. The Chinese hot stamping machine I bought was a clear and present fire hazard. That one's a different style, but I would make sure you can return it no questions asked. Have a look at my post on the machine I purchased. I have no idea where the photos went. 3. Any used Kingsley or similar machine in decent shape will be fine. A machine that doesn't heat up is still cheap to get up to better than factory specs with a PID, strip heater, and replacement power cord. This way, you can even get an American machine (120v) cheaply converted to 230V. The conversion is easy. Check it out: http://www.ebay.co.uk/itm/Kingsley-Hot-Foil-Stamping-Machine-M-101-Digital-USED-PRISTINE-CONDITION-/131678339718?hash=item1ea8a40286:g:thIAAOSwo3pWceHI This is a 275W manual machine with a PID controller for $1000 used, but it would cost less than $60 to upgrade a much cheaper 75W machine to 300W with a PID controller.

Essex and Dublin glue nicely with Renia Colle de Cologne. You must ensure appropriate penetration and cement your pieces within the recommended working time.

Why finish it? Hermann Oak tooling leather sands quite beautifully. You can take the back to a belt sander up to 600 to get a ultrasuede-like finish and the edges to whatever grit you wish to get the fuzzies off. There are very few treatments that will not color this leather and due to its unfinished nature. Nearly anything you apply to the back will show on the edges and anything you apply to the edges will show on the grain.

The wallet was made right side out. It's too small to turn inside out without damaging the leather and stitches. The edges were skived on a machine, glued, rolled, glued together, then stitched. The curves are challenging, but the process is the same as an outside curved hem on clothing, where you remove notches of material just behind your folding line. Ferg, FWIW, a Fortuna should be able to skive thin leather to a paper thin edge suitable for rolling. My knife is very sharp and I use a roller foot nearly touching the feed roll. This is ~2 oz W&C English bridle skived to ~1 oz.

Yin, you missed the part where we said how nicely it cleans up. Don't worry so much. They made army boots out of the stuff.

Nobody will ever be able to answer such a broadly framed question for you. Google is your friend for learning about the huge variety of tanning methods and how they affect the texture and temper of the leather, as well as the parts of a side of leather. That said, PM me if you're in Chicago and I'll give you some scraps of various types of leather so you can get an idea of how they feel.

W&C EB Pocket and divider pieces are .040" or ~2 1/2 oz. back is ~4 1/2 oz.

Would you do us a solid and upload a pic of the thread taken apart to show the braid and yarns?

Try a rag soaked in naptha or acetone to remove wax buildup. It may slightly raise the grain, which you can very very carefully correct with a piece of very very high grit (1600+) paper.

To be fair to CXL, it cleans up with saddle soap extremely well and is very forgiving of most conditioners.

I forgot to say that you might test whether metal will work in the first place by thoroughly degreasing your Jacobs chuck so you can Barge or Weldwood on a layer of canvas. You can easily remove the cement with paint thinner. Now you've got a canvas covered steel cylinder to play with.

2-5% solution of oxalic acid lightly applied with a soft cloth and immediately wiped off works nicely. It is a mild bleaching agent. Barkeeper's Friend contains oxalic acid but I do not know in what concentration. Driveway rust cleaner is 99% oxalic acid. Wear gloves.

That's not what bias tape is for. Stitch it to a sew in interfacing material. I suspect that piece was made with the zipper sewed to stiff interfacing with the leather built around that internal structure. You have more surface area to glue so it's easier to accurately place the zipper. Even if it's just half an inch, it's a lot better than trying to work with the webbing alone.

Might as well just get some Italian wheels from Campbell Randall rather than spending tbd time and money fabricating a tool of marginal utility and figuring out how to make it work. I can get a belt blank nicely polished in a few minutes between my wheels and a belt sander.

I realize your commentary on W&C was only peripheral to trying to sell something and I would not comment if you weren't saying something about a supplier many of us use. My W&C rep confirms that you can indeed return anything defective, including split and refinished leather.

So I take it you didn't take that pic? To turn your thinking inside out a little bit, there's a very very simple way to sew a pocket like that on if the material is soft. It's no different than construction the bag with seams inside the lining, which you just picked up on.

There's no functional difference. The purpose of either awl is to cut open an angled slit just large enough sufficient to accommodate the width of two threads crossing each other through the leather. Only the first few mm of the awl need to be sharpened as a blade — the remaining length past the shoulder should be slightly rounded and dull such that the the awl is only gently stretching the slit to accommodate your needles and the hole will eventually tighten up around your threads.

You'd have to show better pictures of the inside and outside, including pictures of the insides of the pockets. What is the temper of that leather? Can you easily turn the bag inside out? Is it lined? Is there a facing strip on the inside top? Pics.

Did you know that WC is very good about returns?