JerseyFirefighter

I would suspect that the leather is dyed brown and then airbrushed along the edges with black building the black(or darker brown) up on each piece as the reaches the outside.

Theyre Craftool Alphabet stamps. I bet Tandy should stock them, if not there are plenty of online retailers that carry them. I'm guessing 1/2"

I can agree with both assertions. If you are using a brush, the thickest of the paint gets dispersed along the center of character and gets dragged out to the edge. If you are using a needle bottle, I tend to outline the letter first. Wait until you encounter the dreaded air bubbles! You will learn that sometimes even with the needle you should cautiously use your first few seconds to paint towards the middle to avoid a messy bubble. Now as it pertains to an air bubble and sometimes big oops spots take a little bit of experience, and quick thinking. Black and White leather are much more forgiving than say a walnut, tan, or natural leather.

These seem to be it I remember them coming with extra needle sizes, however the colors of the tips are different. I ordered a few to see if those are actually them. You can buy replacement needles relatively cheap in the event your needles clog up on you. You can either clean the needles after each use, or find ways to get the paint to not dry in the needle while not in use. http://www.ebay.com/itm/Needle-Tip-Plastic-Bottle-Dispenser-Oil-Solvent-Ink-Applicator-Dropper-0-7-Oz-/361533543355?

I have a few of those. They are a little more difficult to squeeze the bottle and no ability to change needle gauges, but they work. I have a hard time finding the ones I use most regularly, but the tips are still available. How do I paint with a needle bottle? Like this.

Out of curiosity, how would you finish the dragon scales along a straight or tapered edge? Do you have a half scale stamp?

I laugh at myself every time I see it. I bought a few dies and saw there was foam inside. They were all a little more than half pushed into the die. I figured they were for protecting the sharp edges during shipping. By happenstance, the nice lady at the die shop mentioned the dies included the foam ejection mold... and all of that time wasted removing clicked parts came crashing into my time pressured, business minded head. Luckily I left them all under the clicker on a shelf.

Thank you but no. I happened to find some from Weaver. I appreciate the offer!

Not yet. My current order queue has me swamped. Even though I can probably get one done in about 15-20 mins I feel like im cheating on my customers.

Thanks for reaching out. I actually found the clasp deep in the bowels of weaver's site. My great search actually got me to find some rather unique quick release systems for dog leashes.

Some here have made their own. I send either an electronic copy of my design, or mail a cardboard cutout (or sometimes leather) to Texas Custom Dies and have them made. I have about 15-20 of their dies and have never had one complaint.

I have some beefier linesman pliers (I think they're the same thing) that measures 10" long. Copper rivet stems can be nipped somewhat easily with one hand. Brass with my pliers need just a little more grip but can still be cut with one if not two hands.

I may be an outlier, but I burnt out my dremel using a cocobolo burnisher. Granted I was using it for strap work. If your projects are smaller like holsters, wallets etc, you may have better results with longevity. That said I found one on ebay for about $10

I don't understand why one would opt to modify the press for alphabet letters. I line up all of my characters on my one ton with the standard square stock ram foot a larger 1/4" steel plate over the existing bottom plate and just go down the line (snugging and re-squaring up any letters as I move down the line every 3-4 letters). Rarely do I find the stamp not embossing evenly. I bought the craftool press with the 3d stamp attachment and it is horrid. It usually takes me about 1.5-2 hrs to stamp out 30-40 names on my straps. I went the other route with stamps. I bought a laser engraver instead of the printer and made my first stamp out of delrin yesterday. How does the media you used for the printer hold up over time?

Ebay mostly. My original supplier for bottles disappeared, but I have enough to where I have all of my colors covered, and the needle tips of varying gauges are widely available for replacement.

When I used to paint my straps by brush I would do the outline, then brush the letter fill in second. Any bleeds into the embossment can be touched up later. I have since switched to needle tip bottle applicators and have found them to work 100x better than hand brushing.

Im curious as to the price range his knives range. I'd hate to waste his time if they are a little out of my reach, but his knives keep popping up in my feeds and now my interest is piqued. Aha! I finally noticed the prices are on the pop up when you click on the pics.

That would not work with outlining paint. It works with dyeing and leaving darker outlines. As you wipe away flexible acrylic it smears everywhere and absorbs near instantly into the fibers of the leather. The only luck I have had personally with removing paint on leather is to wipe clean with a wet paper towel in the event of a big *oops* where the point would be to wipe the paint clean. The OP was looking on the best ways to fill in the letters without leaking into the embossment (outlines) of the letters. I'd say i've painted somewhere between 10-20k characters in the past few years.. Repetition will always create a better technique. My biggest pain has always been air bubbles. A good propane torch also cures those woes as well.

Ebay. some bottles come with needle tips... I have found that buying bottles that have removeable tips are best. Buy a few assorted needle tip sizes too. Use 1/2" long needles. 1" put your wrist in a weird position to paint.

My man.... I would switch to needle tip bottle applicators around the 20 gauge needle size. If you have some run off into the embossing of the leather, a little bit of black paint will blend in on black straps. Other colors you might be SOL. I try to be 10x more careful painting other lighter colored projects. BTW needle tip applicators run from 18 gauge to 25 gauge depending on the amount of detail you want to do with them.

They always tend to screw shit up don't they? We have the kind of brass that are oblivious to stuff like that, until someone runs their mouth and then everyone gets screwed.

I have always thrown it in reverse after the needle travels upwards and before it leaves the leather like Northmount had mentioned.

Having hired help is all relatively new to me. I knew from the onset that the help would be mostly dedicated to completing menial tasks (for which I have a boatload) and organization. Keeping my smallish area somewhat composed has helped my mental state. Cluttered workspaces are bothersome to me and create stress. I could never just stop producing at the end of the day and transition into putting everything back where it belonged so this was a top priority. What I also and currently do is once the small stuff is out of the way for my helper, I take time to teach him a new skill. It makes his job more interesting, and allows me to set him up for being more involved in the process in the future. My help is an old coworker and fellow firefighter. I looked for someone who had a genuine interest in the process, and the availability to be comfortable to either work once a week, or not for that matter. He was apprehensive at first since this part time job was a 35-40 min drive, but he instantly took to the allure of creating a finished product from raw materials. Bonus points if your employee is so intrigued by the work that he/she is coming up with new ideas, or making potential business contacts while they're not working on your dime. He also has ties in the local K9 Search and Rescue teams. I am working on a few different hunting/tracking leads and designs that I hope he can make himself as his skill set improves. To me one of the sillier but crucial hangups for me was to hire someone I knew. I enjoy conversation, so if i'm going to be spending a day in the shop with another person, i'm going to want to share common interests to shoot the stuff all day. As for planning financially for the expansion? I have been making a steady profit for quite some time despite sinking almost all of it back into the business. For the workload I had and all of the other office work involved on the back end of running a business I felt that the trade off of profit was worth the relief of stress of falling behind and not hitting deadlines. I feel the one thing I can improve on is having a written out list rather than a mental list for tasks. He has repeatedly finished what I had set out for him to accomplish and have me stopping my own work to set him up with something else.

Looks great! Judging by the stamp it is likely awlivers. If memory serves he/she is an ebay dealer for Studio-N here on the forum. My opinion is that the radio holster pattern development is the greatest hurdle a fire leather business must overcome. Everything else is just learning by repetition.

Indeed they do! I employed the help during set up day. They routinely come in and ask to sweep the shop which is greatly appreciated. Sometimes they saddle up to the bench with a scrap or two and grab some smaller stamps and pound away. It's fun to watch them get even their toes wet learning something with their old man.