Sheilajeanne

I keep hearing of companies who lay off their older workers, or force them to take early retirement, because they cost the company more in wages than the younger workers. They often wind up hiring them back as 'consultants' because the young 'uns haven't a CLUE what they are doing, and totally screw things up! FALSE ECONOMY to get rid of your experienced people!! Another story - I recently found out my mother's father, who was station agent for the local C.N.R. railway station retired in 1947, before I was born! That was his OFFICIAL retirement date. Before I was old enough to be in school, my mom would take me with her when she went down to Main Street to shop. She would often stop in at the station to talk with her dad. I still remember seeing him with his green transparent eye shade, and his sleeve garters. He died when I was 7, at age 76. He kept working until about a year before his death He would have lived longer if he hadn't been such a heavy smoker of 'roll your own' cigarettes.

Mtl.Biker, I had a set of the black stitching chisels from Tandy, and my poundo board totally WRECKED them!! And these were Tandy Pro punches! https://tandyleather.ca/collections/tools/products/88043-535-pro-line-diamond-stitching-chisels Okay, if you are using your stitching horse, I can see using a cork, but I pre-punch my holes before stitching. Only thing I use my awl for is if I'm having trouble finding the hole, because it's sort of closed itself up! A way of preventing stitch holes stretching when you are using a punch is to use a pulling block when removing the punches. Got this tip from Nigel Armitage's book - get a small block of wood, and place it beside your chisel when pulling it out of the holes!

So using cork on the backside is better than another piece of leather? I've been using a nice, thick piece of belly leather, after I found my poundo board wasn't good for my punches.

I save popsicle sticks for spreading glue...

Okay, here's a few things I've learned. As an older person who's having quite a bit of back and hip pain right now, don't forget your comfort. A comfortable chair, NOT a hard wooden stool will be very helpful with those long tooling and sewing sessions. On casters, of course, so you can zip between work stations! Let's not forget good lighting. I have a very bright LED tube hanging from the shelf above my tooling/cutting area. Don't know what I'd do without it! Table height is important too. My work area is made up of repurposed kitchen counters which came with the house. The previous owner had been into sewing in a big way. I soon found the counters were just a little too high for me to work comfortably, so I had my handyman saw a couple of inches off the bottom. I hear ya about electrical outlets!! Mine are all down near the baseboards, so I had to plug in a power bar to make the juice accessible. And yes, definitely have them covered - leather dust gets EVERYWHERE, and you don't want it getting in the outlets! As for storage, I have a big problem with dust in my work area, because there's been a lot of work being done on my home. Fortunately, there's a large closet with sliding doors and shelves in the room, and this is where I store my leather. It protects it from the light, too. Things I used most frequently are on the shelves over top of the work areas, or in a small plastic tool storage box (3 drawers, it's about 8" x 10") (swivel knives, honing oil and stones, box cutter) or in the topmost drawers of the counter, on either side of the knee hole (cork back rulers, shears, . I also have a plastic 6 drawer storage unit for less frequently used stuff. Yes, I have to hunt for stuff sometimes, but I have a pretty good memory as to what's stored where. Messy stuff like dyes and other liquids are in plastic boxes inside the counter cupboards. Stamps are at the back of the tooling area in racks. I am planning to add a pegboard at the back to store things like edgers and chisels.

True, dat!

I was doubly lucky in that I found a wonderful mentor when I signed up for their free beginner's classes. God rest your soul, Bill, there must be thousands of leather workers out there who were turned on to this marvelous craft through your patient teaching! He also knew the stock in the store better than some of the managers Tandy picked to work there...

And that's why I'm so glad I'm only 35 minutes from the nearest Tandy store! You may not get Herman Oak there, and other really top grade leathers, but at least I can see what I'm getting, and not have the hassle of returning crap! I've heard so many stories like yours, Chuck, it's turned me off ever ordering leather by phone or over the internet! Tools, dyes, etc., fine, but not leather.

I may be wrong, but I doubt anyone on this board will be able to answer your question. Suggest you call the Hide House and ask them.

Yes, found out the hard way that it's very difficult to cut thin leathers without a rotary cutter! Olfa is one of the best brands. The blades get dull pretty fast, so make sure you get some extras.

A summary of the history of railroad gauge here. The size of the fuel tanks on the space shuttles was determined by the width of a horse's ass! http://www.astrodigital.org/space/stshorse.html

Horses usually only wear bell boots when they are being ridden. This would prevent the horse from fooling with the buckles. These bell boots were, IIRC, rubber. I was taking part in a combined training event, and we'd had a very bad thunderstorm that had turned the dressage ring into a muddy mess. I lost one of the boots during the dressage test, but because the tape was still wrapped around the horse's hoof, I THOUGHT it was still there. So, I went ahead and did the cross country course - where I really NEEDED the bell boots! Fortunately, everything went okay, and we came in 10th out of 54 entries. I never did get the missing boot back, and I replaced them with one that had a leather thong going through two metal pieces to lock them closed. That might be an alternative to velcro or buckles, if you can picture it.

I second what TomE said! Let me tell you about my experience with velcro closures on bell boots. If your horse is working in wet, muddy conditions, you are going to loose your bell boots. This happened to me once, even though I had the vecro covered with waterproof surgical tape - you know, the type that rips all the hair off when you're removing it from a wound! I'd strongly recommend going with buckles instead.

Yup, that's how it's done!

Or something more like this? This is from a Tandy kit - it's the Windsor belt bag.

Are you wanting something with a drawstring top or a flap? A drawstring is so simple you don't really need a pattern.

This is one of my main go-to references when carving: https://tandyleather.ca/collections/books-patterns/products/how-to-carve-leather-book It shows things step by step. It's the sort of book you want to be able to see close up, rather than looking at a PDF. And $20 is not going to break the bank. (That's Canadian dollars, too, so even cheaper in the U.S.!)

Never too old to learn something new!!

I know, billy, and it does double duty - edger AND burnisher!

Tandy sells a glass burnisher, so it's definitely not a new idea!

Chuck, they're probably made with modern tools, but done in foreign sweat shops... And yeah, dubious quality...

Samalan, LOL! Me too - I'd certainly be poking a few holes in them!

He has likely been doing this all his life. I think if he had to go back to lesser tools (his original tools), the muscle memory would still be there. It might take him a little while to get the strength back in his hands, though - can you IMAGINE hand punching holes through that sole leather all day long? Mucho respect for this craftsman! And I would definitely buy a pair of shoes from him! They would probably last longer than anything available here in Canada!

And love he's using a scrap of broken glass to do the final edging and burnishing on the soles! No fancy stitching pony, either - just his bare feet! KGG, sewing machine embroidery? Hmm...don't think so. That machine he's using looks like a really old domestic - maybe an old treadle machine that's had a motor put on it. Okay, maybe one of the machine experts here could take a look at it, and let us know what they think...it seems to have no problem sewing the straps, but the leather on those isn't very thick. I went back and looked at that section of the video again, and I see a loose thread hanging off the end of one of the decorative pieces (3.40 on the video, and again at the very end of the video, when he's showing off his finished work.) I THINK it could be a crocheted pattern, done using fine yarn, then appliqued to the leather. The pattern looks like small circles knitted together. With the primitive sewing machine he has, that wouldn't be possible. So, maybe the women in the family do the decorative bits by crocheting or embroidering, and he attaches them to the leather.

This is how you do it when you don't have fancy tools! It was especially interesting to see him using a miniature metal hook, similar to a crochet hook, to both punch holes and sew the layers of the sandals together! He must have very strong hands, and that hook must be really sharp on the end! https://www.facebook.com/watch?v=320176276730786 Edit: does anyone know how he applied the decorative pattern to the shoes? The video doesn't show that part.