TwinOaks

Hi and welcome to Leatherworker.net! Glad you found us; pull up a chair and tool a while. We have a forum dedicated to sewing leather, and another for sewing machines. You might do a little reading in those forums and discover what your machines are capable of. Ah....almost forgot...we LOVE pics, so as you progress in your hobby, post some pics.

Thanks. Well, let's get this thread back on track......apologies for the unintentional hijak. Anyone else have suggestions for thumb break tabs?

I've been using thread from Hobby Lobby, found in the jewelry making stuff. White/Brown/Black are the choices and it comes a little bit prewaxed. I think it's sold under the name "On a String" or some such. It is 3-cord, and I think it's linen....not 100% on that one, though. Big important tip: Ditch the needles with the oversized eyes. You can buy a pack of needles at HL, or even Walmart for about $1.50, that has several sizes in pairs. They have a regular (small) eye and resist breaking a whole lot better than the large eyes. I've broken more of the large eye needles than I can count before I had my "AH HA" moment. If you're scared of the sharp point.....just dull it. Another important tip: Use the needle to guide the string through the hole, and help pull it through. After that, pull on the thread, not the needle.

Yep, my friend w/ the gun store (place where I'll be making most things) called and said it arrived last night a little before five. Unfortunately, I'm out on the road, so I won't get to see it until the weekend.

I make my own out of .06 kydex. Easy to do, and there's never a possibility of it rusting.

Yep, I agree with Bruce. Y'know, it's the little pleasures in life that make it worthwhile......

If you have no choice but to order online, check out Springfield Leather (ad banner at top). They have good deals and if you need less than what you see on the site, they will cut leather to get you what you want/need.

Holding power? No. The difference is that the press sets them more uniformly so you can avoid a bent post. If hand set properly, it's the same as being pressed, although might get a tiny bit more compression w/ the press. Regardless of the setting method, rapid rivets shouldn't be used for anything that requires a strong fastener. For that type use, I recommend stitching, copper burr rivets, or Chicago screws (threaded post and cap).

No prob, I'm just interested because I have a Boss that should be here either Mon. or Tues., and I'm gonna be using it for holsters too. Your thread was very informative for me, and it's just one more little thing to look for. I was just curious about the stitches from the Boss, that's all.

pics?

Welcome to Leatherworker.net, we are happy you found us!! From the sounds of it, there's not much you'll be asking about, but if you should happen to have any questions, feel free to ask.

Post them for sale, but be cautious of payment methods. Orders for anything should have a deposit required, period. Full payment for custom gear. Don't stop at the forums, though, ask if you can put them on consignment in local ranges/ gun stores. Customers like being able to handle merchandise instead of just looking at pictures. Plus, it might be a better selling location, gaining repeat business. If the forum admin requests/tells you to remove the items, do so immediately, just to keep the peace.

The angle of the blade is yet another factor. For really thin material, I prefer to use a blade with a shallower angle to it. For thicker leather (anything over 5oz) I have a narrower grind. As a general rule, cut to 1/3 the depth of the leather for general tooling needs. Some things will need to be deeper, some not so deep. If it's thick enough that I'm not gonna risk cutting through it, I'll use the blade's bevel as my depth guide.

Welcome to Leatherworker.net, best site on the internet. Grab a chair and stay a while, we're glad you're here.

Welcome to Leatherworker.net! You have found the best site on the internet, and we're glad you did. Also, welcome to your new addiction hobby. Don't worry about asking lots of questions because we all started small at some point. We do have a search feature to the forum, if you'd like to try it. If you don't see what you're trying to find, just post a thread asking it. There's also the Chat room, and you can find members in there at all hours, just drop in and check. When you can, please take time to fill out your profile and tell us about yourself.

Click me! There's the burnishing tutorial. Burnishing is the process of smoothing the edge(s) of leather. Using heat (friction), moisture, and pressure you get the fibers to lay down smooth. I als use a cocobola burnisher I made, some folks use plastic. Dress the edges (make them even, pretty smooth, and round the corners) using sandpaper, a file, or something similar. Before I bought a belt sander, I used a Stanley Sureform, and it does the job. Once dressed, I use my little burnisher to do the grunt work and shape the edge. Then, I switch to some scrap denim for the last step. Read and try Bob's tutorial, it'll explain a lot of things. Since reading his work, I changed my method to the one he teaches....with substitutions where needed for tool availability, et al.

Over soaking in an alkaline solution will degrade the leather a bit. Leather (as we get it) is a little bit on the acidic side of the pH scale. I think this is a result of the tanning process and one of the attributes that helps it last so long.

In cases like this, it'd be a good idea to have a disclaimer letting the customer know there will be extra fees when you have to work on the pan itself to make it suitable for use......and when there's too much to do for it to be worthwhile.

Last I heard it was BUY one, and get one, or a craft aid w/ BOGO

Yep, no stupid questions. Leather "weight" is measurement in 64ths of an inch. 1oz leather is 1/64th, 8oz leather is 8/64ths (or 1/8 if you prefer), and so on and so forth. Julius, that's the first time I've heard that description for the "ounces". I'm curious, where'd you hear that?