billybopp

Welcome aboard, Boris! Growing up in a hobby shop (REALLY jealous here), I'm sure you've got the patience part down. Tandy kits aren't the greatest thing in the world, BUT they do start to give you a feel for how things go together: Think of them as snap-fit models for leather. The pre-punched holes are enormous, but still start to give you a feel for sewing leather, etc. They are also usually nicely proportioned designs, are usually a blank canvas for you to do a little tooling, dying, etc if you are so inclined, and often include a few suggested tooling patterns with a list of needed tools! After my first Tandy kit, I realized that I could trace the leather pieces on some card stock and then use that as a pattern so that I could buy leather and cut out the same pattern (without the enormous holes for sewing if you want) - at far less $ than the kit cost for probably better leather. Plus, it's kind of fun go back to a project you made early on and redo it with the skills you've gathered in between! You may be amazed! Tandy kits are on sale this week (Nov. 10-18) at 40% off, so there ya go! They have wallets, bags and a ton of other kits available. Even some stuff that Mrs. Boris might like for a holiday gift. If you are shopping Tandy, a couple of books I'd recommend are "Leather Tools" and "The Art of Hand Sewing Leather" by Al Stohlman. There are several others worth having, but those two should be in just about every leather library! Also, a really great and not-too-difficult first project is a belt, as a few above have suggested. A belt may not come out pretty, but unless you cut it too short, there's not a whole lot that can go wrong enough to stop it from holding up your britches! Tandy has belt blanks and buckles from very plain to fairly fancy. The only things you need for 'em is a hole punch and a knife. A little fancier and nicer, some dye and finish(resolene or the like), an edger and a slicker maybe. Get as fancy as you like with it! - Bill

Happy Birthday, @chrisash! No doubt you'll do some amazing stuff with that new printer!! - Bill

I think the project that I want to try, but intimidates me most is a pair of properly fitted and made shoes. - Bill

Well done, as always. Thanks!! - Bill

Strap end punches are a lovely thing, but as you've found getting them lined up exactly can be a challenge. If you're using them often enough, a jig might be the way to go. I made one of these some time ago, but gave it to a friend that admired it with the intention of making an improved version for myself...Which I never quite got around to! It would be easier to describe this with a drawing or picture than words, but here we go... Get a cheap plastic cutting board, cut two strips off the ends an inch or so wide and make sure that the ends are square to the long side. Glue or screw these to the cutting board at the width of your strap and dead straight across the ends. In use, lay the belt between the strips then rest the "wings" of your strap punch right up against the skinny end of the strips. Provided that the punch "wings" are true, that will help you get the angle just right, you then only have to worry about centering it. If the "wings" are not true, you can either remove a little metal from the "high side", or adjust the positioning of the strip to compensate for that "high side". If you're feeling ambitious, you can cut a little notch out of the business end of the strips that will just cradle your punch to get it centered as well. I hope that description helps ... I'll try to put together a drawing at some point if words aren't helpful. - Bill

I use some pull-out spice racks that I got on sale for really cheap. 4oz Fiebings bottles fit perfectly, and using a pull-out rack really maximizes space usage in a cabinet. - Bill

These mug wraps have made great personalized gifts for me in the past, and I've managed to sell a few too. The key to making these relatively simple was finding a straight-sided mug so that the wraps can be made straight rather than curved. They are a combination of roller embossed, stamped and tooled, but the real work was in coloring them and choosing something meaningful for each person. I also did some that are entirely hand-tooled but can't find the pictures of those at the moment. -Bill

I wouldn't know what to do if I became allergic to meat! That's a tough row to hoe. I'm sure you've learned to adapt, and sure that I would eventually too. It's not easy finding all of the proteins necessary for our human dietary needs without meat, but harder still for pure vegans who avoid meat, and also eggs, milk, etc. It's quite one thing to give up meat out of necessity, and another to do so voluntarily due to some sort of moralistic stance. I've never heard of Tuf, but there are so many faux leathers out there, and some really are useful for their purposes. I forgot to consider exotics, but you are quite right. Those critters tend to be harvested just for their hides with the rest going to waste. The fact that many of those are also endangered makes things all the worse. It is a sad thing. Patent leather was indeed originally real leather with a coating, and dates back nearly 200 years, but most of what was called patent leather from the latter half of the 20th century on was really just some form of vinyl. Lets not forget the ever-vigilant ex-smoker in the list of folks that'll let you know!! And I often wonder if electric car drivers give any thought to the fact that manufacture of the batteries, the electricity that they use and other factors can often mean that their "low pollution vehicles" actually have a great carbon footprint than an economical fossil fueled car does. I suppose, also, that we leatherworkers tend to evangelize a bit about our love of leather too. - Bill

"Vegan leather" is just the newest in a long line of marketing terms for fake leather. Patent leather, faux leather, man-made leather, vinyl, naugahyde, pleather, biothane, possibly "Corinthian Leather", and many others have been around for decades, with Biothane and Vegan leather being the most recent that I am aware of. It has its places and effective uses (for example you probably would not want real leather for your dining room chairs, particularly with kids around), but mostly has its bad reputation as a cheap leather substitute sometimes being passed off as real leather. Some of these (vinyl), can be a good substitute for thinner leather (garment leather) when you are working out patterns and prototypes for real garment leather items. If your client insists on "vegan leather", despite all the negatives listed above by @TonySFLDLTHR and others, I'd suggest look at Biothane. In addition to all that, I'd advise your friend/client that "real leather" is a by-product of the meat industry. VERY few critters (minks and chinchilla come to mind) are slaughtered just for their hides, and they would go to waste otherwise. That seems to me less cruel than just letting the non-meat parts go to waste. You probably won't convince a vegan otherwise for they are a stubborn and preachy lot, but you can try. If you go to a party of 100 people, and there are two vegans in the room how do you identify them? THEY'LL TELL YOU. -Bill

You might try something like this and cut off the tongue... https://www.tandyleather.com/en/product/double-bar-buckles-nickel-plated -Bill

By definition, one inch is 25.4mm, so divide 25.4/3 = 8.466 holes per inch. 3mm is the distance between the holes, the number of stitches would be 1 less, so between 7 and 8 stitches per inch.

Great costume. And what HE said! ^ ... Or even worse a nursing home.

I've never used meat glue, and had never seen or heard of it until recently in this video:

In my experience, the answer to that is pretty much always lint. - Bill

I'd go with an arbor press for these embossing plates. They are relatively inexpensive, with a 1 ton press from Harbor Freight currently priced at $59.99, and they frequently have discount coupons. They're terribly handy for a lot of uses in leatherwork, and other things as well. Remove the circular base plate, and lay a piece of flat steel across the "toes", or even a piece of sturdy plywood, leather atop that, place the plate and then back it with another piece of steel or hefty plywood and pull the handle. If the plate is fairly large, you may need to move it around and squeeze it in separate places to get an even impression. - Bill

Oddly enough, a day or so after I saw this post, this popped up on youtube. If you look at about 14:30, you'll see a Landis sole stitcher and shortly after a garment machine, probably a Singer. Of course, being a carrier there's also a lot of great footage of Viet Nam era jets, and even a few piston powered aircraft that were still in use. (for those of us that are also aviation buffs!) I meant to post this sooner, but 12 hour workdays don't leave much time for the things we actually want to do! - Bill

The card slots look to be "ribbon slots". You'll find me info about that by searching "Ribbon slots" here on LWN. - Bill

Either way can work, but there are trade-offs. Natural fibers such as linen tend to fray and pick up more color near the needles. Synthetics such as polyester also fray and pick up color, but FAR less than do natural threads. Dye pick-up and fraying tend to occur most in the last few inches near the needles, so allow a good amount of extra thread for that. Lighter colors will show dye-pick up more than darker. As @Matt Smentions above, shorter lengths are easier to work with, but you can't totally hide the splices. Longer lengths are harder to work because they can get tangled, but there's nothing to hide other than the overlap where stitches begin and end: you just have to work a little differently to prevent tangling and a bit more work pulling thread but note, as you move along you're dealing with less thread after each stitch and it becomes easier. There's pretty much no choice with natural thread than to go with shorter lengths and splice. Synthetics give you the option to go either way as find comfortable to you. My personal preference is to go with synthetic and no splices. - Bill

They all get dull eventually, it's just that the better ones keep their edge longer. They can be sharpened a number of ways from inside, outside, or both. A little sandpaper or a stone for the outside and just twirl the punch will do the trick. Inside is slightly harder, but I've had good luck using a pointy stone meant for use with a Dremel works well for me (although only by hand, as IN the Dremel would probably overheat and spoil the heat treat). I suppose a pointy stick with some sandpaper would work nicely for inside as well. I'm sure there are other ways to do this as well! Most punches are tapered, so as you remove metal from the edge, you very slightly change the diameter of the hole, but that should not make much difference until you've removed a pretty substantial amount of metal (hopefully after years of use and sharpening!) - Bill

You might try an awl blade from Barry King ($30) or LeatherWranglers($25). The Leatherwranglers blade is Osborne, but will come profiled an sharpened, and might serve as a reference for your own blade profile and sharpness! A truly sharp awl blade will go through well over 1/2 of stacked leather without all that much effort. It'll also go right through the backside and into your finger almost without feeling it. :D - Bill

Lol. Are you sure your name isn't really Tom Sawyer?

I yelled at the folks below me and was yelled at by the folks above me quite regularly. We were always made to feel like as good as we were was never good enough. It was rare to receive praise. So just like regular corporate America job!

Tandy's eco-flo waterstain is a pretty decent looking metalic-ish gold color. I think it is designed to be an additive to other colors to give them gold fleck, but it has worked well as a stand-alone for me. - Bill

I don't see a teacher's desk. I see a big ol' solid work-surface with five storage drawers. Maybe get a big ol' piece of HDPE that's a little longer than the top and there you have a good solid cutting surface for your leather - it's sometimes easier to use a slightly shorter table to cut on so that you are above your work. A nice wooden sliding till in the file drawers would help make better use of the space there - I suspect there are already file hanging rails that the till could ride on. As for storage, I use these and organize items in a grid with size going horizontally and color vertically. So, for example I have a row of Line 24 snaps with the setting dies in the first column then silver, gold, black, brass, antique brass, etc - and the same for rivets and such with the last few rows for miscellaneous small items. I also use one of these for larger items like rings, buckles, etc. The drawers have a divider in them, so I sort snap / rivet parts within the drawer too. Fortunately, I found these containers on sale and paid about half the price you see listed in the links. Currently they sit on the floor since I don't have a work room, but when I do have one they will be wall mountable which will keep them isolated from work surfaces to help keep from bouncing them around when pounding / tooling. I'll probably do the same for tools and hang them on the wall as well. What you do, though, has to suit you and the way that you work. Since we each work differently, we'll all have different solutions. Just food for thought - Bill

He means a pinned topic in the sewing machine forum. Pinned topics are sometimes called sticky ( like a post-it note too).