billybopp

That's pretty darn cool. Especially right side up! Bill

This one looks pretty awesome. Can't wait to see what you do with a better pattern, Raven! Bill

Looks great Chief! ... And reminds me that I need to go look at your braiding vids again. Bill

Is there any chance you could shoot and post some video of this bad-boy in operation? It really looks fascinating. Bill

Thanks Bob! I'm going to have to give that a try now. Bill

Looks good Raven. How is the inside finished??

There's only one way to find out if it will work well and hold an edge ..... Stainless kitchen cutlery tends to be more in demand for home use .. and for people that don't take care of their knives. Most kitchen pros that I know prefer to use carbon steel knives, and they take care of them. Bill

Satchel is a pretty broad term. Can you be more specific?

Have you tried Fiebings cordovan dye?

That's really cool! ... It's kinda like Steve Irwin's revenge.

Looks great! She'll love it.

I had the same experience with Tandy. Not knowing any better at the time, I tried using the awl as it was ... Totally frustrating. It didn't take long to figure out that something was wrong! It then took a LOT of work to make the damned thing usable. And I still didn't like the way it worked. So ... I bought three different sizes of Seiwa awls from goodsjapan, and they arrived in a reasonably sharp state. http://www.goodsjapan.jp/category/awls/catId=4252437 A little extra sharpening and stropping made them quite good. The blades are a little shorter than some and straight sided, but they will easily go through over 1/2 inch of leather. If you do order from goodsjapan, just be prepared for a potentially long wait with the free shipping option. Paid shipping is much faster and worthwhile if you're in a hurry. There are other sources for awl blades and awls that are said to be good and ready to use upon arrival. Barry King has some. Sheridan Leather sells Douglas blades that are supposed to be good as well. Hope that helps Bill

Nice work, Raven! Is that the pattern that was giving you fits a while back?

Looks good!!

I do hope you're not down long enough to watch all that, Claire! But nonetheless, enjoy!! Bill

Agreed, Claire ... Ian and Nigel both have done fantastic youtube videos ... Both have been extremely helpful to me. Arthur Porter has some excellent videos about making bags, choosing sewing machines and such. http://www.youtube.com/user/MrDallas1953/videos Chief, who is on here frequently, has some helpful videos. http://www.youtube.com/user/Chief31794/videos Bruce Cheaney does a variety of topics. http://www.youtube.com/user/cheaneysaddles/videos Springfield Leather Company has a number of good videos. http://www.youtube.com/user/SpringfieldLeatherCo/videos And, of course, Tandy has some good videos too. They try a little too hard to sell you their products, but the techniques and practices are pretty much sound. http://www.youtube.com/user/TandyLeatherFactory/videos I have watched many, if not most of the videos from all of the above, and found most helpful to at least some degree. Billl

Really nice! I particularly love the fact that your horse is shoed. Bill

Nice lookin' strap!!

My working space is pretty limited, and I have to clear some space in the kitchen when cutting up hides. So, when I need to cut strips of any kind, I tend to make several more than I need, and often several sizes, as you mentioned, and then cut them to length when needed. It's not so hard to find storage for a few strips of leather and not so easy to clear out the kitchen floor when needed! Sharp blades are essential. Blades have more cutting area than the thickness of most leather being cut, so you can re-position the blade a few times and get more out of them ( particularly helpful when you've forgotten to buy spares ). SLC has a good video on use of the strap cutter, and suggest that you can use an injector type razor blade as a replacement for purpose made strap cutter blades, but I have not yet tried that myself. As chrstn53 suggests, the black river laser setup gauge is a really nice simple tool for getting the cutter set up correctly every time. The rule on the cutting arm seems to be accurate on mine, but I don't completely trust it. Hope that helps. Bill

Really nice! ... And it looks like just 2 tools for the design?

I try to avoid knots. If do backstitch 2-3 holes on a line of stitching that runs from point A to point B, really just for appearances so that the beginning of the line looks like the end. If stitching all the way around an item, such as a guitar strap, then I do not backstitch at the beginning since the ending will overlap it by 2-3 holes. Bill

Very cool indeed!!

Looks good! Wonder how it would look with a mildly contrasting leather sandwiched in behind the brogue pieces?

Really really nice work! Wow.

I bet it don't taste anything like butterscotch!