TinkerTailor

Yes and no......Some fabric operations can be done in leather and some can't. Some don't need to. For example, most fabric seams are designed to hide the edge to eliminate fraying. With leather this is not necessary but may be done for style. The basic shapes should work, but you will have to make accommodations for the leather thickness. Thickness problems can show up in the weirdest ways. Sometimes you will have to switch the style of seam to suit leather. Sometimes a fabric design can be greatly simplified when using leather. It all depends. Garments are pretty straight forward, and patterns will cross over. Wallets and other small accessories, not as cut and dried.

To be a devils advocate, This hobby is not cheap. Quite a few people on here start small businesses making tools, respooling thread on smaller spools for resale, etc. The intention is to keep costs down. This industry is fairly small and it is difficult to make a full time living making tools or selling small amounts of tiger thread. However, sometimes, a product is very popular and people want alot of what you produce. You turn into a one armed wallpaper hanger and the enjoyable hobby becomes stressful due to workload. This can effect your bread and butter day job. Most people will sacrifice the hobby first. This leads to the question of fish, or cut bait. You either need to go full time into the small business or stop taking orders and preserve your day job. The friction happens when people take too much time to make this decision. Orders get dropped and mistakes happen at the day job due to lack of sleep . This is not a justification for the lack of communication, just a thought on how someone ends up in that position. They probably have not responded because they are embarrassed it got this far in the first place.

$15 dollars per tool in a lot on ebay as a starting bit is pretty high and greedy. If it was a $150 starting bid, and a 2 week auction, it might go that high but it would actually have interest and sell. I have seen whole complete usable 150 year old gerstner tool boxes full of quality antique saddlers tools go for less than that. I would watch, I bet it is relisted with a $1000-$1200 starting bid next and still won't sell. If you go to the trouble of splitting up the set and marketing them individuallly all cleaned up, you may get 15 per tool on average, after accounting for the fact some sell for more and some don't sell at all.

Those german manuals are pretty cool. In Volume 2, on pdf page 80 i found a scale diagram chart of all the needle systems, I have never seen this. A scale visual representation of needle systems could be pretty useful for finding needles for these old machines. I wish I read german..

A picture is worth a thousand words. Many of the users here are very good at identifying machines from pictures.

Crunchy or smooth?

Can you add another layer of leather to the stack? With stacked leather bicycle grips, i install them a little loose, case them and have the rider squish them to his hand shape, and i let them dry. I will seal them after this. May not work here, but it may. It depends how sealed the stacked leather is

Acrylic and lacquer finishes are basically complete sealants for the leather and will prevent any oils and things from penetrating. That is one of their advantages, they are stain resistant and water resistant if used right, however the tradeoff is they are also less penetrable when it comes to leather conditioners. Conditioning before the acrylic is the way to go. Leave the leather for a couple days to allow the oils to penetrate well and dissipate so they don't effect the resolene and then go to town. Wax finishes are not nearly as resistant to leather conditioners. Quite a few of the wax finishes also have oil and conditioners as ingredients.

I have not used any modern hyde stuff, but i have a couple vintage fixed blades that are awesome. One that I use as my 'clicker' most everywhere with exception to tight inside curves i found in a set of tools dating back to at least the 60's but appears to have been an older set someone resurrected in the 60's. There are a couple things in there that really pre date the rest. This knife may be one. I like the handle size and the leverage i get. I can fist it and trim 20oz square no prob. The point is small enough to do complex patterns on chrome tanned holding it like a pencil, and the way the tip is ground you can use it to trim one layer without disturbing the under layer if you hold it vertically, and slide the knife along on the curved portion. This is nice for trimming linings. This knife needed a quick touch up on a stone initially and nothing but a strop or two before each use for a year or two now. It appears to be a modified hyde bevel point like this: http://hydestore.com/hyde-tools-61080-heavy-duty-bevel-point-bg268-2-x-1.html It really is my favorite leather knife

http://hydestore.com/knives-blades/industrial-hand-knives/blades Already ground for under 10 bux.

It may be tough, but 10 layers at 3oz per layer? That is 30 oz. or 0.472". A 201 tops out at 5/16", way less than 1/2 inch. http://leatherworker.net/forum/index.php?showtopic=20945&p=135094

The other way is the old school backstitch, before machines had reverse, you just turned the work around 180 and then sewed 3-4 stitches back. You have to make sure you wait until the needle has started to come back up from the bottom a bit to ensure the stitch has completed before you lift the foot and turn, or put it in reverse.

superglue it.

Did you ask gateway shoe machine? The owner of sutton went to gateway when the company was sold. Read here: http://www.gatewayshoemachine.com/gateway/?section=sutton_shoe_machines

I forgot dead blows, they are cheap and effective, however they dont last long on punching and stamping duty for me. I have swung a hammer alot in my life and am pretty good with one. I have to be conscious to move the hammer around with them, because i hit in exactly the same spot every time, and end up drilling a hole in the face of the hammer with the stamp because they tend to be too soft.

Just a heads up, before you put any time or money into that machine, You should be aware that it is not well suited to leather work. It is designed as a high speed fabric tailoring machine. It is not going to have the punch, foot lift or thread size capability to sew leather. It will also run way too fast for sewing leather. Most leatherwork is done on walking foot machines because leather does not slide under feet like cloth does. Most leatherworkers have machines that go as slow as 1/2 stitch per second. Yours likely is designed to stitch at 1000+ stitches a minute. The needle will glow red hot if you sew leather that fast. Second heads up is judging by the amount of info on it online, it is not a common machine, meaning parts may or may not be an issue. If you do want to put some time into this machine, here is the manual: http://www.manualslib.com/manual/153891/Singer-1500-2.html It has parts pictures of a table hinge accessory that may give you an idea how the table works. If you are looking for a leather machine, there are great tutorials and a whole bunch of bunches of threads talking about what machine is what, Which one gets used to make different types of things, thread capacity, what machines have parts, what machines are plentiful and cheap, etc. There is alot of discussion.....Some of us may have a little bit of an obsession....Others have used and owned dozens of machines professionally. Your new mantra will be "compound feed walking foot".........

Some of these machines do not come set up to backstitch properly. There is an adjustment deep down in there, and a cheater way to fix it. Alot of people will loosen the screws on the angled plate with the numbers on it on the stitch adjuster and place washers or shims behind the top or bottom, whichever gets the stitch lengths closer to each other. On my machine i have about 2mm of shims under the top of the plate because the stitch length ran long in reverse.

Grease. The elbow kind. Solvents and degreasers and elbow grease. The stronger the cleaner and the longer the contact time, the less elbow grease needed. Simple green extreme works pretty good. So does WD40. It is a great grunge buster. Get the jug, not the spray can and brush it on. Use soap (simple green) after you let it sit with wd40 on the goop for a day and then have scrubbed it. The wd40 dissolves the grunge, and the soap cuts the wd40. Warming the whole machine up will help immensely. Soak all the parts with wd40, turn the shop heat up a notch or two past comfortable for a day or so and then clean it. Old grungey goo is wayyyyy more stubborn when cold. Use warmed solutions as well. Rinse and repeat. After cleansing, i recommend an all over moisturizing with some lightweight oil......Girls like the spa.. Also, If she is a she, i would play a little Patsy and see how she likes it.

A steel hammer is needed. The rubber hammer will allow the head to move around more. A steel flat faced hammer, on a solid metal anvil surface will set them basically flush with the surface. The other thing to ensure is the hole is slightly smaller than the rivet shaft. I punch mine small and jam a round awl in to stretch it to insert the rivet. If the shaft is tight in the hole, it is less likely to move around and bend. Jiffy rivets work good with the post end level or just above the surface. If i can't push the cap flush with the leather its is too long, and if i can't feel the tip above the surface, it is too short.

Btw, skip the craft-tool. Check this lee valley mallet: http://www.leevalley.com/en/wood/page.aspx?p=30003&cat=1,41504,43688 Its cheaper and way nicer. Edit: just checked link in original post to amazon, that one looks like a good deal, provided the head stands up.

I never had a rawhide I liked. To be honest i break the rules and use a 3lb rock drilling hammer for alot of stuff, most of my hole punching and hand setting. Not worried about tool damage using a steel hammer. They have long handles, i can dress them up at least a few times, and they last way better if you hit them straight without a limp wrist. I have a crappy wooden mallet that i got at the dollar store for tooling. I don't do alot of tooling. maul vs mallet? I look at it as a work position issue, If your elbow is on the bench, the maul with the head tapered puts the face of the striking surface level with the bench when you hit the tool. If you are standing and hitting with your elbow in the air, use a mallet. That is why cobblers hammers have such an angled face, they are hammering on things at eye height, so the face angle keeps them from having to raise their arm so high to swing. For other stuff i have a couple ball peens, a couple sheetmetal hammers, a cobblers hammer, couple tack hammers, a tinners rivet hammer and some others. I may have more hammers than i need........Funny thing is i actually have uses for all of them. Its amazing the ways humans have found to smash stuff with a mass on a stick...

Also don't forget this is a free site..Run by people who love leatherwork and shareing this knowledge, who don't get paid.... Good things take time sometimes..?.. I bet a few bucks in the coffee fund would help along those adult area requests..Servers ain't free....Just sayin

I wasn't sure if you were referring to a "wood cookie" or an actual round. I heated with wood for many years and i see you mean a real round. Some of the apt dwellers on here think any piece of tree 2" thick is a round.... That thumpin stump will serve you well. The mass should help alot with the noise as well as maximizing the damage productivity of your hammering........Check out nigel armitages videos if you have not already. He has a really cool stump setup. His tools and stitching clam are attached to it..

Punch straight into the end grain of the pine round. It will be easier on the chisel than the plastic. If it gets stuck in the plastic it is more likely to break than the wood. End grain wood is the original self healing cutting surface. The plastic is easier to cut on with knives.. If the round is small enough to put in your lap, it will be almost silent. On the table, expect your neighbours to hear some thumping.

If you don't have a nice copy of the manual, here it is: http://1stinfantrydivision.de/images/stories/PDF_Dateien//Instruction%20Manual%20Singer%2029K58,%2029K62,%2029K71.pdf It is hosted by another user here, Constabulary.