MADMAX22

Thats a lot of ingenious work, looks great too. Good job

I cut the blank, scribe my borders and do the gouge line if I am using one. Tape the back of it like I normally would and do my tooling. Then I do my dying, and whatever else I will do to color it. Glue and stitch the liner and punch my holes then edge the entire thing. Then I apply my finishes or sealers. I guess you could sew in the liner first before tooling but knowing my luck I would either screw up the liner and or mess up on the tooling and have to start over. I dont have a sewing machine so sewing a belt is a little bit of a chore so I wanna know for sure the belt is good to go before I start stitching.

Thanks, One thing with the border it also depends on the thread you use. I was using 6 cord for most of my belts. You can get away with using 4 cord (not sure what that would be for a sewing machine) and do your 3/16 inch border and you should be fine. Just when you start getting smaller thread toward the edge you need to be very careful with your awl hole placement and alignment.

I think it looks pretty good. That stamp looks hard to master,

Great looking seats Sawyer, really like that first one.

Thanks, as far as the stitching its all hand stitched, 6 cord barbours thread. The leather is about 7oz herman oak.

I primarily use the barbours linen thread 6 cord on everything I do. I really like waxing my own thread and that seems to be my favorite size thread to use. I do everything by hand right now though so I cant add anything for machines. Also when I am doing inlays, the inlay portion I will use a 3 cord thread for that then use the 6 cord for everything else.

Personally on the ones I have made I will run my stitching groover down around it then try to get the edge of your border to match how much leather you have left outside your stitch groove. that way its kind of equal. You have to take into account the edging and burnishing. If I dont use a stitch groove I would take my divider and run my stitch line, probably about 1/8" for a double layer belt then run another one thats 1/8" farther in for the border. Thats just how I do it, Ive only tooled a couple of double layer belts and went primarily from photos of people with much more experience.I wanted to throw up the links to the belts that I have made since I started. http://leatherworker.net/forum/index.php?showtopic=17591&st=0&p=113804&fromsearch=1entry113804 http://leatherworker.net/forum/index.php?showtopic=19176&st=0&p=124609&fromsearch=1entry124609 http://leatherworker.net/forum/index.php?showtopic=19970&st=0&p=129306&fromsearch=1entry129306 http://leatherworker.net/forum/index.php?showtopic=20216&st=0&p=130726&fromsearch=1entry130726 http://leatherworker.net/forum/index.php?showtopic=23876&st=0&p=152210&fromsearch=1entry152210

Im sure someone like springfeild leather or such could find you some upholstery leather that would come close if not match dead on with that leather. You could theoretically replace the leather on that cushion or section.

I like that pattern alot, its got I don't know kind of like a Hawaiian feel to it almost. Be sure to post pics when your all done, I wanna see how it turns out.

One word of advice for your airbrush. I have heard as I have not had one in a while but the cheaper ones like harbor freight use rubber (or maybe its plastic) orings and such vs teflon I think it is and they will corrode after a while using dyes in them so if it starts sucking air or leaking try and find adequate replacement teflon washers and it should be like new again.

Hey Kat have you checked out ebay. Thats where I got all mine. I just checked and the guy I ordered from doesnt have any listings currently but under crafts-woodworking-lumber there are all kinds of stuff from $3 on up. The pen blanks work really great for the round type burnishers. They are usually about 1" square by about 6-8" long. For the burnisher I currently have I used a blank that was 1/4"x3"x24" and just cut out my section I needed then took the dremel to it. Works great considering my lacking of wood working skills. Ill have to get me one of those diamond drums and try it out also.

Looks great man, turned out very clean. Great choice of colors as well. Leather finishes are all in your own preference. I like leather balm with atom wax for alot of my projects. I however usually go over that with some sno seal or lately with some neatsfoot oil/ bees wax/ parafin wax blend I made. It depends alot on where you are at also and what kind of abuse its gonna get. I live in NW Washington where my poor bike seat gets rained on probably 40 percent of the time I ride so I am usually giving it as much protection as I can. I have scene some of Davids seats that were treated with atom wax and even though they were used and abused by there owners they still looked great.

Kind of in both worlds myself. For my edges I use the dremel sometimes with the little drum sander. This gets a nice edge but to be honest it takes a little more work after the fact then if I had used a good sharp head knife (or whatever knife you prefer) to cut the edge if its done properly. The thing where it saves me time is when I have small portions that are to hard to get a clean cut with the knife or where the leather is extremely thick say like 24oz or more of leather (sheaths) where its very difficult to get a straight good cut. This works for me because I dont have the wheel setup to do the polishing and such, if I had one of those for the edges then I probably wouldnt care about getting as smooth of a cut edge. As far as burnishing tools the best one I have so far is made from cocobolo wood. I sanded it down and put several half circle notches of various sizes in it and it works wonderfully. I think the best thing is a happy medium of the two styles unless your customer wants and pays for entirely handmade items.

That looks really good man. How do you like that ostrich print? I was thinking of trying out some of those print skins but dont have a good enough project in mind to spend the money right now. Yeah I got a corbin seat a little while ago (mainly for the seat pan lol) that I am recovering and adjusting the padding in. They say leather seats, it had a rather crappy leather center portion and the rest was some synthetic stuff. They use pretty good padding though I will admit, just didnt form it right on mine.

HAHA not me man, I went thru the same learning curve myself. Those are really nice looking, Ed has one hell of a touch with these mauls.

Thats really cool. The effect you have gotten came out really good. Makes me want to start experimenting with that type of thing again.

Thanks a bunch guys.

Pics must be BIGGER lol. Yeah I love mine. I am sure you will also.

Sounds great Mike, just dont forget a couple of little vent holes so you dont repeat chemistry class.

I think I may be a little rusty on chemistry but 5 would be less acidic then 4, 7 is the middle and 1 is the most acid, 14 is the most basic. Not that I think it would matter much. Either one should work just fine. I use the large plastic coffee jugs (like folgers) and fill that mostly full. I will add one full steel wool section to this. After about a week or two (faster if its warmer) it will be able to start making stuff black. Actually after two weeks the steel wool is completely dissolved. I leave mine on the dishwasher so the heat cycle warms it up every other day when I do dishes. Of course I am single so I can still get away with this lol.