Johanna

It sounds like the verb "skive" in English. A tool to do this is a "skiver". It means to "scrape off some of the inner edge to make the item lay more flat." I will ask my dad (who speaks Polish fluently) if he has anything he can add. Let us know what you find out. Johanna

When we lived in Georgia, we bought distilled water for molding or casing leather because the tap water ofen left an orange-ish look on the leather. In Ohio, we continued to buy distilled water so because the water here is hard, and leaves a salty looking deposit in the grooves. YMMV Johanna

You have to tick the little box that says "save a copy in my sent items folder" right above the "submit" button. Johanna

Yes Ma'am, lightning is a big problem in this house. I use a UPS (uninterruptible power supply) which sounds like what you had. It has a car battery type feature that levels out the brown outs we have, too- makes it easier on the comps. If we lose power I have a few minutes to save my work, then if I'm not home, it will put my comps into an orderly shutdown if the power doesn't resume. I fried several motherboards before I got a UPS. Like you noted, even a good UPS can be overpowered by a direct strike. Look on www.tigerdirect.com and www.newegg.com before you make any purchases. That will give you a good idea of what features are available, and what reasonable prices for them are. TD has customer reviews that seem pretty reasonable to me. Sorry about your stuff, but glad your family and house are okay. We have 9 lightning rods on the roof. That should have been my first clue when I bought the house. Johanna

Go to the task manager by right clicking in the task bar and choosing "Task Manager" from the menu. If you are not sure what something is, you can Google it. Or, if you suspect you are infected, go to http://geekstogo.com and post on their forum. They have experts there who can look at your logs and tell you exactly what to do and why. Yes, I'm the "Johanna" there, too, and so is dsenette (the monkey). Johanna

Nope, if you do a clean install, you must put all your programs and customizations back. I run Kapersky on one computer, and the other two I run bare. You don't really need AV if you're a careful clicker and use webmail. I do not think CCleaner is a good idea for less experienced users because you can really break things if you make a mistake. I don't dump temp files regularly, either. I do turn down the amount of space Vista and XP allocate for them, which makes them overwrite themselves sooner. 50MB seems to work fine. (Internet Tools> Options) I also reduce the space available for System Restore points, which leaves me with less of them, but remember they are cumulative so it's not necessary to have more than a couple dates. You may want to consider finishing your install, adjusting all your settings and personalizations, add your programs then CLONE the drive. Next time you want to do clean up, back up your data and use your clone for a "clean install" without the bother of redoing everything. Johanna

Welcome to LW! You seem to have a unique style. We would love to see pictures of more of your work! How did you learn to do leatherwork? Are there lots of other leather artists in your area, or are you one of just a few? Glad to have you here. Johanna

If anyone wants an image(s) uploaded for use like this- email them to me at admin@leatherworker.net and I'll send you back the link you need. Johanna

Note the date on this thread and here in the FAQ and another reminder here Johanna

Folks- we already have that. Go to someone's profile and leave a comment. "Hey, friend, thanks for sending me that tool!" Or "You did a great job on that skull and crossbones". That's what the comment section is for. You can say "Hey everybody, friend here volunteered to teach 500 kids leatherwork and I just wanted everyone to know how proud and pleased those kids were!" Brag on your friends- most of them are too modest to do it themselves. Johanna

Richard, thank you very much. We appreciate the words of encouragement and support. We have plans to expand this site, and bring more features of interest to leatherworkers, but we need the money to do it. We are lucky to have a dedicated and loyal membership who are generous with their time and expertise, and I am sick of asking them for money. Kate and I will figure out the glitches with the adserver and fix them. We're testing now, with the help of our friends. Please click on the ads, and tell the advertisers that you saw their ad here if you call and place an order, or have a question. Please call or email your favorite suppliers and tell them they should advertise here. We have their target market, and we have numbers that can knock their socks off. Tell the suppliers that you look at the magazines once or twice, but you're here every day. If they hear the message loud and clear from you folks, LW's future is assured. Johanna

We're ironing out the bugs. Bear with us, please. And please tell the advertisers you saw their ad here- most of these folks have graciously allowed us to use their logos to test the ad server. If enough of you say you saw it, they might buy a spot. We'll get the spacing kinks out soon. Ad revenue means we can expand and bring more features to LW...that's a good thing. Johanna

Our custom leather shop survived and paid the bills because Jon could do anything, he was a jack-of-all-trades in leatherwork. We would go to biker events, rendezvous, buckskinning events, pow wows, SCA and LARP events, concerts (all musicians need leather!) and anywhere we could hustle some work. The trick was to get it into their hands and let them feel and smell it. There was no Internet then- we could have used it! Even taking out an ad in the phone book seemed like too much money. But word spread, "Go see that leather guy!" and we got the rent paid. Marketing has completely changed with the advent of the Internet. No one has geographical limitations- UPS ships anywhere. Jon used to fret about being limited to what his two hands could produce at the bench. That's how I wound up in the business- if i were lacing, dyeing, taking the phone calls, it freed him up to work. His greatest strength was that he could doodle anything- your dog or your truck or your girlfriend, then carve it on leather. He got paid well for his carving, but the fabrication, which took longer and took more skill, was never appreciated by most of the customers. They were willing to pay a few extra dollars to not have a plastic item, but they didn't understand why his was so much better, or why his item would last longer/work better/ be a better value. A lot of time was spent educating people before they would produce their checkbook. In a one-man shop you have to wear all the hats. Most artists are not salespeople and vice versa. Time away from the bench costs money, but if you don't make the sales, why bother being at the bench? The eternal leatherworkers' dilemma. Good thread, rdb- can't wait to hear what others have to say. Johanna

That is beautiful. I like the way the pattern repeats, and flows elegantly. Thank you for sharing. Johanna

In the US you can tie a checking account into your payPal account. If any money accumulates in my PayPal account, I "withdraw" it to my checking account. If I want to buy something with PayPal and the money isn't there, they debit that same checking account. Was he able to freeze the whole account because that was the total of the original transaction? If he was only disputing $25 then only that much of the account should have been on hold, not the whole balance. Johanna

It could mean that a spammer used fire2wire as an ISP and got the whole ISP on the blacklist by MSN, or it could be that MS had a hiccup yesterday. I would call fire2wire and report the issue. They may be able to take care of it on their level, especially if more than one customer complains. You could also set up an email address using your domain name, or use a gmail account, and bypass fire2wire in the meantime for the mail you want to get through. Everyday I get to fill out a couple of forms with CAPCHA so that members can get LW mail. When they join, their spam blocker kicks in and sends me an email to be sure LW has a human on duty. Some people aren't aware that they even have spam blocking on their account, courtesy of their ISP, or like in your case, their email provider. A call to fire2wire is the first step to resolving this, I think. Johanna

If you mean as far as privacy, there is none. If you type my street address into Google it will show you a pic that clearly shows our house and barn, camper, boat, and trucks. You can count the sections of chainlink fence and sidewalk blocks. Google my name and you can find out I was arrested for (but not convicted of) disorderly conduct in Richmond, Virginia in 1990, but you won't see that it was at a Bonnie Raitt concert or what led up to it. If you mean legally, it is best to consult your attorney or accountant to take advantage of the best arrangements for your particular situation. No one wants to lose their house because someone sued their business! Johanna

Mr. & Mrs. Al Gould. Mr. Gould won the Stohlman Award for 2009.

I remember Tandy selling ovals years ago- have you checked their catalog? They have lots of pre-cut shapes available. If you are going to need so many that buying a hide and and a die is more economical, there are a couple of companies that make dies listed on the Suppliers page. Cheap alternative- get a cookie cutter (or other template) and press or trace the shape, then trim with Super Shears. Johanna

I don't think there is anything wrong with buying an item, taking it apart and using the pieces for templates. I've even used the hardware from the bought item, especially if it's unusual or hard to get. Yours isn't going to look the same and you aren't going to try to represent it as someone else's, so don't worry about it. Johanna

"Billy Wootres Swivel Knife Shootout" held at the 16th Annual Rocky Mountain Leather Trade Show in Sheridan, WY, May 15-17, 2009 First Place: Bob Klenda Seconf Place: Phil Keller Third Place: Paul Brinegar Honorable Mention: Johnny Coleman To see the entries and for more info on the contest, sponsored by Leather Wranglers- home of the SK-3 swivel knife. click here. Congratualations to the winners! Johanna

I went to your site and thought the price was very reasonable, though I'm sure the rest of the stingray skin won't go to waste in your shop, like you point out, there is only one star per skin. And stingray isn't cheap. And I've broken a few needles and said some bad words messing around away from the star. I like the classic design- you should have a more "feminine" version though, and charge even more for it. You'll get it. Nice work- thanks for sharing. (If people knew what stingray really was and what a bear it is to work with it, it would be even more valuable!) Johanna

I heard the new one will be out late summer or fall. I don't know what the differences are, because the Toro 3000 I use is a very well-designed machine. I can't think of any "improvements" I'd make, but if Jerry wanted something done differently, I'm sure there is a good reason behind it. Maybe the folks at Artisan will fill us in on the details? Johanna