bikermutt07

It all looks wonderful.

The last sheath is a sheath, other matt.

You sir, have a unique style. I like the last sheath the best.

Haven't heard of that one before. Saddle soap???

This bag looks great. I love the color. I'm not familiar with bags, but here is what I see... It looks as if the hardware for the strap is going to be rubbing on the top flap. I don't know if that will cause a problem or not. Maybe a small section of strap on the d ring could raise the clasp above the flap on the next one. But it really does look awesome and I'm sure "mum" will love it.

Great job.

You will need to learn to sharpen stuff. Just another heads up. Sharp leather tools make life much easier.

I bet that was fun. Thanks for sharing.

Hermann Oak is a domestic tannery brand that offers veg tan leather. Very high quality leather. So is wickett & craig. I am just finishing a wallet of w&c right now. Either of these leathers will spoil you. There are others but these are the bar setters in the states for quality. There is lots to learn about leather work for the new guys. I still consider myself an intermediate newbie due to my lack of time at the bench. But, I'm improving. The color on the bracelet was a base of fiebings pro saddle tan with streaks of medium brown over the top. I accomplished the streaking by dipping the edge of a dry sponge in my dye and making squiggles with it. I liked the effect. For dyes make the effort in the beginning to use the spirit based dyes. Fiebings pro dye (sometimes still labeled pro oil dye) is a good start for your coloring. I have never messed with water based dyes and all I see here is reasons to avoid it. Also, go very slow on your projects. Time is your friend. Rushing will just botch it all up. Do some digging on this site and you will find plenty of information to be had. I literally spent weeks just reading threads when I got started again.

Here is one of the later ones I did. This one was for my wife. I used two pieces of 8oz Hermann Oak split down to 2oz. Laminated it together with weldwood. A line 20 snap, and some clearance conchos with clearance jeweled rivets.

If you can find one F.O. Baird's leather secrets is a great all around resource. The tooling and designs are 60's Western base, but man for an all encompassing volume it is the one. It has all the steps for tooling, it has dozens of patterns from watch bands to Western rigs and everything in between. It has several carving patterns for letters and figure carving. Patterns for different cases, belts, and purses. If you can't find or afford one I suggest these books. 1st. Leather Tools by Al Stohlman. This will teach you tips and tricks for tools as well as how to sharpen them. Great book. 2nd. The Art of Hand Sewing also by Al. This will help you master several different kinds of stitch. Both of these books are less than 20 bucks on Amazon. Al really packed a lot of extra info and tips into these books. Next I would suggest something a little more specific to what you want to make. And now my personal thoughts to get you started. (Not my idea, but I elaborated on it). Get yourself a decent single shoulder of veg tan. And start making bracelets. Do I like bracelets? No, I don't. But, it will help you develop your skills at a fast pace with minimal material. You can learn to use the strap cutter, edge beveling, edge finishing, dying, conditioning, sealing,laminating, stamping, tooling, stitching, as well as buckles, snaps, conchos and other hardware. You can do dozens at at a time. If you mess up, you chunk 50 cents worth of leather. And keep moving forward. Do this and you will be off to a much better start than I. I bounced from 1 one-off project to the next. And I was always missing a step, or my stitching wasn't good enough, or something. If you start with one item and make it to the point of perfection, you will have a much easier time moving forward. Good luck.

Great job.

Awesome.

Good job.

Gum trag will keep dye from penetrating. Are you sure it doesn't look cool? If not you may try dip dying to get the dye to work from the inside out. That is just a last ditch effort though.

Great job, Matt.

Bob does have used machines (according to his site). To answer your question? Let me start by saying I don't own a machine. But I have done my homework. Let's stick with cowboy because I have looked into those the most. 227r is good for up to 3/8” with 138 thread. $1695 341 is a newer comparable model with a little more foot lift and a bigger bobbin. $1995 3200 is the middle of the road machine that will do up to 1/2" with the larger threads (346 thread I think). $1695 These are all of the smaller cylinder machines with a 10.5 arm, compound triple feed (what you want for leather), and will sew what you mentioned in your original post. If you want a bigger capacity machine, the following (known as 441 clones) will handle up to 346 or 415 thread and ¾" leather. 3500 9.5" arm $2195 4500 17" arm $2395 These larger machines won't easily sew what you were looking for in your original post. Massive adjustments have to be made to sew thinner leather on these machines. This can be done, but it's not easy and then you have the issue of burying the larger stitch in the middle of thinner leather. A lockstitch is thicker than a saddle stitch. So, one machine won't do it all. You also may get bit by a bug and find you can't live without 3 machines. Good luck. P.S. To any of the experts, here feel free to correct the information I provided.

A cowboy 3200 can sew up to 1\2 with larger thread. It can be had for about that amount.

I got lots of stuff from an ex-con. I bought about 3500.00 worth of tools and books for 350.00 including the Weaver heritage splitter.

That's a great gift.

Sorry, I thought this thread was about Black River Laser. The Wuta templates are really good too. Although, some of wutas designs merit a little instruction. Both companies have great templates. I think I have 4 from wuta and about ten from Brl. Brl was fast and easy with free shipping. Wuta takes a little time to cross the world. But they have free shipping in their price. I will always do some business with Wuta. He takes pretty good care of me.

I did do a little review build. Templates are pretty great (a few burrs here and there to clean up). You can cut against them and shipping was in the lightspeed category.

You will find 2.5mm irons really small. When I first bought my Tandy ones I didn't know anything about the sizes. And I bought the 2.5mm. I can't find anything to use them on. They might be good with some .4mm thread on a watch band........ Even 3mm seems too small to me for anything. I have some 3.82 mm irons and .6mm thread looks good with it. Mostly though I use 4mm with .8mm thread.

My boss always says something like that. "How about I just give'em a thousand bucks to go somewhere else!?!?" Ha! I love him.

I like it all.