rdb

That's probably just a well burnished edge with "Edge Ink". I know Zack White sells it, as do other suppliers. esantoro, a member here, did several topic discussions on his search for an edge...look through his posts, there's several of them on this.

Just use the granite. The poundo absorbs blows. To get better impressions on it, you have to strike harder...wasted energy, less efficient, poorer results. Poundo is good for punching a hole or belt tip on it, or for brushing debris on it when you can't find the dustpan...lol.

It will only be a matter of time before only the elite can attend college. There sure is a lot wrong with our education system, and our society. Either we fix it, or the world will be a very strange place. I went to college, and it did help get me jobs every now and then, but absolutely nothing to do with what I learned in school. It was always just a little extra thing that put me over some other applicant. The fact is...I'm no genius. I had to work three times as hard at learning school stuff than all the others. Once I got it, it was good, but it took awhile. The fact is, that 90% of my working life, I have worked with my hands....and enjoyed the hell out of it. From mover/truck driver to carpenter, from leatherwork, pottery, art, etc, it was my hands that provided food for the table. To this day, I can't express the pride in driving by a house or an addition I built, or for someone to show me something I made for them years ago. Or for someone to just say "remember when you made..." I wont make any history books, but I have left a small mark in the world. An awful lot of kids I meet today (heck, even adults) don't have a clue how to make the simplest things they might need or enjoy. And if they do see something handmade, they think it was made in a factory anyways...sheesh. It's a consumer society, and we need to get back to making things here, not in some foreign land. But big business wants to pay $1 instead of $15 an hour, so now some peasant in another land is being trained to make your craftool. They still charge us like they paid $15, but they only want to give you $9 for your hours work. If you are lucky enough to be paying the bills with your income from leatherwork, you are a select few in this land. I don't make anything close to a weeks pay yet, even though I'm working 50-60 hours or more, a week at it. But it's getting better every week, I'm keeping my fingers crossed that somehow the economy turns around a bit, maybe we'll all have a fighting chance, and in the process, maybe some kid will think he might have a shot at it too. If they see a craftsman making a living with his hands, maybe they will make that choice too. But if they see a bunch of starving artists, they'll take that service job instead. "Buy American' seems "quaint" now, but it might just help some of us. The workers in other countries need help too, but we've given up a lot, and need to kind of hold down the fort a little. The Global economy on paper sounds good. We were supposed to become the sellers of IT type services, and inventions to the rest of the world, so they could make stuff for us. Everyone's standard was supposed to rise. But what happened was that big business ditched this country for cheap labor, and the government never arranged to train all the people who lost their jobs. Community colleges are good, but not intensive enough. Like in the Vocational schools of yesteryear, they need to get businesses to work with them, for example more work study type programs. Fine, teach welding, or pottery, or even leatherwork in the Community school, but if there isn't a job for it out there, what's the point. They can fix this, but we have to be the ones to yell at them to do it. There is no "Them". There is only us. -end of rant #625003

Real nice job! Samurai Guitar Master.... I especially like the reinforced adjustment slot area. Good touch.

Welcome to the Forum clockwork! There's quite a few people here into costuming, you'll find them, I'm sure. For suppliers, the advertisers here are well known to all of us. Plus, Leatherworker.net has a front page (in case you missed it), with all sorts of pointers, and a list of suppliers. Here is a good start: http://www.leatherworker.net/suppliers.htm

Since I'm the only contrarian in the bunch, I'ld like to understand a bit better. 1. Someone offers to sell leathergoods at "x" amount. 2. Leather worker buys those goods "for research purposes" 3. Leatherworker, and others are not impressed with the quality, or price, of the work. 4. Everyone wants to return goods. My impression is that this is a case of one of the following: industrial spying, reverse engineering, checking out the competition. This is not a case of buying something for personal use. Based on the brief description of the exchange, good things about this work would have been incorporated into the leatherworkers own products, but since the stuff was horribly uncraftsman like, and expensive, the leatherworker is returning the goods. Most who bought this stuff for their own use, would probably return it for money, not swap. The fact that monies were not offered in return says a lot about the manufacturer. However, this is not a personal use issue. This is an admitted "check out the competition". Would any of you like someone to buy your product to check out, copy, incorporate it into their own, then return it, whether or not the quality was good. That was the whole purpose of the purchase. I say the buyer should "man up". The purchase was made. The information was learned. Mission accomplished. All this kind of stuff does, is to increase the costs of producers in order to make up for lost packaging, sales, etc. Nevermind that this particular manufacture isn't up to snuff. It could happen to any of us. One person buys, just to "sample" the wares, and return it. It just so happens that in this particular case, a return may be warranted, but it still is a case of would you want someone doing it to you? - end of moral rant

Live Blog from the Raleigh Flea Market: Today is a slow day, threatened rain but hot all day. I have sold half of those new ones I just made. They picked right up on them. Last night at closing resqman stopped by. That makes two nice guys from LW that stopped by, revshovel, and reqman. LW is cool. Oh Shirley...ADD NAME BELTS TO THE LIST. I haven't carried them, but a lot of people are asking, so I'll have to make up a dozen or so blanks for certain sizes, stamp em up, and leave a space in the back for stamping a name. "They keep dragging me back in"

Yep Ian, you should have...lol

ShirleyT, most of mine I cut right here at the fairs. Any requests for customs, I bring the next week. Stocking sizes means hundreds of belts, maybe more, depending on your collection of designs. 3-6 of each size is for a small to medium size festival. BRING LOTS OF LARGE AND EXTRA LARGE. Sometimes I have to use sides to make them for the real big guys. Like I said, I have about a hundred on display, all with different designs, widths, and colors, and that's not really enough at a busy fair, cause there's always "Do you have one with...?"

Thanx Tom...get to work. Is it finished yet? Having a pretty good day here today. Sold some of those belts already. I met Revshovel here today. He's an LW member. Nice Guy. Back to fair...

Thanx Bree, and ETW. Grumpy, that's probably just the depth of the center square stamping giving that illusion. Rarely do I make the same designs twice, there's always something different about each one. No, I don't have sized belts. I cut them there. It's too costly to have that many designs in multiple sizes for me. I would love to do that, but if someone wants, I'll make it during the week and bring it the next weekend.

Cheap hand made is better than cheap machine made, but it comes down to value. I would suggest $20-$25 per piece with $5 extra per concho. That is still far less than you paid. You did buy to check out the competition, and online to boot. You obviously believed there was value in learning. Lesson learned. Now go out and make better.

Thanks resqman! I'm outdoors, usually around spots 263 to 269, come on down! Stay away from the fried Twinkies..

I shipped it. Regular post. Probably see it within a week. re snipe: this ain't ebay but just wait until somebody writes a LW script to beat other bids for these kind of things...lol

Thanks again, Aaron, and congratulations. Johanna, the "redneck" belts with the name on the back...those ain't "redneck" around here...those are dress belts...lol

I generally have about a hundred belts on display, and when the stock gets down to 60%, I have to make new batches. I've tried western tooled, lined, intricate stamping, all nice, but these are the type of designs more people are willing to pay $24 for at the flea market. These things are probably worth twice that to the right market, but I have to take what I can get right now. PS, I call these the Raleigh line...lol There are cheaper belts there, in the $16-18 range, with complicated embossed designs, etc, but a few people like the simple and completely handmade belt, still. Once they feel the burnished waxed edge, they're sold. Most of the new belts were my experiment in dark brown oil dye. I mix the dye with neatsfoot to varying degrees (there's a lot of B&M Bean jars full of different colors), and simply apply with a dauber, sometimes an undershade of lighter/darker, and a cloth overrub... You can get a lot of shades from one color. Going over it twice gets even more shades. There are all kinds of happy accidents, and a lot of methods to it...going over it twice gives one effect...deglazing first gives another...suntanning, another. You get the picture. I'll be there this weekend, we'll see how they do.

Well, if anyone is expecting the "wisdom of Solomon" from me, they're wrong... Highest bidder is: Electrathon!!!Woot! Congratulations. Now Pay UP..lol As soon as Johanna lets me know she got her beer money, I'll start packing it up, and head for the PO. PM me with your address Aaron. Thanx to y'all who played, and looked. Hopefully a few other people decided to become contributing members, Having responsibility for this place, 24/7 has got to be worth a little help. There isn't a one of us who haven't benefited from Johanna and her mods efforts.

Apparently they call it a 2 gal vac: http://www.sears.com/shc/s/p_10153_12605_0...eyword=shop+vac but this is what I have..albeit an older model

Two bids so far. Today is the last day, until midnite. knockout, show us a picture of your round Tandy buckle! I have a bucketful of these big old brass buckles from the 70s. Once in awhile I sell one at the fair for $20 each, so if knockout wins, he's getting a fair deal. But who wants fair when we are trying to make a contribution to LW! This could go in the King Saddlery Museum that Johanna visited! (Once again, Johanna comes through for us with recaps of her visits to places many of us can't get to. Thanks J!

Just Beautiful. Well crafted. The piping is so small, it must have been tough to keep it aligned.

I bought a small 1 gal Sears shop vac. I've had it for many years, and works just like it's bigger brothers, you just have to empty it more

C'est R.B. va! J'espère que nous pourrons voir des images de votre travail plus rapidement. Il ya pas mal de gens ici en Europe, vous aurez donc droit au mélange, je suis sûr.

Thanx knockout! That's a big jump...could be shrewd bidding, we'll see This is a page on the history of Tandy/Radio Shack...humble beginnings for sure... http://www.radioshackcorporation.com/history.html

We have a bid of $10!!!! wOOhOO. Anonymous bidding is okay too. If you want you can use this Topic to tell old school Tandy Stories. I was a single Dad back then, and I brought my daughter to work a lot when I couldn't find sitters. My daughter was about 1 and a half. She used to sleep on the the pile of sheepskins in the back of the store...snug as a bug. Try that in your workplace today! Met my second wife while she was working at American Handicrafts, next door.

I want LW to succeed, and flourish for years to come. I haven't run this by any mods, that's just the way I roll...lol I've been carrying this around for all these years, just thought it would be cool someday...Guess what, I've decided today, it's cool. This is a brass buckle made by Mastercraft about 2.25x3.75". It's heavy. I honestly don't remember the story behind it, it might have been when i was an Asst. Manager in Boston (if you can remember it, you weren't there...lol), but it's got to be fairly rare. If you know the story, please do jump in with the info. I haven't shined it up because it is Vintage, but you can do what you want if you win it. There aren't many rules to this auction, other than you must be a "Contributing Member", as of your bid. I'm offering this to the highest bidder. I'ld say $1.00 increments would be minimum. All bidding will end Thursday night at 12PM EST. Winner will be announced Friday morning. I'll ship that day, after payment is verified. Money can be sent directly from the winner to LW's paypal links. This ain't ebay, so I'm sure it'll get messy,or with any luck it might be fun. It might be the biggest flop ever invented. Dunno, don't care. Rules might even change in the middle of things...somebody might get mad at me for this, or add some "sensible" rules, heck, the Federales could always take me away in chains....I lean towards no rules, but whatever.... If for some wildly crazy reason the bids start amounting to real money (say $100 or more...but in these times?), we can use PMs to bid, and I'll post the current bid to beat. Well, Good Luck, remember it's all in fun, and if it keeps this board running one extra day, it'll be worth it.