Sheilajeanne

The bow is fiberglass. The leather should not be structural, but just decoration, or to provide a better hand grip. Okay, it MIGHT play a role in dampening vibration when you loose the string. If that's the case - and I've been involved with archery for a long, long time, and have seen many bows, so I think I'm right - there is NO reason you should not be able to remove it and replace it with something dyed another colour. It looks like it's just laced onto the bow, so removing it should be simple. If it turns out to be difficult to remove, because it's glued to the bow, you could try deglazing it first, then dyeing. The primary ingredient in deglazer is acetone, and it will not harm fiberglass. It's actually used to remove stains from fiberglass. My one concern would be a reaction between the fiberglass and whatever glue they'd used on the leather, but if you just wipe it on lightly with a rag, then let it dry, I think you will be good! I have never seen a bow that looks just like that. Very interesting design! Where was it made? And what are you planning to do with it? What's the draw weight?

Hmmm...okay, I have no way of knowing just how old these stamps are, as I bought them from a pawn shop. Given there were quite a number of older Tandy stamps in the lot, they could easily date back that far. Have never bought new stamps from Ivan.

Like I said, Fred, Ivan now makes stamps Tandy has discontinued, like acorns and holly leaves. But - good question. Maybe there is some connection. If not, Ivan is definitely trying to compete with Tandy.

I bought a large lot of stamps from a pawn shop a couple of years ago. Many of the tools were Ivan, and included stamps that Tandy used to make, but stopped producing a number of years ago. They are definitely not top-notch tools, but the do at least as good a job as most of the Tandy stamps.

I feel for you! Although the elderly lady who owned the house before me apparently had things well organized, all the many, many shelves were stuffed with craft materials of various sorts. It was quite a job for her children to get the house ready for sale. And it's made me think twice about buying more stuff, as I'm no spring chicken any longer.

And THIS is what my leather craft area looked like BEFORE I moved into this house! (Yeah, I know, I posted another view of this earlier, but this gives a better view of how I stored things.) There was a closet to the right of what you see in the photo where I stored dyes, glues etc. plus projects (kits) I was planning to work on, and also a cupboard in the kitchen where I stored large rolls of hide which wouldn't fit in the closet. The plastic drawers contain small things like rivets, snaps, letter sets, lace, thread, tracing paper, brushes and swabs, patterns, buttons, etc. The wooden things under the bench are Ikea shelves I never got around to finding a use for when I moved into the house. The room was an addition to the house, had patio doors at the far end, and got damn cold in the winter, thus the electric heater to the left of my chair.

This house was an estate sale. The old lady who lived here before me was into crafts in a really big way. She had three or four sewing machines, and what is now my craft room was her sewing room. Two 15 foot long counters ran along each side of the room. She had a kiln out in the laundry room where she did pottery. She also did stained glass and made lawn ornaments out of metal and ceramic. There were shelves EVERYWHERE in both the basement and the laundry room. I heard her children filled at least two dumpsters with all the stuff she'd accumulated over the years when they were preparing the house for sale. I never got to see what they threw out, but I'm sure a lot of it was good stuff from her crafts that they just couldn't find a home for locally. She was a widow and lived alone unless her family was visiting, so there was no one to complain about all her craft stuff. Wish I'd had a chance to see it before she died! Here's the board over her sewing area where she kept her scissors and spools of thread. I already took down the shelves that were to the left of the board.

Too funny Fred!

Good luck with that!

Before I moved to my current house, this was my tiny perfect leatherworking area:

Johnny - had to show you this:

This applied to me before I had my current dedicated craft room. Now it's just the craft room and a small area in my kitchen...

Oh, he knew where they were all right! He borrowed the clothes iron to put veneer strips on the edges of shelves he'd bought, and he definitely did NOT want me to know about it! I would not have been happy!!

That is indeed some lovely work, olbrokemarine! Your kids are lucky to have you, and I'm sure these things you've made will become family heirlooms!

I think it's more likely what Chuck said! And knowing how my husband was always 'borrowing' stuff (tools, etc.) from me, and not returning them, I'd want my OWN set of tools, and I'd lock them up if we were both doing leathercraft! After he died, I found my iron, my spare can opener and a whole bunch of other stuff down at his apartment building. I remember specifically asking him about both the can opener and iron, and both times he shrugged and said, "I have NO idea where they are!"

My husband's family were victims of the Highland clearances. Fortunately the leader of their clan, Lord Hamilton, was a member of Parliament. He petitioned the government to help those who had been displaced, and was refused. So, using his own money, he bought a ship, and chose those he though were best able to adjust to life in the New World. The plan was for the immigrants to reach Niagara-on-the-Lake, but the owner of the boat hired to take them to Lake Ontario* was a real scoundrel. He let them off in the middle of the wilderness and told them Niagara-on-the-Lake was just over the hill! The whole party would have died if the local indigenous people hadn't helped them and shown them how to survive. My husband still had a letter in his possession where one of the women wrote back home, saying, "We had a slightly better winter this year. One bairn survived..." He remembers his mother showing him that letter and saying, "YOU are descended from that 'one bairn'!" This group of immigrants went on to found Hamilton, Ontario. I forgot to mention earlier that my husband was a cadet with the RCAF, and went through university on the Reserve Officer Training Plan. When his training was finished, he decided not to accept a commission. He also worked as an engineering draftsman on the DEW line in Labrador during the Cold War. *The rapids in the St Lawrence River were impassable, so it was necessary to travel overland, then hire a second boat. The St. Lawrence Seaway solved that problem!

Coming to Upper Canada was definitely a good move for my 'anchor ancestor'. If he had remained in Ireland as a tenant farmer, he never would have owned the land he farmed, nor would he have had anything to pass on to his children. In Canada, he was able to get 200 acres of land from the government for free, as long as he developed it within a certain number of years. Not an easy task when the land was all virgin forest! He did rather well for himself, In 1861, the first year for which I have a census record, he was living in a brick house while his neighbours were still in log cabins. The two biggest surprises I've found so far are that my great grandmother's first husband was assistant editor for The Mail, a Toronto newspaper which eventually merged with George Brown's Globe to become The Globe and Mail. The Globe and Mail is one of Canada's best known newspapers. His mother also worked for The Mail, as a reporter. This would have been a very unusual job for a woman back in the 1860's. She had to work, however, as her husband had died. Secondly, I recently discovered there's a stained glass window in the church I attend that's dedicated to the parents of one of my great uncles. Both he and his father were physicians, so the window is dedicated to St. Luke.

The dangers of farming are not well known to the general public. Injuries from livestock or farm equipment are all too common - one of my uncles broke both his ankles when his pant leg caught in the hay elevator. He also accidentally ran over one of his son's with the disc harrow, when the boy fell off the back of the tractor! He suffered from farmer's lung in his old age, but still managed to outlive all of his siblings. And that's JUST one of the six families who stayed in farming! (There were 10 kids in my dad's immediate family.) Out of those six families, some of the grandchildren farmed for awhile, but as of today, they have all taken other safer and more lucrative jobs. One quit due to several friends dying of cancer. This got him concerned over the many chemicals farmers are exposed to, especially the pesticides. I think my father's youngest sister's grandson may be doing dairy, judging by what I see on his FB timeline, but I don't talk with him, so I'm not sure. I know his dad worked as a welder after his parents sold their farm.

Very true! All of us except for indigenous people were immigrants at one time, and my German/Irish ancestors were also refugees. The only one of my dad's family to fight in WWII was my eldest uncle, who helped to liberate Holland. Farmers were exempt, as the livestock needed looking after, and someone had to grow food to feed the people. My dad went to enlist, but they saw shadows on his lung x-rays and told him he had TB, and essentially sent him home to die. It must have been dust from the threshing on the farm because, as a teacher, he frequently was tested for TB, and the tests were always negative. He did develop respiratory problems in his old age, probably due to all that dust he inhaled before leaving the farm (farmer's lung). He lived to be 89, just missing his 90th birthday be 3 weeks! Another uncle worked on the home front for the RCMP, helping to track down Nazis and other foreign agents.

Chuck - wow!! Very interesting! Some of my family members who remember world wars with Germany were upset to find out about the German ancestry. Which is pretty silly, because it dates back to long before either WWI or WWII. On my mother's side of the family, her grandmother and grandfather immigrated from Germany at the time of Bismarck. I found it interesting that the grandmother's ancestry suddenly changed to 'Canadian' from 'German' on the Canadian census done at the time of the first world war! Maybe I'll get around to doing my DNA profile one of these days...

Spyros, I have NO idea what the original label on my cutting boards said! I got them a long, long time ago. So, not going to trust them with my chisels.

The poundo board was from Tandy. And yes, I have it under the belly leather when punching holes.

I used plastic cutting board in my kitchen, and also have a couple for leatherworking. However, the HDPE seems a LOT harder to me than a poundo board, which is like firm rubber. After ruining those chisels on the poundo board, I'm not tempted to do any punching on the HDPE~

This piece of belly leather was unusually thick. Parts of it are around 10 oz! Tandy was having a sale, and I bought it to practice my carving skills on. Found it had other uses, too! Fred, that looks like a great idea!

After ruining a set of chisels on my poundo board, I now punch with a thick piece of belly hide under my project. Cheap, and easily replaced when it gets too many holes in it!