dikman

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.

That is a domestic machine and they generally are not suitable for sewing leather. Sorry. Don't waste your money.

Simple fact is for that work you need an upholstery-class machine, they typically have walking feet, 3/8" clearance under the feet and handle #69 thread (and sometimes #138). Singer 111/211, Consew, Seiko, Juki are all good solid machines in that category. All you can really do is keep looking, something is likely to turn up eventually. If you come across something and aren't sure or need advice post info/photos on here. Good luck with your hunting.

Very impressive work!

What Chuck said, you don't have to apply contact cement to both surfaces to use it. You could just coat one piece and put them together while wet but you would have to be careful not to move the piece until it is dry.

All is not lost, go over it with an antique paste, that should bring out the stamping and give it a nice used look.

Main thing is you figured out what was wrong.

Nice work, that belt looks pretty solid!

Photos of the machine and any bits that you're not sure of always help.

You might be struggling to find screws to fit as Singer used their own proprietary thread sizes. It might be easier to re-tap the holes to more standard threads.

If you're spraying acrylics there's a huge range of ready-to-spray paints available from model-making stores, also used by fishing lure makers.

A servo will have more than enough torque to run your 206RB. If you're concerned about it get a 750w version and if you need even more torque fit a speed reducer too. I spent a lot of time messing around with a clutch motor, pulleys and speed reducers until I finally saw the light and swapped to a servo. Don't waste your time trying to tame a clutch motor, trust me, a servo is the only way to go if you want to sew leather.

Chuck, non of the native species have antlers or tusks (not even drop bears!) they come from introduced (and now considered pest) species. This tine came off a youngish fallow deer, unfortunately they tend to have thinnish antlers with large palms and lots of smallish tines, so it's difficult to get a lot of material that's useable as knife handles. The palms look really nice but so far I haven't figured out a use for them (too thin). There are several species of deer across Australia, I just take what I'm offered. I did have some off a Rusa or Sambar that was nice and thick but I used it up making grips for my revolvers. And yes, I've got to work on the blade a bit, this was in way of an experiment so I'll play around with it a bit - when it gets cooler, it's supposed to be 42*C today!!!!!