bikermutt07

Welcome aboard. I always like to suggest this procedure for anyone new. I stumbled around for the first two years I was playing with leather. I wasted a lot of time, money, and frustration trying to do one off projects. So here goes. Start with a small single item. Bracelets, key fobs, watch bands, something like that. These are not high stress items so you could use a nice belly or two. Make twenty or more of the same item at the same time. This will help you gain proficiency in each step. It will get boring. But you will get the most experience out of the least amount of leather. You could easily spend a whole month worth of hobby time with one or two bellies. This is about 20 or 30 dollars worth of leather. It is a cost effective way to hone your skills in all the steps. As you go through each step you will botch one or two pieces, no worries. It was only .75 cents worth of material and now you have test pieces for the next step. And you can keep going forward without starting all over. Good luck and enjoy.

It's the world we live in. The 227r will handle anything on the thin to medium thickness. The 3500 will handle all the big stuff that will fit into it. I suggest finding which can you make a profit with faster. Buy that one and save for the other.

Great job. Welcome aboard.

That was a great effort. Looks really sharp.

Welcome.

Great job.

I can understand the wanting to fix up your stitching. But, for this particular piece, I don't see where it was needed. This was a very rustic cane and the wrap with the stitches, as well as the raw edges, complimented it perfectly. I think it looks awesome. As for burnishing oil tan, I've never used it. Give it a go on a piece of scrap.

Welcome aboard, Tom. My advice is to always start with small projects. Do several of the same item together. Think bracelets, collars, key chains. Anything that doesn't require lots of material. As you move thru each step you get to spend more time honing that skill. And if you botch a few, no big loss, just learn and keep going forward. I did twenty or so bracelets all at the same time. I started with a single shoulder and spent a month refining all the steps. A whole month of fun from just a shoulder. Of course this was after 2 years of botching one off items before someone suggested "do one thing, do it over and over until you get it right, then move on to the next thing". I wasted a lot of time, money, and frustration in the first 2 years. Good luck.

Black River Laser has some great templates. I also like to use Wuta leather's templates. And, JLS leather had some free PDFs for download. (Haven't checked in on him in awhile, though) One piece of advice..... Start several of the same project at the same time. Then, when you botch a piece you don't have to start completely over. And it will give you more time with each step. This will help the learning curve.

If I was starting over again, I would buy the crimson hide 4mm chisels for saddle stitching. Crimson hides chisels are a cross between stitching chisels and irons. 4mm spacing can go a long way in range too. Of course this is subject to preference. To me anything I do smaller than 4mm looks cramped even with smaller thread. You can use .6mm or .8mm thread for just about anything with the 4mm spacing. If you want to go bigger look at 5mm spacing and 1.0mm thread. These are only my opinions though.

That is a great looking bag.

Just for information purposes..... Fiebings is phasing out the pro oil moniker. All of the dyes that say pro dye are from the same formula. So, if you order pro oil dye and pro dye comes in the mail, no worries. I got this from an email inquiry. Good luck and enjoy.

The spacing on chisels in mm is from point to point. I muddled through all of this in the beginning myself. The Tandy store down the street was not any help. Tandy doesn't even regulate sizing within their own product line. Do the have needles, thread, chisels, pricking irons, and awls? Yes, but nothing in the packaging dictates on any one item how it fits with another item. I found it very frustrating.

The basic sets for beginners aren't really paired all that well. I use JJ #2 with 4mm or 5mm chisels\irons. With these I use .6mm or .8mm tiger thread. This usually takes awhile to sort out. There is not much in the way of standard sizing passed down from the manufacturers.

Glad to hear it is going well for you.

Stet, it's a mixed bag of results with chrome tanned leather. You can burnish a firmer thicker chrome tan like cxl. The thin garment leathers don't seem to burnish at all. Also, it won't ever be as pretty as a veg tan edge. That being said the tokonole has given me decent results on cxl horse strips. I also had good luck with w & c 5oz chap leather, before I found tokonole. It did take a lot of extra love to get it decent, though. Ymmv.

Great job

I just pass along what others have shared with me here. I feel it's a duty to the intermediates to try and take some of the burden off the experts. They helped us so much, it's only right for us to field the easy questions. What leather were you referring to? It's been awhile.

I don't want to meet her.

I have had good results with tokonole from Rocky mountain leather supply. Granted I haven't tested it for 10 years, but does seem to work.

Hey guys I remember people asking for a better source for this part. This one looks well built. Enjoy http://www.leevalley.com/us/hardware/page.aspx?p=72944&cat=3,48759&ap=1

Busy with life, Buddy. Also, just haven't been inspired in awhile. I still been poking my head in every couple of days though.

That stamp is spectacular.

Welcome aboard. Lots of nice folks here. A bunch of them are in Kentucky and Tennessee.

Black River laser has some nice templates for guitar pick key chains. Some one here was making key chain I phone stands too. It was really simple, but cool.