sbrownn

Thanks. I have made 30 of them so far. I realize they aren't "fine leatherworking" but they are what the client wanted and they have become so popular as gifts for his business that he can hardly keep them in stock. Of course it certainly helps that he gives them away with all the tools included.

Thank you.

How did you mold it? Any gun can stand being subjected to wet leather for awhile...it's no big deal.

That's really nice. Can I ask where you get your thumb breaks?

This is the design for a belt sheath I made for a Bee Keeper and his crew to hold their flashlight, Leatherman Wave and fixed blade knife.

Excellent comment.

I do.

I like super glue.

I've been to Hamley's many times but their leather shop is long gone and the store is nothing like it used to be since it was sold. I would have liked to seen it in the 1930's when the leather shop was probably running full speed and the store actually catered to the cowboys.

Looks like it certainly spent a lot of time out in the weather.

Without tooling it is difficult to compete in the tool manufacturing world and the upfront costs for tooling are expensive.

You should find a way to comment without personal attacks. I could easily say that they play on your ignorance but what's the point? I'm sure you aren't ignorant so why assert you are just because we differ on opinions? Make your point without personal attacks and you add credibility to your arguments.

+1

I don't have any more cupidity than you do I just have a difference of opinion. I don't think trade barriers and trade wars don't work very well. The best solution is to find a way to compete. If you can't compete making high labor widgets then up your educational level and find areas you can compete in. They probably feel like you can't compete with the US inflating their "world currency" without floating their own...what's the difference? All countries play fast and furious with their currencies.

Indeed, and most people shop for a combination of quality and price point which is, IMHO, a good shopping strategy. "Why are foreign nations so appealing to manufacturers? Simple economics, for starters. In 2010, compensation costs (wages and benefits) for manufacturing jobs in the U.S. were $34.74 per hour on average, according to the BLS. That’s lower than in 13 northern and western European countries, but far higher than costs in China: $1.36 per hour (in 2008), based on BLS estimates. Another manufacturing powerhouse, India, has even lower hourly compensation costs than China." I wasn't aware the labor cost differential was so high even in 2010 but at a ratio of 25:1 a person might be willing to sacrifice some quality for a significantly lower price. Granted it wouldn't be 25 times lower but it could be 100% lower quite easily while maintaining equal quality. Sacrifice some quality and the price drops even more. Given the "expected" standard of living in the US, America will have a difficult time competing labor wise with countries where a living standard 90% lower is something workers are striving for.

I don't think it is related as much to price fixing as it is the customers penchant for lower prices that have driven some of our own industries to move manufacturing to China. Most industries, no matter how automated they are, require human labor and companies relocate to areas of the world where human labor is cheaper in order to be competitive with companies that have already outsourced to low cost labor areas. Where a item is manufactured has little relationship to its quality as most companies have access to high quality level engineering design and manufacturing technology; they build at various levels to enter certain price point market sectors and are in China because the labor costs over the entire spectrum from product development to production are cheaper. The current level of China bashing reminds me of the "made in Japan" bashing that took place after WWII and IMHO is more propaganda than actual reality. The fact is that we are in a competitive world market and the "West" is going to have to find ways to compete.

I have one and it works fine but it is noisier and vibrates more than my Dremel. Given the choice, I don't use it.

The leather pieces had more surface area to disperse the force of being run over and were more much more elastically able to return to their original shape. Metal and plastic are harder but once their elastic limit has been exceeded they do not return to their original shape.

A piece of glass and some 1500+ grit wet/dry sandpaper can be used to sharpen it quite well. Place the blade on the paper with the glass under it and you can feel when the bevel is flat. Strop it until you have done it enough times to remove all the scratches and then finish off by tilting it up a bit to put the cutting edge on. Strop it again on some green compound impregnated leather and then flip it over to remove the burr with a few additional strops. Unless the edge is badly damaged I have found that this works good enough to split down to about 2oz. If it is so badly damaged that it actually needs to be reground then you may need some coarse paper and a jig to hold the blade. I bought an 8" splitter on eBay once that was cheap because it wouldn't split anything. I made a jig to hold the blade at the correct angle and just used elbow grease to work it down. All it needed was a little blade care.

I especially like the last one...great idea. I currently have a commission for a saxophone strap and the client sent me a turquoise (fake) studded dog collar he was interested in integrating into the strap. I had thought about removing the turquoise and the settings but incorporating the entire strap is a much better idea. Thanks so much!

Yes, of course but you have to run the laser each time. Once the pattern is 3D printed it can be used over and over. My $200 laser wouldn't cut that pattern in 30 seconds but once I printed it on my $200 3D printer I could press it into the cased leather in about 5 seconds. If time is the consideration and you are just transferring a pattern it's hard to beat a die you can press...if someone has a better suggestion I'm all ears. One time I tried to print a pattern that would actually cut the leather like a swivel knife. I could press a pattern deep enough to tool it but it wasn't the same quality as a knife cut pattern. I could get the edge thin enough but I couldn't get it strong enough to withstand the pressure it took to make a cut over a large perimeter.

Same here. I love perfecting a design though and CAD/3D printing helps me with that process.

This is a perfect example of something that could be drawn in CAD in 10 minutes and printed on a 3D printer in half an hour.

I understand the losing interest part but I find the 3D printer products so useful and so much fun to design that I can't imagine leather working without it. For me, it eliminates a lot of the drudgery jobs I hate like making cardboard patterns and doing layouts with pencil and paper. It is sooo much faster and accurate to do the basic design in a CAD program and once that is done you are essentially done, as the printer just makes what you have designed with virtually no additional input. I use the 3D printer on every leather project I do; for male and female molds, 2D patterns, stitching and cutting guides, gluing jigs, embossing patterns etc... There is just no end to the things you can make that make your leather working faster and more accurate. The 3D printed parts are very helpful for limited production items that benefit from some sort of "automation" but are too few in numbers to justify expensive dies and patterns. That being said a set of molds and patterns would be good for at least 100 iterations if you were careful with them. I rarely do more than 25 uses before I make a design change so my patterns go into the scrap heap long before they are worn out. The cost of the materials is so low that it is virtually irrelevant and prototyping new designs costs less than a latte. The CAD program, 3D printer and my screw operated clicker are the three of the most used tools in my leather shop.

Really nice.