antipaladin

Excellent work. I'm making the same type of case in British Tan.

Just finished a new percussion revolver belt. Brown shell cordovan over JE Sedgwick stirrup leather hand stitched 8 SPI with kevlar thread. Should last till about 2150.

I'm making cartridge belts with woven loops and need a 1.25" long punch but the 1.25" punch I have is too wide. The 0.75" punch is the right width, but lining it up 60 times to punch holes end to end is tedious. Is there a vendor who can make up a custom punch of arbitrary length and width?

I buy about 10 shells a month from Siegels. Noone else has them as far as I've found. Horweens is indeed the only tannery who produces it but they won't deal with you as an individual or even a small company.

I have a pretty expensive leather sofa that my dog decided to nap on and make a jagged tear about 7" long. Has anyone done a repair for something like this? I don't want it to look ghetto and don't have another $2000 for a new couch.

I just commissioned a custom revolver from Hamilton Bowen. It's a Ruger Redhawk done up to resemble a WWI revolver using .50 AE moonclipped shells. I've been waiting about 2 years for him to fit this into his production schedule...been admiring it for many years. I want to make an accurate reproduction of a WWI British officer revolver lanyard...anyone have experience making one of these? A few historical sites mention that it's made of braided Russet leather. Thanks!

A couple of in-progress pics of my new Elephant cartridge belt...I think I'm finally starting to get the hang of hand stitching. The loops are integrally woven and are black shell cordovan. I owe most of the credit to switching to pricking irons instead of marking wheels and a Douglass awl blade. About half-way done with the stitching and waiting for my Will Ghormley sterling buckle to arrive to finish up.

I wish I knew...LOL He gave me his old one and I just made and identical one. Never played guitar.

Made this over the weekend for a friend of mine from leftover JE Sedgwick Bridle leather. All that's left is the edging with the block of Carnuba wax. Very simple but should last a long, long time.

I'm looking for a Landis 30 handcrank splitter in excellent condition...or one of equal quality. I'm not sold on the Weaver model.

I just bought one of these...do you use a standard head knife on this stuff?

Lots of good information here. http://www.cascity.com/forumhall/index.php/board,57.0.html

Can you post some pics?

I've used the spacing wheels but I much prefer the pricking irons..they really line up the stitches well. I use 8 stitches per inch for holsters and functional belts and 12 for detailed/decorative stitching (with appropriately thinner thread). I've seen a lot of people use the thickness of the leather as a guide for how far in from the edge to stitch. Absolutely...nothing says more about the quality of an item and the skill of the craftsman more than fine handstitching and edging.

Yeah...you just can't buy memories like that. I have two just like it from learning the right way to use a head knife. I'd definitely recommend getting it stitched up though. The one I didn't left a nice visible scar...the other is barely noticeable. Although chicks do dig scars....

I'm not going to put the specific store name down...it wasn't a manager and like people have mentioned, good help can be hard to find and you have to work with the raw material you're given (people and leather). Maybe I'll mention it in a productive way the next time I'm desperate enough to have to go in. I think a previous poster's suggestion to deal directly with the manager of the store is very good one. I have to agree with people's assessment of the Atlanta store manager...very nice guy. Always a cheerful word for the customers.

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RE: Attitude Actually I like to think I have a good attitude. I'm pretty much a live and let live, Zen kind of guy. I don't expect to be treated like royalty, just like a good customer. And it's not every Tandy store. Boston, Pennsylvania, several in California have all been wonderful.(still lousy leather, but nice) Probably my biggest mistake is expectations and showing some frustration about how high the prices are and the quality. When I call Siegel's, the customer service rep has often spent 30 minutes or more on a call with me, sometimes having to personally check stock for specific aspects of an order, always with a cheerful attitude. Maybe I'm just a grumpy middle aged man who wishes the world was more like the good old days when people seemed to be more polite to each other and everything wasn't so impersonal. I've gotten it out of my system now.

I almost always purchase my leather via mail order, but on occasion I've had need to go into a Tandy leather store for a double shoulder for cartridge loops or other low end tasks. Unfortunately, most of the hides in their stores are complete and utter crap even though the prices are high. I can buy a beautiful Sedgewick bridle back for the cost of a rancid Tandy side. I actually don't mind much because it gives me the chance to get a firsthand view of what defective hides look like. (stretch marks, brands, runoff, holes, etc.) What I do mind is getting the "cold shoulder" from the staff for inadvertently "messing up" the stacks looking for the one hide out of 50 I can actually use. Maybe if they put the good ones in one place I wouldn't have to spend 2 hours looking for them....maybe I'm crazy for thinking it's poor customer service to bitch at a customer instead of saying "I've noticed you seem to be pretty picky about the quality of what you buy...why don't you call me the day before you come down and I'll pick out a few pieces for you so you don't have to waste half your day here? Maybe, heaven forbid, "Can I help you find something?" then actually LOOKING for a quality piece instead of expecting me to take the first random hide thrown on the table regardless of defects and rolling your eyes. I know I'm shopping at the restaurant equivalent of McDonalds, but I'm not looking for Filet Mignon. I just don't want to buy a hamburger with cigarette butts in it. In any event, I don't care how inconvenient it is to wait for mail order leather, I'm never setting foot in a Tandy store again. <rant off>

I figured it had to be people on the board I was bidding against.

The clamp does rotate around via the pin.

I used one of these during the saddlery class and it worked very well too. Put it between your legs while on a stool and rested against a bench.

I just bought this on Ebay. Obviously a well used item, but still has years and years of life in it. I'm pretty psyched.

I tried the Tandy thonging chisel my first day...made holes the size of Lake Erie. Now I use the thinnest awl blade I can get from BD. Keeps your stitches looking neat and professional.

Bob found me a nice double screw creaser. I ordered it on Monday, got it on Wednesday. He apologized it took so long because he cleaned it up and shined it up nice. GREAT guy to buy from.He's also willing to hand pick a particular blade thickness for you.