Thor

It doesn't really answer my questions. Anyhow, if I have a veg tan leather from some questionable source or I don't know what has been done to it I usually clean it with oxalic acid before I dye or finish it. With a bracelet like yours I'd burnish the flesh side first, or it will suck up too much dye. Unlike what many others recommend I don't use anything else then water for burnishing and I actually burnish it with the machine. Goes fast and even. After that I'd let it dry for a bit and dye it. On the other hand - do you really need to dye the flesh side? Wouldn't it be sufficient to just oil and finish it? The color isn't visible anyways.

Well done. I especially like the the fact that you can use it for storing as well as on the saddle.

First question would be, what kind of veg tan is it? Where is it from? Did you prepare the leather as necessary if it was overloaded with byproducts as many of them are, preventing proper dying...

Check the saddlery section on eBay Italy first. Other than that you'll find it here https://www.rickert-werkzeug.de/de/Punzen-Stempel/Zubehoer

Sorry I'm too far away to do this for you, but I forwarded the link to a fellow leatherworker. For the same reason I didn't offer to make a slit ear headstall for you. Shipping charges would almost be as expensive as the headstall itself.

Okay, not putting the work of your maker down. Not at all! Just my observation and what I would consider of fixing this. The background was stamped while the leather was still too wet. I assume that he was dying it when the leather was still too wet as well. If you are happy with the tooling, leave it as is. If it was mine I'd be improving the background at least cause there's a "border" around each element that I wouldn't want to have plus a "step" around the actual border (or is this the stitching?). That's a matter of taste. So either you like it or not. Fixing the color... I would give it a good wash to get rid of all crap (oils, wax, etc). If that is Fiebing's dye I believe it to be the dark brown tone. Get confirmation on that before you buy the color. Then I would use an oil based dye (dark brown) and re-dye the background using an artist brush. Have it well dried before dying (not in the sunlight) for at least a full day. You will have to oil it again, but wait with that until the dye has really settled and don't do that before you didn't achieve an even color saturation in the background. You will have to buff it to get rid of the excess dye. If you want to protect it against weather etc. I'd use Fiebing's bag cote in this case. Don't get this and the oil on your suede leather. Well this is what I would do, maybe someone else has a better idea. Oh btw. are you going to wear these on your day to day job?

Aw sorry, misunderstood what you want. In Texas I would contact Hadlock and Fox and go from there http://www.hadlockfox.com/. If they don't have it in stock they will be able to point you in the right direction at least.

Awfully long screws you're looking for. Did you try the bookbinder's sources? They are working with such long screws frequently and would be my first stop. Other than that, have you tried Ohio Travel Bag? I believe I've seen them in their catalog, but I'm not absolutely sure.

Vaquero, we all make mistakes at times and even though TinkerTailor mentioned it already pictures would really help. Streaky leads me to the assumption that antique gel/wax was used on the yokes, which in your case (working cowboy) would be a wrong choice as it is water soluble. Beyond that??? Sorry this is a rough guess already and pictures are really needed.

Birdman, thanks for notifying me of that post. http://leatherworker.net/forum/index.php?showtopic=68856&p=449653 This is a manufacturer within Europe. Their website doesn't provide any information as of yet, so no real information available at this time.

Tops, you can insert the active link here. http://www.horsecordovan.com/ Since members here aren't only from the US, but from all around the world it would be interesting to know what your shipping charges are for shipments within Europe as well as to other regions in the world such as Australia or African countries even.

Tracing film is quite expensive and can be replaced with architecture paper and be protected with sticky foil (what ever the name is for that). Replacing the nylon edge slicker with a wooden one may be a better choice. It may be a good idea to get a burnisher for your power drill right away. If you are planning to dye your straps yourself you'll need something to buff them as well. Buffing by hand takes too much time. At least it does for me. So I'm using something like this. You may have to have at least two. One for darker colors and one for lighter colors.

Great, congrats from me as well!

It might help to point you in the right direction if you would tell where you're from Tom

Here you go https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kangaroo What customs refers to is the cites which with the Kangaroo is no concern at all. There are several sources in Germany for Kangaroo leather lace, but it's not cheap.

So the common use of the word Cordovan wouldn't be correct? http://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/cordovan this link suggests that Cordovan would mean the leather itself, and Shell Cordovan would be a more precise name for the Cordovan leather cut from the hind of the horse. Shell: A dense fiber structure found only in the hindquarters of equine animals. On their website I can only find this chart, which you posted already under the menu Equine Hide Chart and then under full tannage list the term Cordovan with the facts of its features, which are: Straight vegetable tanned, Vegetable Tanned: A tanning method that employs vegetable liquors derived from tree barks. This method of tanning is very traditional and takes longer to achieve than chrome tanning.therefore it's tanned without chrome. It is Hot Stuffed Hot Stuffed: Leather that has been nourished and conditioned with unrefined oils and greases. This is achieved without the use of water and emulsifiers and gives a much richer feel. Hot stuffed leathers typically exhibit pull-up and good water resistance.Only light weights are available (probably due to the fact that the grain is missing and swelling requires the epidermis) It's pasted, as I identified earlier Pasted: Leather that has been dried by fixing it to large glass or ceramic plates. Pasted leathers have very little stretch and smooth grain character.It's glazed as visible in the video as well Hand Glazed: Leather that has been polished with a glass rod.And it is aniline finished, meaning that there is no pigmented covering of the surface Aniline: Dyes and finishes that contain no pigment. When used on leather they provide a rich, clear stain that allows the natural character of the article to be seen.And at last it has a smooth feeling. Bulleted definitions are from Horween's page at http://horween.com/leathers/definitions/ So if Cordovan and Shell Cordovan are the same, I wonder if the rest is just called horse leather then. On this German page I found some more info http://www.leder-info.de/index.php/Cordovan. They say that only hides from heavy draft horses would be good for Shell Cordovan. Is there any confirmation on this? Further they are recommending only try cleaning of Cordovan as the leather would swell if cleaned wet. This sounds odd as it would be contrary to what was said before about the features of this leather.

Once again thank you Mike for clarifying this. I converted the article on kinowear.com to pdf due to the disturbing advertisements there and uploaded it here. Main key points are: From around 1600 until 1900 Cordovan was synonymous with goat leather from Cordoba, Spain Since 1900 it is synonymous with veg tanned horse leather There also is a deep red color by the name Cordovan Shell Cordovan is made from the dense portion of the horses rump, where the only difference is between the horses skin and cow skin. Showing a cross section of horse skin. The latest article you linked explains that the Epidermis is removed. This is what we generally refer to as grain. It then refers to a hyaline layer. So when the other article said below the skin it actually meant below the epidermis. That would make sense to me as it is a common mistake to refer to the Epidermis as the skin. Btw. hyaline layers are found in humans as well, but I doubt that it can be really compared. kinowear.com-Cordovan the masculine mans leather.pdf

Thanks Mike. That sounds odd to me or I don't understand it. The muscle layer doesn't have enough collagen to form leather. Leather is formed from the dermis of the skin. So either I really don't understand what you're trying to explain or something else is getting me off track here. Nick Horween writes here http://horween.com/101/chromexcel-2/ that in the case of Chromexcel the hides are chrome tanned, so the blue color would truly mean that those hides are chrome tanned. He then writes about "wet blue", which is the common name for an unfinished chrome tanned hide. Considering this I will have to change my definition of Shell Cordovan. They can either be veg or chrome tanned. Conrad do you have a link to this UK tannery?

Thank you ferg! I believe this is the video you're referring to: https://vimeo.com/81233973 I'm a little irritated by the color of the hide as it looks blue at one point and this would mean that it was chrome tanned which Cordovan leather shouldn't be and I believe it isn't. Is there an explanation on this somewhere? What I did notice is that Horween uses a pasting drying method. This increases (stretches) the amount of hide by about 10%. Nothing wrong with that. In fact I believe this is pretty good. Further I have seen that they are glazing the hide, which must be due to the fact that in Cordovan leather the flesh side is the "upper" side and the grain side will be the bottom side. If I observed it correctly they are even grinding off the grain side. Also as you pointed out already is that only the rump (shell) is used by Horween, which gives it the name Shell Cordovan and is visible by the oval shaped forms of leather. Its main use seems to be for shoe making according to https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Shell_cordovan ferg, do you know which tannery in Italy is making Cordovan leather? Here's another video on the tanning process at Horween https://vimeo.com/47127960 and this one here is a bit more detailed. The person, I believe to be the "tanner" points out a hair line on the horse which must be the area between hind quarters and flank. Since Horween Leather Co. is existing since 1905, does that mean that they have ever since made Cordovan leather from horse hides?

I'm looking for some more facts about cordovan leather. What I know thus far is that the term initially described a certain kind of fine leather coming from Córdoba, Spain and that since the 1930s it was made mainly and later solely from horse hide. In some books it is mentioned as an old term for Marocco goat skin, which I can't really believe to be true as that would mean a specialization towards goat skin for it and not as in the definition I found in an old trade specific dictionary: Any further information on this is welcome.

If you'd be sizing the picture according to the circumference you want you could just us this picture as a rough out pattern and go from there. So say the diameter is 45 mm you would use this formula u = 2 π r and therefore u = 2 x 3.14 x 22.5 In the end the circumference would be 141.3 mm (roughly 5.5") and would equal the distance from center to center of the snap. Use whatever program (Gimp, Photoshop...) you're having there and convert it to a drawing. You may have to make some adjustments by hand, but it would solve your problem pretty fast.

The Ivan one doesn't hold a cutting edge. So that one is the better choice. I believe I mentioned that this was the reason that disappointed me about that as well and that I had to sharpen it first. If you are struggling with sharpening you might want to go here http://leatherworker.net/forum/index.php?showforum=221 and get some general help with sharpening.

Looking very nice Ryan

Interesting thought. I didn't think of that either, but that may be due to the fact that I have been tought the old traditional way of sharpening wood chisels and the more important side for stropping is the mirror side. In this case the side of the channel. You'll need a sharp edge on the leather for that.