dikman

Very nice work indeed.

Fred, I just threw away a litre container full of chicken fat - how do you reckon I would go sending it to you in the mail? Seriously, I wouldn't ever consider using chicken fat on leather unless you have no sense of smell!! It stinks to high heaven and is a sickening smell!

For a first effort at stamping you did well, you picked a tricky pattern but got it right. Some sort of stamping across the top would have given it a more finished look but it's still impressive.

Very nice! Should get the bidders going!!

You want to be certain the car leather is veg and not chrome tanned.

There seems to be two similar threads running concurrently. Anyhow, don't overthink it, any reasonably dense wood should do as once you use it a bit the grain/pores should seal up. I've used Australian Jarrah (bloody hard!) and Australian Oak planks (bit softer) which I laminated and turned down to fit my bench grinder. Both work fine. The grinder runs at 2800 rpm, which is really a bit fast but works, 1400 rpm would be better.

There's a chap called Sam Andrews (has holster-making videos on youtube) who has an aluminium burnisher on a motor. I see no reason that brass shouldn't work too. I made mine out of hardwood, mainly because I could drill the hole for the shaft slightly undersize and then force it onto the grinder shaft and cut the thread at the same time.

You CAN get a good deal buying directly from China but it largely depends on the regulations in your country regarding importing goods. In my case (Australia) by the time I took into account shipping, import/duty fees, local shipping/handling etc there was nothing to be gained cost-wise (looking at a 441 clone). As for the manufacturing, it's a safe bet that they're coming out of the same few factories, regardless of brand. As Constabulary said, you pays your money and they'll stick on any name you like. The quality seems to be pretty good these days.

Forget the Minerva, the Juki looks like a newer machine (?) and would be my pick for the money. As Al said they are generally highly regarded.

One or two on here, including me, have replaced the handwheel with a large pulley to slow down a machine. You will need to remove the handwheel and measure the shaft diameter and then find a suitable pulley to fit the shaft. The chances of finding an actual replacement larger handwheel would be pretty slim. This was an old pulley that I had lying around, I had to shim the shaft and while it's not exactly pretty it works.

If you glue it and then tool it you could end up with some unwanted marks on the other side.

Very impressive! Some nice carving on it.

You could get one machine to sew most of what you want - except holsters! As Wiz said you will need a heavy-duty harness stitcher for that.

Just caught up on this thread again. As Sup has said, many of the commercial treatment products contain mineral oil for the bulk of the product and then add small amounts of beeswax or similar. The mineral oil is relatively cheap for them to use and it obviously works but adding the wax thickens it up and sounds better in their advertising! As for using cooked chicken fat good luck with it!! I can tell you that the chicken fat from chicken cooked on my Weber definitely goes rancid and stinks to high heaven!

Tallow is a proven safe product to use on leather but it might make the original recipe a bit stiffer/thicker. Other than that I don't see why it wouldn't work?

I've watched quite a few videos on boot repair and never cease to be amazed at the complexity involved in making boots.

Looks good to me. Mistakes? Maybe, but they're not obvious to me. Cute knife and handle.

What a great find, I love the vintage wing nut I've never seen one like that before.

I thought the same thing. Had me puzzled and I wondered what had changed.

Been slow at my end for the last couple of days, just figured it was ongoing issues so didn't want to complain unduly.

That's always an issue when you're used to the thickness of hand stitching. To try and replicate the look (thickness) you're getting into harness stitching machine territory.

I have an old casting 335 and after much tinkering and adjusting I got it to sew #138 - but it wasn't happy about it. It was much better with #69.

Full marks for innovative thinking! Your use of a wood clamp for the tightening mechanism is different, very clever. Is that an SMD unit on the bench? I have a hot-air soldering device that is very handy for heating things - heatshrink tubing, softening glues, bending plastics - in fact I use it for everything BUT soldering!

Sheilajeanne, you must have a very different type of walnut than my tree as mine are pretty easy to crack, unlike my macadamia nuts, the only way I can crack them is in a vice! In fact there is only one bird that can crack them and that is the Black Cockatoo (must have one hell of a strong beak!!!). The White Sulphur-crested Cockatoos, on the other hand, do a great job of stripping my walnut tree. And yes, the ripened husks stain hands wonderfully! As DaleksInc said I suspect most leather goods way back then were just left to age darken naturally.

If you're talking about handstitching then make the thread a lot longer than is needed, as you pull the thread through the first foot or so will rub the dye out of the hole.