RustyReb

All, I have decided to move on up to a Cobra class 3.......not sure if I'm going to hang on to the Boss or not.....might be nice to keep it loaded up with black thread for that occasional project......haven't decided yet. You just might be seeing it in the classified section of this forum soon!

I believe the wife got this one at about $1100 new straight from Tippmann.........are there decent powered machines out there in that price range???

My wife bought me one for Christmas. Will agree that it likes heavier leather over light. After working out a few bugs, I'm happy with it for stitching 10oz belts. Not so happy on lined 4-5 oz stuff. Top stitch will look ok but bottom leaves a lot to be desired. Ithough, have had good exerience with their customer service. Could not get bottom tension adjusted when I first got the machine.....bobbins jammed into the shuttle and it appeared they were too long......I thought possibly a bad batch of bobbins. I called..... they sent more out right away. That did not fix the problem.......bobbins still too tight in shuttle. Called them back and they sent a new bobbin shuttle out right away. Of course, by this time I had already ground and polished on the ends of the bobbins (approx .020") to get them to spin freely in the shuttle. Seems to work ok now. In hindsight, I think I would recommend spending a bit more on a powered machine. You will get a much more consistent stitch out of a powered machine. My biggest complaint on the Boss is lack of consistency in the stitch...specifically on the stitch lock. 10 stitches will be perfect and then a couple will pull the bobbin up too high. I'll probably sell mine before too long and upgrade to a Cowboy or similar..... Reb

One thing can be said for the Harbor Freight airbrushes.......... The price is right! Paid $8 bucks for my last one. Good quality? Not really, but they beat a dauber and if it screws up, grab another one! IMHO, only way to dye and finish.

Thanks all for the good advice.......this site is a wonderful way to share knowledge!

Thanks for the info.......just ordered some Angelus dyes to try. Do you thin those with alcohol as well? Reb

Morning all! Finished a belt for a buddy last night. Used airbrush with Feibing's light brown oil dye cut with denatured alcohol. I can't seem to get a nice light brown without the dreaded orange tint.......what do I need to do? All the tans and light browns seem orange to me........ Reb

Pretty new to this craft and first time posting.......just finished a nice tooled belt. Wanted to get a fairly light brown color but wanted it to be deeply dyed due to high wear, so I added Feibings light brown to denatured alcohol and used a dauber.....soaked it really good. Seemed to have lost a lot of the crisp deatail in my tooling. So....the question is, how do you get a deeply dyed product without losing detail? It also turned out a lot darker than what I was shooting for! Thanks! Reb