tazzmann

OK guys, I am hoping we can get together on Sunday April 13th. We could meet at the Shari's on Airport Way down next to I-205. Say 8:00am?

I saw on Zack White's today, a front page promotion about Fiebing's new low VOC leather dyes. Has anyone tried these yet? Since Fiebing is my dye company of choice, I was thinking about ordering one or two and seeing how well they work.

Thanks, I did a little playing with it today as well. I think I like it better and I got the words to quit qrapping in IE. I still have more playing to do though.

Thanks Rayban! The rivets are just antique brass rapid rivets from Tandy.

kewl, thanks. I was debating how I wanted to do the images, the reason I was having it come up on it's own was because I was eventually going to put some longer descriptions and have each on it's own page. Though it might still be cool to do the hover enlarger now that I think about it. Yes, IE is flaky at best, which is why I don't generally use it other than work. I didn't know about the php include trick. Can I use that in straight html without renaming "sompage.htm" to "somepage.php"? I know what I can do with C# and ASP.net 2.0, but this unix stuff is still a mystery to me. I am sure I will find out a lot more when I get into this book. Hey, if I can learn Perl in a week, I should be able to learn PHP in a week, right? Thanks again, I will keep working on it.

Thanks Jason, I took a look at what you did in the styles and it looks good, but... Maybe I am missing something, but it looks the same in 1024x768 as it does in 1280x720 with the exception that there is now a black line between the logo and the main body (which I actually like) and the menu is adjusted to the left. So not sure what other differences your changes made. I have a dual monitor set up here at work so had one set to the 1024 setting and the other at the 1280 settings so I could see them side by side. Can you get a screen shot of what it looks like on your monitor? Both my page and yours? Yeah, I thought about including header and footer include files, but that requires some PHP coding and the PHP extension, which I am not ready to do....yet. I went and got a PHP book during lunch today, so may play with it some more this weekend if time allows. Thanks for the help! Mike

Thanks. I don't have a wide screen to play with, so kind of have to design to fit screens I do have. I do table structures on most of my sites instead of CSS positioning because I am old school and no other reason. Plus I can knock out a site about five times faster using tables. The only draw back to using them is they can kind of limit you. At work, I don't use tables at all. They want everything positioned via the code behind. Don't ask! grrrrr Please keep the critique coming, I love hearing all the options and hearing about things I may have over looked. But please keep in mind, this is the bare bones beginning and I haven't had the time to really figure out what I want, so everything that is there today may be totally gone and re-arranged tomorrow. :D (But I doubt it. Probably just improved upon and some things re-done.) I really need to learn PHP as this site is hosted on Apache and not Windows. Edit: WOW! I just looked at it in I.E. and man does I.E. butcher pictures. I was wondering as I don't use I.E. at home, I only use Fire Fox and it renders everything so much better than I.E. This will cause me to have to re-think things. Blah!

These are a few more sheaths I have done over the last week for a knife maker who lives in my area. Enjoy...

Thanks Jason, I will take your ideas to heart. I really haven't totally decided what to do with the site, but I am getting it more and more down every day. I am kinda curious about the 600 pixel thing as I run 1024 X 768 at work and don't see a problem. Maybe it is my LCD monitors, but everything looks smooth to me. hmmmm. My plan is to sit down some time this weekend and work on the site, so check back Monday and see how things are going. P.S. I write EVERYTHING by hand. No WYSIWYG editors. I don't even use the WYSIWYG in Visual Studios when writing code at work. Oh, I almost forgot, the signature was done with a brush tool in Adobe Photoshop using a WACOM pad. I didn't like the way it turned out either and will re-do it, but it is not high on my list right now.

Looks pretty good scouter. I too need to do some more with the smaller items.

Here is the lucky woman!

Thanks for the suggestions guys! I have a long way to go on this site, but wanted to get something up soon so I wasn't wasting money on hosting a blank site. LOL Keep checking back. It may take a little bit longer as I have a full time day job AND about 7 leather orders to get done, so my working on the site is when I can fit it in. <whew!>

I just got my bare bones site up. I have plans on changing a lot of things, but wanted to see what you guys thought so far. I am a web designer by trade, but not a graphics designer or photographer, so please be kind in that area. The site is no where near done, but wanted to get some ideas from you fine folk! just click on the Night Owl Leather link in my signature area. Thanks!

Got the purse last night, Tina. The wife wouldn't take it off her shoulder until it was time to eat! I will get some pics of the proud owner tonight and post them up. Thanks again for such a wonderful idea!

I went through something similar with a Tandy kit for my son. I won't get into that now, but will give some advice on lacing. Use an arm's length or less at a time. Too much lace and it will get tangled a lot. If it tangles too many times, it gets weak spots. Also, heat from the friction of pulling the lace through CAN hurt the cheap lace. Keep it in small strips and you will go faster and have an easier time, especially with the single, double or triple loop lacing since the splicing is so easy on these three as mentioned above.

Don't know if I can help you. I always scribe lines with a wing divider set to the width of the stamp. I draw all my lines and then start stamping. It takes me about 20-30 seconds per stamp because I put the stamp down, then adjust it so that both edges are on the line, etc. I usually get fairly straight stamps this way. Though, admittedly, I don't do basket weave all that often for that same reason.

It looks even better in person!

The dyes I use are Fiebings (only occasionally do I use Tandy) and I airbrush with them regularly. They work fine through a .02 size needle. You can also reduce the dye with Fiebings reducer. This makes them more "transparent" and you can control it better for blending colors. I also spray the Acrylic Resolene from Fiebings as a top coat when I am not using the Leather Balm with Atom wax, which needs to be rubbed in. Make sure you either put resist on the areas you don't want dye black to keep any overspray off, or use Frisket film, which is a low tack masking film sold at most hobby stores. The disadvantage with Frisket film is that you have to lay it on your design and then CAREFULLY cut out the parts you want to dye and leave the parts you DON'T want dyed on the leather. When you are done with your dying, you just peel off the frisket film. Since it is really low tack stuff, it won't hurt the leather or leave any residue.

I would also like to extend my thanks to all, the links helped a LOT in understanding this alien thing called thread!

I am with you on this one Tina. Thread talk makes no sense to me. Can someone explain the "ply"'s and sizing of thread? I am usually a lace guy, but want to do more in the hand stitching area. I have never used a sewing machine and until recently haven't done any hand stitching in about 15 years. Even then, I just went and looked at thread and said "yup. That's about the right size." Thanks!

I am basically game for what ever is decided. I already started making something for the next one on the list (wildrose), but stopped when the debate started about who gets what. Hopefully, things will get nailed down soon as I also have a day job and leather orders to fill. I am also willing to ship out of country. To me, the cost to ship is worth it if the recipient enjoys what is given. Tina, I will be looking for the package. I can't hardly wait to surprise the wife with it! Thanks again!

Looks awesome! What a great idea!

Thanks guys. Again, I appreciate the comments. Tom, it is a double loop switching to a single loop on the single layer and then back to a double loop. About 4 hours of lacing. Beveling the lace is just that, you bevel the underneath side so that you have a thinner edge which means that most of the center whitish area doesn't show or show as bad. Hedge, i bought the pro lace to do things around the house with and don't care about the edge look of the lace, but normally i don't use it on stuff I send out, so this one was a real boo-boo. i usually use superior or roo lace which doesn't break as much and has a much more even color throughout.

thanks guys for the comments! Hedge, i usually do bevel the lacing, but was in a rush to get this one out, so grabbed the first lace that hit my fingers... It was the Tandy's pro lace. oops. oh well.

I have to say that that IS a cool looking sheath!