dikman

Yeah, it's all good fun.

I found what I thought was 1/4" thick black perspex to try and make a maker's mark stamp. Judging by the smell it's probably bakelite! Anyhow, after experimenting with various speed/power settings it actually worked - sort of. The image is too small so some of the detail is lost, but as a proof-of-concept it worked, with an acceptable impression left in the leather. Next step is to buy some Delrin, which should work better, and scale up the image a little, which should make the stamp lines more substantial.

Just curious, does it stitch ok without the pin?

My suggestion is heat to remove it. Soak it in a bath of boiling water or use a hot air gun of some sort. Waxes are notoriously difficult to remove with solvents.

It looks very good, but one of the problems with black is it tends to hide the tooling details. In my opinion brown shades always look "right" on a holster, and you can use dark antiquing if you want to highlight the tooling.

This is where I found the image if anyone is interested. I might try one of the comical ones too. https://artincontext.org/dragon-coloring-pages/ Re- Lightburn, I don't normally buy software as I've always found free alternatives that are more than adequate for my needs but I made an exception in this case. It's a remarkable piece of gear with a huge amount of tutorials out there (which is just as well as it does my head in sometimes!).

One of my grand-daughters is sick, and she loves dragons, so.......I found an image on the 'net, and with very little understanding of Lightburn, away I went. I am pretty amazed at the detail in it, I was going to oil it when it dries out but I might just give it a clearcoat (or maybe just leave it alone). I sort of fluked the settings for the laser, and although I've been watching a lot of videos about using Lightburn it's pretty overwhelming what it can do.

Looks fine, simple and functional. You'll probably end up using it until it falls apart!

It was the one from RockyAussie, I just use it for everything.

I don't see why not. As DT said either buy a new motor or you could use a VFD (Variable Frequency Device) to convert your existing single phase to a 3-phase output to run the existing motor.

Best thing to do is to try it on a scrap piece of canvas. I sewed some plain canvas (a painter's drop sheet) using a round point needle and #138 thread (I couldn't get smaller needles) and the narrow needle plate on my 4500 and it worked fine. The key was having the narrow needle plate and feed dog. I just used the single sided foot, but experiment with what you have.

Pretty clever, Gerry, as long as it works for you is all that matters. SG, nothing wrong with fabricating it yourself, it's very satisfying to know you can still do it.. The table mine is on was originally a full-size table, then I decided to make a pedestal-style table and then it occurred to me I could achieve similar results by chopping up the table it was on. This also made it easier to move the lift pedal to the left. In your case if you can use material you already have lying around that's even better!

Very nice job! Almost a work of art. The only thing I would add is to line the jaws with leather.

Looking good, but you may find that having the leg between the two pedals might be a bit of a nuisance. Most tables generally have the two pedals side by side, makes for easier foot movement.

Yep, very nice bag indeed! Those Juki 563's might be old machines but they have a great reputation. Good choice (just don't expect to sew holsters with it).

SUP, I suspect you're right, the common denominator I found, when looking at the MSDS for various leather treatments, is mineral oil. It generally forms the major component in order to make the beeswax soft enough to spread as a paste. Most of the other additives are in quite small quantities, perhaps to add a pleasant smell and make people feel good because it has "natural ingredients" - although many companies consider mineral oil to be a natural product for the purpose of advertising. Plus it's probably relatively cheap to use as a commercial component.

This was my solution, it takes up the minimal amount of space for a machine its size. It was necessary to extend the foot pedal support and fit a castor under the end because the centre of gravity of these machines means they tip over if the machine is mounted right on the edge of the table. The foot pedal arrangement might look a little strange but it lets me operate the foot lifter with my left foot so I don't have to shift my right foot off the go pedal. It's on wheels because I need to be able to move it depending on the workpiece BUT even though a couple are locking wheels it's not as stable as having a fixed table.

Why? I just swapped the thread, needle and bobbin from 277 to 138 and it sewed ok with only minor tweaking to allow for the variation in material thickness.

Should be pretty solid!! Keep posting your progress.

My thoughts too, plus they're getting tossed around, rubbed against things and generally take a beating (and often in hot water). And then you've got assorted soaps and detergents to contend with. I doubt if any leather/faux leather is going to be too happy with all that going on.

Nothing wrong with those mate, they look great.

Yay! I finally found out how to convert my .jpg/.bmp image into a vector .svg file in Inkscape AND end up with thin lines! Inkscape is pretty good, for a free programme, but is not user-friendly or intuitive. I'd better write all this down before I forget how to do it.

Well, I finally got a fine line image that printed a, well, fine line. Thanks Bert, for letting me know it could be done. It's been a long frustrating process!! One of the issues that wasted a lot of time is that the trial version of Coreldraw won't let you save an .svg file. Virtually anything else can be saved but not that, nor do they tell you that. My solution - save it as a Coreldraw file (.cdr) then import it to Inkscape and then save it from there as .svg. Slightly convoluted but it works. The other issue is that the version I'm using (X7) has a bug that doesn't always let you convert a .bmp to RGB, which creates a save error. There were other issues too, but I won't bore anyone with them. Now that I have a slight understanding of the process I'll try and find a free programme that will do what I need. It's also occurred to me that maybe I don't need to tool something like a narrow belt, if I can lightly burn the pattern on the belt, use the swivel knife to lightly add the missing details and then apply antique paste it should subtly highlight the cut pattern? Something to think about.

Some servo/needle positioners do work with speed reducers although they seem to be in a minority. If it was all shipped as a package deal then I would assume it should work. I guess you've changed any settings in the menu that may need to be done for the positioner?

Very nice work on the knives and the sheathes.