gary

Try http://www.abbeyengland.com/Store/tabid/77/txtSearch/dye/catpageindex/2/ProductID/68775/Default.aspx You need to register with them to see their prices (£22.80 incl VAT plus postage for 0.5kg) Gary

Welcome, Graeme, from the other side of the country. You've found the best leather site on the net; you're no doubt already stunned by the amount of information available and the freely given help. Welcome again. Gary

Thought I'd just finish this off by stating that the potential customer has failed to reply to my request for additional basic information such as what size? What colour? What type of fastener? Padded or lined interior? Any gusset? They did send one e-mail that seemed to show they believed that leather fell into two categories, Schedoni (or similar) or 'standard bonded' with nothing in-between. Blinded by merchandising, bless them. Gary

Art, Thanks for that. I have got a couple of possible contacts in the UK for similar leather but I will try your suggestions if they come to nothing. Gary

This site is great ... look for a subject and it'll be there, somewhere. I have a potential customer who wants some small pouches made. The customer is insisting that the leather used is Schedoni 'or a similar high quality' leather. I've had a look at the Schedoni website (still just a black hole as Johanna found and very little information). So, what is it about their leather that makes it so great? Apart from the Ferrari, Puma, etc links. And, is there any leather that's as good (and more easily obtained) that doesn't come from pampered French cows that are wrapped in cotton-wool and have daily spa treatments and are born with a Ferrari/Puma/Mercedes birthmark? Gary

Ditto LePrevo. You may also want to try http://www.abbeysaddlery.co.uk/ http://www.bowstock.co.uk/index.html http://www.josephdixon.co.uk/ Gary

Really sorry to hear about your Mum. A lovely lady. My sincere condolences.

Chris, Welcome to LW from another Brit (though living 'abroad'). Try http://www.abbeysaddlery.co.uk/product_detail.cfm?id=B070 They call it a shaft staple. Abbey are happy to deal with small orders and non-commercial set-ups and they're helpful. And they're in the UK. You'll have to register with them to view their prices (56p each for 1" wide to 97p each for 2" wide). Gary

Hi Gus, Nice to see someone else from up here. Glad you found LW - great place. Gary

There are some outdoor fabric and notions suppliers that do them (Pointnorth is one - can't remember any others offhand). It may also be worth checking out boat suppliers online and also some of the classic car restoration sites. The latter are usually very expensive. Gary

Shirley, You need two measurements: 1. The size of the dog's neck where the collar will fit. This will be the size of the leather part of the collar when pulled tight by the chain. Not too tight otherwise you risk damage to the trachea and other vital bits. 2. The maximum size the collar and chain need to be to get it over the dog's head. This should be the size of the chain loop and dees (the dees attach to the ends of the collar) plus the leather collar. The martingale/half-check/half-choke collars I have made have had buckles to make them adjustable as the two sizes, above, do not usually harmonise plus the condition of a dog and thickness of coat will vary throughout the year. We have Bernese Mountain Dogs and we don't use these collars as the chain catches and pulls at their fur and they become quite adept at backing out of them as Spence says. Just my two pence worth. Gary

Pricking irons are usually identified by their size (No 8 = 8 stitches per inch). I had a look at the Dixon's site and it does appear confusing as they state teeth per 1.1/2 inches. It's slightly clearer on their 1" irons. I have found that the difference in price is reflected in the quality. Some years ago I thought I'd give a cheaper pricking iron a try (I think it was an Eastern European manufacturer) and it was a disaster. They may have been made of good quality metal but the teeth were not set an equal distance apart and the angles of the teeth varied. It went in the bin. Gary

You shouldn't need to use an overstitch wheel if you've used a pricking iron; the stitches will have sunk partly into the leather. If you want the stitches to be below the level of the leather surface you could always gouge a stitching channel and then prick the stitch marks into that. Gary

Welcome to LW - loads of information and help. Sorry to hear about your dog. Nice to see another Brit on here. Hope you find what you're looking for. Gary

I may be a bit late replying to this but I have all 3 and use 1 and 2 mostly with the occasional dip into No 3. Do you want me to scan the contents pages for you so you can have a deek before you buy? Gary

Nice work. Welcome to LW. Good to see someone else from Scotland's West Coast here, makes me feel less isolated. Gary

Ray, 'Fool me once, shame on you; fool me twice, shame on me'. Have a good Christmas knowing you did the right thing. Gary

I may have an answer as I made one some time ago. I don't have a picture but I'll try and explain. A loop, in my case shaped like a staple, was sewn onto the body of the pouch. This was made of strapping about 1/2" wide. A hole, slightly larger than the staple, is made in the flap so it goes over the staple. The staple has to be large enough to protrude through the hole with enough space for a tab to pass through. A tab is made of two pieces of leather, one longer than the other. They are stitched together around the tip so a doubled layer pases through the staple. This tab is then stitched or rivetted to the flap above the previously made hole so that the doubled end will pass through the part of the staple that passes through the hole. The tab can be made stiffer by putting some rawhide or plastic between the layers. I will try and make one up today to illustrate what I mean. Hope it helps. Just found a picture of an early prototype from ages ago. It only has a single layer tab and the hole in the flap is a bit too big.

Ray, I'd forgotten about the Corona man until you mentioned it. His visit was a highlight of the week. And you got money back on the bottles so they could be re-used - as kids we used to go round and find any discarded bottles so we could make a profit. If I remember correctly, 'discarded' had a broad interpretation. We did have ginger beer that my Dad made from a 'ginger beer plant' he kept in the shed - the most exciting drink around as you never knew when one of the bottles would explode if he got the mix wrong. Sort of non-alcoholic Russian roulette. Gary

I think it's based on pi times 2000 for some reason (and then rounded-up).

And I've just remembered the military used both degrees and mils to describe an angle. 360 degrees = 6400 mils. Everyone used degrees because it was easiest apart from the artillery who used mils. Massive potential for confusion as an azimuth of 180 degrees (behind me) for indirect fire could be interpreted as 180 mils (almost in front of me). Don't know if mils is a metric or scientific abberation. Something to do with one mil angle at 1000 metres (or meters) measured 1 metre laterally.

I use metric because we have to since the UK agreed to become part of the European experiment. I think and use Imperial for almost all my leatherwork. We buy litres of petrol (gas) but all our roadsigns are in miles and yards. I use miles per gallon but they try and sell us car performance at litres per 100 kilometres. Don't hate Napoleon too much as he was the originator of riding on the right - something to do with reducing the number of sword fights from horseback I am led to believe. My mother still mentally converts metric pounds and pence to imperial pounds, shillings and pence and nearly has a heart attack when she finds out how much something costs. When I started nursing in the 70's we had only recently gone metric so many of the older doctors/nurses still thought and spoke and wrote in drachms and so on, so we had to learn to convert in our heads as all meds were in metric. Midwives still seem to talk about baby feeds in ounces rather than millilitres. We've had hectares for years but everyone I know still speaks in acres and you can visualise an acre (well, I can), but a hectare?. And metric quantities are still sold by the dozen. And didn't the UK, at one time many years ago, want to be like Europe and drive on the right? That would have been very sporty! Gary

I'd give Le Prevo in Newcastle a try as well (http://www.leprevo.co.uk/). I've recently started using them and they are very helpful, reasonably priced and they have leather that isn't on their website that may be what you're after. Gary

I use a lot of bridle leather and have made cases and bags from it. I use no finish other than a wax polish once the article is complete. Depending on the bag style and size you may want to use a shoulder rather than a side or you could try bag hide (sometimes called girth hide) which is a little more flexible and doesn't have such a waxy finish. Gary

Thanks for that. My timing's bad - I was up in Oldmeldrom yesterday and this morning so could have popped in. Never mind. And thanks again. Gary