Johanna

I heard from Billy's daughter today and Billy finally made it to London!! She asked me where she can get some leather in the UK for her son and dad to play with. HELP! UKRay, Badger- someone- tell me where to send her, please! I don't think Billy is going to tool, but who knows what he might teach her boy? I think I'll send the kid a real rawhide mallet- or we'll be hearing that metal hammer clanging clear over here! Johanna

FYI Here's link to a gallery of Billy's work: http://leatherworker.net/Gallery/index.htm

I know people are going to loan things out to their friends, but I'd rather not do that through LW. The reason is that many leatherworking teachers depend on the sales of their materials to continue to produce MORE videos and books and if guilds lend them out and sales are lost, the author has to quit. It's not worth it to them if they sell one copy and 30 people watch it. The general public does not casually buy leatherworking books and videos. I'm all for sharing, of course, but we get into a fuzzy area when we start loaning/renting COPYRIGHTED material. It hurts the very artists we admire and want to learn from. If you think someone is doing a great job teaching, support them. Buy 10 copies and give them to your friends. If you rent or lend them out, the author gets no compensation, and in the long run, we all lose. Johanna

He hasn't logged in in awhile, but he's probably reading some. I've heard from him elsewhere. That IRL gets in the way sometimes! Roo- I hope you are having a blast at the Dimensions in Leather Conference. Take notes, take pics. Love your new body art, too! Johanna

Happy birthday, David! {{David}} Johanna

1. No, no one is "getting rich" from advertising revenue on LW. If you folks saw the bills, and the upgrades we have planned, you would understand why the tin cup begging isn't going to cut it any more. 2. No, we don't care what other sites are doing. We wish them good luck. LW can deliver specialized advertising to a target market. 3. Yes, you can effectively advertise here even if your company doesn't have an art department. We have a couple of graphics whizzes on standby that will be glad to do your banners for you. 4. If you have questions we haven't answered, please PM, email or call. We will be glad to send you our stat reports. Yes, this site really does get an incredible amount of traffic. Thanks! Johanna

Outright begging people for donations is not my style, but without you members in blue there is NO way I could pay the overhead here, so LW would be gone. The only way LW is going to be able to keep up with expenses as it grows is by selling advertising. I checked out Google Ads first. They were delighted to offer me $2/1000 impressions (impressions are the times an ad shows) but I hesitated. We are a "family friendly" site. Google would have complete control of what links are placed on the site, and "leather"...well, you folks know what that can bring up in a search engine. Kate (the other admin) to the rescue! She built an adserver that we host on sister site and we can control it to do whatever the customer (advertiser) wants. I danced around in joy- we could reward our loyal members who have businesses by selling them inexpensive effective advertising to a target market! There could be enough money to fund the upgrades and other site features we want to ad! No more begging members for donations! Yay! But... I NEED YOUR HELP! Please ask the vendors and suppliers and people you know "in the business" to support LW. Drop them a note, call them on the phone. Let them know that they will get more sales and recognition from being up top than in any of the other "traditional" forms of advertising. Tell them you read the magazines once or twice a month, but you look at the forum every day or two. Tell them we can show their ad to 100,000 "unique visitors" a month- almost two million clicks a month are made on this site. That's a lot of leather land traffic! We can tell the adserver to email the boss a summary of ad activity every day or week to keep them informed as to how their online advertising is working. When someone clicks on their ad, it goes straight to the link the advertiser specifies. It's a direct door into an advertiser's store or website! Click here for more information about advertising on this site! Thanks! Johanna

I moved your website announcement to marketing because it will get more views than in the gun and knife sheath forum. I'm not sure what you mean by the rest of your post? Johanna

I don't recall ever seeing a camel stamp. Perhaps you could have one made if the demand justifies it? There are several stamp makers on the board, delrin and other. Jeff Mosby (Grey Ghost Graphics) Daryl Barberousse and some other folks make high quality stamps in different sizes for reasonable prices. The Makers Mark threads will give you more names than are coming to me at the moment. (My kids are fighting- when will summer be over??) Johanna

I've always considered myself to be a "carpenter". I can make anything, and make it work. Making it pretty and decorating it is out of my league, so I am a mechanic, not an artist. I admire the folks that can do both. But let's face it- if the gun doesn't fit, the flap doesn't close, the pockets don't line up- it's JUNK. You can make it as pretty as you want, but if it doesn't work, it's garbage. Johanna

I closed the doors on the leather shop 10 years ago, but we always insisted on a minimum of a 50% deposit for any custom work. It meant the customer was serious, and there wouldn't be a surprised look when we delivered the goods. No deposit, no work. If the customer died or went to jail in the meantime, we were only out our time, not materials with a 50% down policy. I wish I had a pic of the purse we made with "Ruth" carved into it- I don't remember how we got "stuck" with it, but we took it along to all the shows for years and one day a lady named "Ruth" insisted on buying it. You just never know! We also wrote up a detailed work order when we accepted the non-refundable deposit, reviewed it with our customer, and had them SIGN it. That cleared up any misunderstandings later on...it was all there in black and white. If you do a search for "disclaimer" on the board, somewhere there is a thread of what all was on that work order paper. Hope it helps you or someone else. Johanna http://leatherworker.net/forum/index.php?s...;hl=disclaimers

LOC (Liquid Organic Cleaner, highly concentrated) by Amway and a toothbrush does a good job on fingernails. "Area rug" is the only thing that will work on carpeting or wood floors. Muriatic acid will clean concrete, but have good ventilation. The stuff makes Neat Lac seem weak. When you use dye, open the bottle, pour some in a cup or shotglass, and close the bottle. You aren't going to use the whole thing at once, so just get out what you need. The key is to get in the habit of putting the cap back on the dye and moving it away from the work and never in the spill zone. The worst longest string of profanity I ever heard was when a big blob of brown dye ended up on a magnificent carving Jon did and ruined it because those cardinal rules were broken. Yesterday I polished up a black belt for a friend, and I left the cap off the quart bottle of black leather balm. All was fine until I got the sheepswool and began to buff- and I felt the bench wobble and caught the bottle just in time. I was just lucky. I knew better, and I broke the rules- I went on to the next step (buffing) without capping that bottle, and I left it in the spill zone. Once I dropped a bottle of red dye on my foot and it looked for a month like I had suffered a terrible injury and there was fresh blood. I feel your pain. Johanna

Understand completely about the need for the stronger leather for the larger breed dogs. I used to have three healthy Rotts who could have probably towed my car with the right gear. Looking at your pics I have a suggestion- after you bevel your edges, try wetting them and burnishing the sides. I use a scrap piece of denim or canvas or deerskin, and it will remove the "fuzzies" from the edge. It just provides a more professional appearance. Also, keep in mind when you cut the leather and do the in-and-out, you are weakening it if you are doing it in a stressed area and not as decoration. Johanna

If you buy a side of leather, you are going to want to make your straps from the back section. The belly sections are too ragged and the leather is not as consistently thick, so you don't want to do strap work from "the bottom". Clamp the hide to a table and use a straight edge to make a straight edge with a sharp blade. (Rotary cutters work great for this job!) A strap cutter is the easiest way to make the straps. You can adjust the width easily. 10/12oz leather is rather thick for a dog leash, but it will work. To edge your straps, use an edger. The smaller the number on the edger, the less leather will be removed. You may want to play with some scrap to determine what kind of look and feel you want. Keep your edgers sharp to prevent them from "bouncing" and marking up your strap work. If you have a picture of one of your leashes, we can probably come up with more specific advice. A side of leather is going to be the most economical way to get your straps, and yes, the back is the strongest part of the hide. But if you are making a leash for a miniature poodle, the 10/12 oz might be too thick, especially where you double it over for the hardware. You can skive it down, but that reduces the strength. That makes no difference for the poodle, but might compromise a leash for a great dane or Rottweiler. Hope this helps Johanna

Velcro. That way it can be adjusted depending on who is playing, and if the tone is affected, it can be removed easily. Sweat does wear on a guitar, but usually the pickguard area takes more abuse. I'm not crazy about leather covers on guitars meant to be played, but I can understand the customer's desire to protect the finish on his guitar. Johanna

I have to agree with Brian's observation about IE8 and Vista. It's fine. IE8 and XP don't always play nicely. I think I am the only geek in the world who does not use Firefox as my default browser. I use IE. I check websites in all the browsers, but when I'm personally surfing, it's in IE. FWIW, 80% of the people that visit this site use IE, too. password manager? What's that? Post it notes? I do have a txt file somewhere called "passwords". Isn't that tech savvy? Johanna

Eric called me today. They are not quite ready with the check out cart- but as soon as they are, he promised it would be announced here first. They are pretty excited about getting things back on track, and building a new and improved Hidecrafters. They have a lot of instructional materials available for sale or for free, and George is helping with that. Eric also talked about plans for helping guilds and listing them on the site. It's refreshing to see the enthusiasm and potential HC has now to become one of the better leatherwork suppliers again. We've waited this long...we'll make it another day or two, right? Johanna

Click through this slideshow of optical illusion art. Do we see the same things? What do we see? He's an amazing artist - I hope you enjoy his pics as much as I did. Johanna

Here is a detail of the horses and all those rocks... Deno- we are enjoying this glimpse of your father as a man and as an artist. Please thank your mom for allowing this tribute and sharing her memories. I wish I would have met your dad- I knew "of" him, but not much about him, and I am sure I would have been delighted to know him. Thank you! Johanna

Just a reminder: If anyone is interested in Billy's video: http://leatherworker.net/whois.htm Johanna

ryano- we're almost neighbors. I live near St Marys. My village has 900 people in it. We have two churches, a Post Office, bank, market, pizza place and a gun store. I have been researching the Miami Erie Canal and Susie's town with my mother, and we have written a couple of books about New Bremen. The Interstate, trains and canal all missed my village. Here are pics I have taken from all over- but a lot of the ME Canal series is in there. I have lived in Ohio, PA (south of Pgh.), NH (near Lake Winnipesaukee), MA, NY (NYC), Charleston, SC, Norfolk,VA, MD, Macon, GA and back to Ohio. I like West Virginia, too- and I would love to live there, somewhere near the New River by Beckley, if I could. I also would go back to New England or Charleston, SC to live. I'm done with city life, though- and I know Wade would hate it. Good topic! Johanna

Hmmmm I count 4 in the pic, plus I know there is one in my cigarette case. YES YES and YES!! I think that's what I was trying to say. I could understand women paying designer label prices if they were getting what they wanted, but we DON'T! (However, I have seen some "man purses" that are a little closer to the mark than most womens bags.) I could justify that kind of money on quality, but not a label. Johanna

In January the zipper on the purse I've been carrying for a few years completely broke. I went to Penneys and bought a new purse with faux leather trim and it's now June and it's junk. That's what it looked like new. It is now a disaster- except the zipper still works. The cheap leather's finish is rubbed off, the inside liner (cloth) is ripped, and I can never find anything in there anyway. This is a pic of the junk that has to fit, plus my book or whatever: Ed Santoro's thread today of the designer handbags has got me thinking- I WANT A PURSE I LIKE! I want a purse that I can take to the opera or the beach, and I want it to be sturdy and not some imported cobbled-together expensive crap. If I'm going to pay designer handbag prices, I want a purse designed for me! I don't want a purse from a warehouse, and I'd be more impressed with a makers mark than a fancy designer label. Why? I don't want to have to worry about my purse- just grab and go. Because I don't want a purse that is going to dump out all the contents when my son learns how to drive a car. I don't want a purse I have to keep on my lap instead of tucking on the floor in a restaurant. I don't want zipper failure, and I want to be able to find things in it immediately without rooting aaround like a baglady at the checkout. That $1500 purse Ed posted wouldn't last 6 months, and neither did my Penneys special. But I carried my old purse (the one at the top of this thread) for 10 years? or so, and I'd fix it and carry it again if it didn't have a big "A" on it. There has to be a market for women like me who can appreciate the quality of a real purse and are willing to pay for it. Oh yeah, and I want a real leather laptop case too, but that's another rant for another day. Johanna

I fixed a lot of Coach and Vitton and other designer handbags when we had the shop, and I don't see the quality of the workmanship improving. Cheap hardware, cheap leather or fake leather trim and panels, flimsy snaps and straps- junk. High priced junk. And the ladies wanted them repaired. They carry them for the prestige of the logo and because they match their outfit, not because the bag is practical. Keep me posted with what you come up with, Ed. ~J