billybopp

Wow. I'm kinda jealous! That's an awesome bunch of tools. - Bill

White dye exists .. or used to. It sucks. Not worth the money nor the effort. - Bill

Who can ever forget "Rich Corinthian Leather" ...

Very nice! - Bill

I'd suggest offering different shipping options at the customer's choice. Where I live, USPS all too often loses things. When they don't loose them, the simply leave them on my front steps on a fairly busy street, with no knock and no notification. Things get stolen that way. UPS and FedEx tend to do a far better job of actually knocking at the door and sending a notification as the package is delivered if nobody can answer the knock right away. Your customers know who does a good job at deliveries and who does not, let them choose. It should also help you to avoid having to replace things that go missing before they are received, saving you over-all. When shipping liquids, put them in a zip-lock bag or something to avoid them messing up everything else in the box if it the bottle should get broken in transit. You may have to replace that item, but won't have to replace everything else when that happens. And... Agree what all I've seen above as well! - Bill

I have Seiwa, have yet to try Kyoshin. They arrive sharp enough to be usable, but barely. A little touch-up and polishing will do them a world of good. - Bill

It sucks. If you want white leather, it's better to buy it, or acrylic paint it. - Bill

Ahhh. For a headset you can get a foam pop filter which should help. If the headset will allow it, you can try moving the mic a little farther from your mouth. I wear a headset every day for work, and folks told me that sound was much improved after adding a foam filter. I had a problem with finding one that would fit exactly right but found one on Amazon that was close enough, but it needs a small rubber band to keep it from slipping off. - Bill

Over all pretty darn good. I would suggest a pop filter/windscreen of some sort for your microphone, though. They aren't expensive at all, and can help audio quality. Lighting is fairly good, as is the content. If you want to do the time-lapse thing, put a clock in the background so that folks know how much time is really spent. Since you're trying to let customers know what goes into your product - 30 seconds could give the impression of something taking just a few minutes when in reality it takes half an hour or more. A nice big clock could help to correct that perception. - Bill

Sounds like it! Lets hope certain other tools don't go the other way. If a dentist came at me with a round knife I'm not sure if I'd run, or pass out before I could run! - Bill

If you want to go inexpensive at first to see if it's something you're interested in, poke around on eBay. I've bought five or six swivels for $15 or so. Nothing fancy, but good enough to experiment and learn with! If you like it, get something better later. You'll also start to have an idea about what you look for in a swivel! - Bill

Sorry to hear @Stewart. Losing someone is never easy. My thoughts are with you. - Bill

How tacky! Sorry. I couldn't resist. Good thinking!! - Bill

I believe that is a Dixon edger. They have a longer shank than most others. - Bill

One of the nice parts of using a computer for your letter template is that you can usually have a huge choice of fonts and they can be easily resized to exactly the size needed. Microsoft word, for example has dozens of different fonts to choose from and you can add others. Choose one, type what you want, and it's all there spaced out for you. Just resize it to suit what you intend to do and print it. If you tape your paper printout to a thin sheet of plastic you can easily trace onto the cased leather without the paper stretching and disintegrating as you trace. I was lucky to find a plastic template that was just about the font and size that I wanted for guitar straps and a few other things, but there is a limited selection available. - Bill

I've printed them to use as a pattern, and that works great. I've also used art stencils for letters, which also works great! Both guitar straps below were from a plastic stencil found at an art supply store. - Bill

They afford those $500,000 motorhomes camped out at Walmart because they figured out real ways to save $ rather than looking at the price of a leather belt and saying "I can make my own cheaper". Just sayin' - Bill

I love brats! Here's another way I like 'em: Rinse a jar/bag of sauerkraut Put half of the kraut in the bottom of a baking dish Layer brats on top Pour over a can of baked beans Put the remainder of the kraut on top Put in the oven at 325ish until the kraut on top starts to brown and brats are cooked The kraut on bottom just about turns to candy, and kraut on top is browned and crundhy. Delicious!! - Bill

I prefer to go with a single length of thread in most cases. I don't like the look of overlapping stitches when you switch threads. It is a bit of a pain in early parts of the run as the thread is easily tangled, but you learn to manage this and it becomes easier. I use woven polyester thread - which is a consideration. Some things to consider: As @mulesaw mentioned above, some threads can fray out as you sew long runs - particularly linens. Even woven polyester will fray a little but, but usually only in the first six inches or so. If you are using a light colored thread with colored leather it can pick up dye from the leather and look dingy, but as with above it tends to be more of a problem with linen thread, less so with polyester although again the first few inches near the needles can discolor. As mentioned above, thread can get tangled more easily with longer lengths but you do learn to adapt to prevent that. The thread might still occasionally get knotted, so just keep an eye open for them. Lesson learned the hard way - it's FAR easier to remove a knot if you catch it before you sew it into the run and have to pull out a few stitches back to unknot the thread! LOL - Bill

I love "kicked up" recipes. I don't have my grandmother's exact recipe but hers is similar, although she used a LOT of mustard in hers! I've tried making baked beans from scratch and they're good but very time consuming. Kicked up baked beans are just as good in a much shorter time! - Bill

You do not necessarily need curved awl and needle. They are nice but not totally necessary. Working from the Stohlman book I've made many beverage can holders using straight awl and needle. You just need to work a little more carefully! The pictures below are some embossing rollers and cases I made for them using the same method. These are considerably smaller and harder to sew than the can cozys. Sorry I can't find pictures of my cozys at the moment - I must have put them into a folder where I wouldn't lose them. All that said, if you DO want to purchase curved needles, they're pretty common - Look for upholsterer's needles. Curved awls are a bit more rare, but they are out there. Look for cobbler tools! - Bill

Cigar boxes can be nice candidates for covering. Any good cigar store has them for cheap if not free. - Bill

The last of my ancestors to come to the USA from Europe was a great grandfather born on a ship coming from Edinburgh in 1850. I figure that makes me 100% US American. - Bill

I use a cutting board for punching holes, and have for many years. Just a couple of quick notes - Some cutting boards are really hard, so probably should be avoided. The one I prefer is a bit softer, inexpensive and works great. Side note, if you're using a hole punch on these it'll sometimes leave the leather plug behind in the board. I used to keep my cutting board for leatherwork just outside the kitchen. Had a new roommate move in who threw it out one day while I was at work. I went to use it and it wasn't there and asked ... He said "I threw it out - there were a bunch of these gross worms growing in it". - Bill

Round knife sheaths aren't easy. There's just about nothing on them that is a straight line! The main thing is it's functional since it's just for you, who cares how it looks. As for the knife profile, I've seen a few old tool catalogs and have never seen one with that profile. Also when looking at old tools that sort of triangular profile is never quite the same on any two knives. That all leads me to believe that it was done after the purchase. The blade may have been reprofiled intentionally for some reason that is not so obvious for us today. It also may have just worn down to that profile over time and many many resharpenings. Many of the reprofiled blades are also getting thin at the "tails", which also points to them being worn over time due to sharpening technique. We need to remember, these were used more or less all day every day in their time in a mass production environment and would have been sharpened far more often than they would today. Since there isn't anybody left around that worked in the sort of leather production environment that existed over 100 years ago we may never get a good answer, unless somebody comes across a written explanation from the time, or maybe a family story handed down. It'd be amazing to time travel back to one of these shops and see for ourselves, wouldn't it? But hey, as long as the knife does what you want, who cares!! Thanks for sharing! - Bill