venator

I'd love to take credit but that's actually the kit from Tandy...

My girlfriend just finished this for a client who apparently has a thing for butterflies.

I had a construction idea and wanted to try it out so I grabbed a misc side I had running around and threw this together. It's 15"x12"x3". Pics were snapped quickly with my phone so I'm sorry for the potato quality of them. STU

It's machine stitched except to finish the bottom of the sides. He was the one who requested the blue stitching and highlights on the dark brown, I personally love the way it looks with the blue but colour is always such an individual thing.

This is the second one of this style I've done, it turned out much better than the prototype one. The customer will be thrilled I hope.

A leather messenger bag for a client as well as a quick folio from some of the leftover leather for him.

You can but it would be easier and simpler to control if you just buy some kiwi wax in a darker brown colour. A good polish or two and they'll darken right up. If you do try to dye them make sure you clean and deglaze thoroughly as any wax polish will act as a resist.

My girlfriend is the one who does tooling, I can but I really have neither the patience nor the dexterity for it. Too many years of powerlifting I guess.

Other questions?

Also that stamp was from Calvin at LW leathers.

I use it to press our logo onto quite a few things. I went upstairs and stamped 3 pieces of leather for you and snapped a pic on my phone. The top one is a latigo strip from tandy. The middle is a piece of bridle leather from Abbey England The bottom one is a piece of bridle leather from RJF (Who advertises on the forum) You can see that the latigo and the RJF sample easily took the stamp, the middle one which is the most heavily waxed of the three didn't take as well. I didn't heat the stamp, I literally just slapped it all in the press and pulled hard. If I'd heated it the stamp would have taken even better. If you do get an arbor press get at least a 2 ton.

Those look fantastic. With regards to stamps I've used http://lwleathers.com/ for a few and been very happy with the results. Quick turn around, great quality. I personally use a 2 ton arbor press to stamp with and it works beautifully for me plus it allows for super easy riveting and snap install.

Also, damn those look good.

Where do you get your pins and buckles from?

The only challenge here is it could go rancid.

Neatsfoot oil, mink oil etc. Just be aware it may darken the leather but a few light coats of that should help a great deal. Also remember that multiple light coats are better than one heavy coat.

Nice work. I'm just going to quietly shudder at all the backgrounding, you're much better than I.

Yes. Honestly any of the above would work but here's my two cents: Wheel: I wouldn't use this to mark as generally I find they work best for small twisty things like holsters, in long straight lines I tend to wobble somehow, even if I've grooved the line. Pricking iron: I might use this if my Contact Cement were very dry and I knew I wouldn't accidentally pull the layers apart as mentioned. Awl: Hard to go wrong. Personally after gluing I'd let it dry, then use a creaser to mark my groove for stitching, or cut a groove, mark the actual stitches with a pricking iron in the groove (deep enough to seat the awl) then I'd use the awl for each hole as I stitched.

If only I could buy horween locally rather than paying almost as much for shipping as the side costs. . .

Personally I use two layers of vegetan back to back as suggested above, it allows for dying and durability as well as snazzy edges. Contact cement, sew and it's solid.

Geeze and I only paid $2200 for the privilege.

Gorgeous. What type of leather?

With regard to the age of the machine I have mentioned repeatedly that I didn't expect to receive a new machine. I expected to receive a "refurbished" one as that is what they advertised it as. Had it worked beautifully then had a random part break due to age I wouldn't have been upset but that's not the case. They sent a machine that had wrong parts that Eric needed to physically modify, heaps of corrosion, broken parts (that I were clearly broken for some time) etc. That's not refurbished, that's "meh, seems okay but don't open it in case we're wrong". When I purchase refurbished I expect no broken parts (when it arrives) the correct parts (such as the hook), that it's functioning properly (the oiling system wasn't working), that it has been cleaned rather than full of corrosion. I don' think my expectations are unreasonable.

I didn't, while it would have seemed a logical choice if you check the sequence of events it never really was. First I got a machine that seemed to work okay. Then it stopped working. I sought the advice of the folks here and tried to fix it myself and failed (did not, however cause any of the damage the machine had as my attempts were very limited). Took it to a well respected shop in Edmonton (where I lived) and had them try, they poked a bit and basically said it was beyond them. At this point Eric offered to fix it free of charge if I shipped it to him, by any standard that was a great deal so I did. Keep in mind at this point in the story we were all under the impression that it was something simple like the timing was out etc so there was hardly any reason to go to Nick-o-sew about it. Particularly when it would have cost me more to ship it back to them than to Eric. Remember, I lived in Edmonton Alberta. Then Eric got it and the truth came out. I still haven't bothered to contact Nick-o-sew. Really at this point I see no reason to, what could they do? Trade it for another machine? I'd rather keep what I have, at least I know where I stand with it. If they sent me something else it could be just as bad as this one was so why risk it. So while I haven't contacted them I don't really see a point, they can't do anything for me and I hardly think it's unfair of me to post the truth about the machine they sold me. Had I known the truth prior to Eric I would definitely have contacted them, however I didn't so it never came up. Stuart

Unfortunately the neatsfoot darkens the leather and it's ruined a few of my projects that way.