YinTx

Now that is downright cool. Truly something to be proud of! Making a pair of boots I would presume to be a major undertaking, and those look top notch! I really like them.... YinTx

Anthony, I emailed you on Saturday regarding the condition and quality of the leather sides you shipped me. Please respond to my email. Thank you. YinTx

That borders on awesome! love the color combinations, really nice stitching, leather finish is great, edges phenomenal. YinTx

I've been using Aussie to finish the leather, gives it a slight bit of water resistance, a very nice hue, and smells great, at least in my humble opinion. Not as shiny/plasticy as the resolene, which I prefer - not so much into the shiny look on leather myself. You might try it on a small piece and see if you like the results. YinTx

I have not resolved my issue either, have not had time. But just a note, the photo in my post above was with the fiebings dye reducer. But not dipped. I did try just dipping into the 50/50 solution, no luck, just came out nearly black. YinTx

Oh man I had no idea that the Chromexcel would look so bad after such a short period of time. Will this be bad to use for a footstool or a leather covered seat? I had planned to make some note book padfolios and some totes out of the stuff I had ordered, now I'm afraid customers are going to be bringing all my products back to me in 6 months complaining it is worn out. Anyone have any long term experience with that type of stuff? Thanks for sharing! YinTx

Black Dogg, No problem, thanks for sharing and commenting and clarifying! YinTx

Yes, I watched that video too while I was trying to figure some things out, very cool. Wish I had matching thread and machine to match the stitch pattern in the LV pieces! Instead, I had to figure out how to do straight stitches where they were supposed to be straight... (not sure how to get this right side up, but this is the top binding leather) And do slanted stitches where they were supposed to be slanted... I think I did ok... learned a few things along the way. I like how they used leather for the lining, and I wanted to, but the customer wanted the material that you see... the original material is not leather, but instead a coated cloth that eventually gets sticky and peels off. YinTx

Thanks for that, Gmace99. As you know, making a video and posting it takes some time and effort, so I appreciate when others are able to pick up some tid bit from it. I have learned many things from your videos that I have not picked up in the hundreds of other videos I've watched on the subject of leather work! YinTx

Considering I had to line up all the original holes to stitch by hand, I did have to fight every stitch, but I think you are on to something there. The original appeared to use basting tape to hold the liner to the bag before stitching, and then the leather binding was added at the end. I did lightly glue the liner to the canvas, then stitched, then had to stitch the binder without glue in order to properly line up the holes. Not sure how I would do it differently, but I wasn't entirely happy with the way the binder seated - not as straight as I would have liked. If I could have figured a good way to glue it into place, I would have. There was a whole lot of trying to hold a lot of things in line prior to stitching, and not a simple task. Definitely a job for a machine and some glue, and not try to retain all the original bits! YinTx

I suspect stitching the binding on would do the trick but I attempted to be true to the original construction as much as I could. I suppose it could help take the stress off of the binding stitch, and prevent it from pulling through the thin leather there, but not sure. This was the first one I have done like this too, so I'm no expert. Perhaps someone that does this regularly could chime in? YinTx

So a good friend asked me to repair her LV Bucket bag, as the "Alcantara" lining had turned sticky and started peeling, as these purses are apparently apt to do. She wanted to maintain all the original leather pieces so the "patina" on the Vaschetta leather would match, which made repairing difficult. She also wanted a canvas style lining, so I used a cream colored Duck Cloth. all the hardware had to be scrubbed clean of the sticky material that came off of the lining. I used Fil Au Chinois 532 Jaune thread, saddle stitched. For the lining to LV canvas, I used 138 Bonded Poly thread, stitched by hand again. Comments and suggestions welcomed! YinTx

Black Dogg, I'm fully aware of Mr. Armitage's excellent videos, and have enjoyed them thoroughly and learned from them immensely. Never had any intention to upstage any of his teachings, but there were some requests to see how I was doing my stitching; so I made a brief video to share. Nothing more, nothing less, thanks for watching it! YinTx

And then there's the other dimension: the width. Had a recent customer want a 1.5" belt width, I asked twice to make sure, yeppers, he wanted that 1.5" width. So I spent time and effort to hand stitch it all nice, delivered it, punched the hole onsite custom to the customer's request. Called back 1 week later to see how it was working out... lo and behold, he can't get it to fit any of his other pants. Turns out he's wearing dress slacks all the time, and 1.5" just wont pass through the loops! So he hasn't used it at all. The buckle didn't make any difference at all in that instance! Might be making that one over again, but 1.25" instead. YinTx

Just a quick video for those asking how I am stitching my leather. Just one of many techniques I have learned in the last year I have been doing leather work. I am using Coats Barbour 18/3 Ecru linen thread. This is a 3.38mm stitching iron making the marks, and using a 35mm Vergez Blanchard Awl. I get a very nice separated angled stitch with this technique. For straight stitches or angled stitches that the thread stays touching, I use different methods. Hopefully the link works. YinTx

Wow, that rocks. Just sayin. Thanks for sharing! YinTx

JLS, I'm a little confused. I think your downloadable instructions say "For most holsters, we like a total of about 8 or 9 ounce leather thickness. Our patterns state the weight of leather used for the model shown. This is the total thickness desired, and can be single-ply piece that thick, or some combination of thinner pieces adding up to that thickness..." Your comment says 7 or 8 oz, so is that total, or each ply? I ask only because I am contemplating a holster, and when I went to a gun show this past weekend, I picked up a number of them. The 7 oz total weight holsters seemed pretty flimsy to me, like they might not hold the gun for very long or very effectively. I can understand not wanting to haul around a thick holster IWB all day, and trying to avoid printing, but it still seemed inadequate. Photos I see on this site of holsters I've admired appear significantly thicker, like 8 oz per ply. I think I only saw one remotely close to that, and the gentleman was asking $140 for it, vs. the $65 for the others. Build quality warranted his price point, especially sitting on a table next to the other vendor's er... stuff. I also must say the attention to details on even the most modest of holsters I have seen on this site blow away everything I saw for sale there. Including some NOS Bianchi holsters still in the package - I was frankly disappointed, considering the name and reputation, I had expected something on an entirely different level. Thanks also for providing the templates gratis. I have other templates, but its nice to have choices! and instructions. YinTx

Wow, that was a whole lot of work, and really nicely done! Thanks so much for sharing, I hope to see more of your work! Inspirational for me, I've been considering making rifle cases for some time now! YinTx

Hahahah... normally, I'm a sucker for staring at the stitching to see if there is something I can learn from to improve my own work. This time, I was so entranced with the imagery in the leather that I didn't even realize it was stitched until I read the comments! Great work, and the stitching is pretty dang good too, so no frettin there! thanks for sharing! YinTx

Those are great bags, but I have a question: by edge work, do you mean stitching? It looks like I see holes for sewing, but no thread... or do you not plan to stitch? Or am I just not seeing it? The three tone dye is a cool effect, and I like the image tooled in the center too! YinTx

I really appreciate the videos you have been putting out. Things you may think are simple because you've used them for or done them for years are for some of us a revelation, because we've never been around it, have never seen it or heard of it. Occasionally, a "duh" kinda revelation, like I shoulda thought of that, but thats the beauty of it. Things others have figured out I can learn from, and move on to figuring something else out. And I like learning something in 5 minutes, because again, I can go practice it, then go on and learn something else. So, really, Thank You! YnTx

I actually noticed the beveled edges right away, and thought it was a neat touch vs. the square and round options out there, so I'd say keep it that way if you like, or adopt the rounded look if you prefer it. The long stitch around the corner does stand out in a not so good way to me tho...otherwise, looks like it came out really nice! YinTx

"I just use the cut to fit method. Make it 6" too long, and then put it on the customer. I then use my english point punch and a maul to cut it to length right on the customers hip. One big whack. It took a few tries to get the depth and technique right, but I'm like a pro now...." I feel sorry for the hip on the first few customers before you got that technique right! musta been a bloody mess.... seriously though, most of the time I am making them for someone far away... so no on-sight measurements. And usually there are about another 2 weeks of stitching to be done after the belt has been cut to length... YinTx

Responded to your other posting as well. I still have a little bit of the black 0.8mm Tiger, although it has been in demand lately. Links to get to it are here: http://leatherworker.net/forum/index.php?showtopic=62632 YinTx

I still have a little bit of the black 0.8mm Tiger, although it has been in demand lately. Links to get to it are here: http://leatherworker.net/forum/index.php?showtopic=62632 YinTx