Sheilajeanne

Here I pay .05 for grocery bags, and I do it willingly. I use 'em for dog poop, dog hair, regular garbage, etc, etc. and don't know what I'd do if I had to go to the reusable ones. Guess I'd be buying Glad Kitchen Catchers instead! Next time I need to replace my shower curtain, I am going to save a big piece of it for dyeing and gluing my leather work. Waxed paper just isn't big enough to cover everything, and if you use several sheets, dye can leak through the gaps if it spills. Oh, and I have a ball of cheese wax from some Edam cheese that I use to wax thread ends when I'm sewing and they start to separate on me! Also works for waxing bow strings!

Make it yourself? If you get seriously into this hobby, your collection of tools will very quickly outgrow whatever roll you buy. I've been at this about 2 1/2 years now, and already have around 70 stamps, plus assorted awls, punches, knives and bevelers! If you look at the "Show Your Shop' thread you'll see most of us store our tools in a wooden rack of some sort with holes bored into it.

i use a granite floor tile that I got for $9 bucks from Home Depot as my surface for tooling. Had it for going on 2 years now, and it has yet to crack or chip. And if it does, I can replace it numerous times for what a marble slab from Tandy would cost me! Bought 3 glass shot glasses from Wal Mart for mixing dyes. The clean up really well when I'm finished, and so far, I've yet to knock them over, as the bottoms are nice and heavy! Before that I was using the disposable ones, and they were so light in weight I had to be REALLY careful not to knock them over.

What a shame you are so far away! I am sure many of the people on this board would love to have some of that leather!

Everything in Canada, too...

Nice edges on the card slots! How did you finish them?

Hey, another '53er! And I live in a house that was built sometime in the late 1800's so no, 1950s does NOT qualify as 'super old'!

This post is worthless without PICTURES!!

Hah...someone ELSE who doesn't like having to sit on their stitching pony! Once I get my pony resized to the height that works best for me, I will probably do something similar to attach it to my work bench. The problem is lack of light when I move away from my work bench.

Oookay, so you know the old adage 'lefty loosey, righty tighty'? And when you are looking at a clock face counter clockwise is when the hands are moving to the left? Mhmmmm.... I don't know who wrote the user manual for this tool, but they obviously need to understand that when you are trying to loosen the collet, you are going to be holding the tool IN YOUR HAND, not facing it, therefore counter-clockwise is to your LEFT!! When I had a go at the dremel tonight, with a proper open-end wrench this time, it suddenly hit me. MAYBE I was trying to turn the collet the wrong way!! So, I turned it to the right. BINGOO! It loosened up with only a moderate amount of pressure. I now have the darned thing put away in its case, not without some difficulty, as the extension and the power cord both wanted to turn into snakes, and escape the box. And I have searched my supply of odds and ends for a bolt that will fit the burnishing wheel. No luck - I do have one the right diameter, but it's not long enough. So, will need to make a trip to the hardware store. I did try the bolt I had in my drill, and it fitted very nicely. Just need to get a longer one, and I'll be able to burnish to my heart's content!

Any veg-tan in there?

I dyed my latest project with Fiebings Pro oil dye, and didn't have that problem when bending it: So, the dye may well be a factor, too.

So, I've had this dremel for a long time. I don't even remember if it belonged to me or my husband, it's been around that long! (He's been gone 13 years now.) I did try using it once to unclog a drainage pipe that was plugged up with ice, and that meant attaching the flexible extension to it. Other than that, it's been sitting in its box, gathering dust. Most of the attachments are still in the original plastic bags. So, tonight I got it out, wanting to use it to burnish some edges. It turns out the burnisher i got from Tandy doesn't work - the hole is too big to fit any of the attachments. Now, the flexible extension has been keeping me from putting the dremel away in its handy storage box. So, I looked at the instructions to figure out how to get it detached. It says to depress the yellow button until the collet locks, then turn collet counter clockwise to unscrew it. Well, I have tried everything, and I can't get the collet to unscrew. The little wrench they include in the kit is a joke. I bent it, and now it keeps slipping. I can turn the collet a quarter turn with a pair of pliers, but after that, the yellow button just pops back up again, despite me having my finger on it. Help, anyone?

You're too funny, Robs!

Those twist-off tops have made church keys almost obsolete, but hey, you never know. Sometimes the bottle caps get bashed together and bent, and you need something other than your hand to get them off!

I just purchased a Craftool Pro stitching chisel because they are on sale right now if you're an elite member. It's a 3 mm, and measuring the prongs with a ruler confirms that. I compared it with the regular chisel I already have which is supposed to be a 2 mm - says so right on the handle! Nope, its prongs are actually 4 mm apart! Crazy, really...

I just picked up a piece from fiends of ours who sell counter tops, etc... You know fiends?? That's the funniest typo I've seen this week! :D Nice score on the granite slab, but I think $50 is maybe a bit much for something they were going to throw out anyway...

Interested in knowing this, too!

Mjolnir, I am really getting fed up with so-called 'resists' that don't resist at all! I think I will see if I can get my hands on that latex coating! No, it wasn't bleeding, and the horse figure already had 2 coats of Eco-flo Super Sheen on it! Once the dye went over the line, due to my sloppy brushwork, it was impossible to remove without damaging the leather. And then, because I'd abraded the top grain trying to get it off, I had to apply another coat of antique. I diluted it with water so it was nothing more than a faint wash applied with a brush, but it soaked in more to the areas with the damaged grain, so the colouring of the figure is very uneven, not to mention still stained with red dye in spots! I live in the country, and there are several other tack shops near by. I just haven't had the chance to call them yet to make sure they have what I need. Many horse people prefer glycerin spray for their tack, so the bars can be difficult to find. I already lucked out at the local Tractor Supply. Kiwican, this was Tandy's Windsor belt bag. The item that is now serving as my strop was also a Tandy kit, a key chain. I decided to carve some Celtic knotwork into it, and it didn't go very well...

My fingers hurt just LOOKING at all that lovely hand stitching! I am planning to do a portfolio, too, but I hope to have a sewing machine by the time I get around to tackling the stitching! Love the snap closure, gives it a real touch of class! :D

Thanks, Fred! Handstitched, we've all had a few of those... My most recent one is now being used as a strop for my swivel knife, and for testing dye colours! I think I could still get a few buck for this one, if the buyer wasn't too fussy about the tooling/dyeing not being perfect. It's a perfectly usable bag.

Did this belt bag on the weekend. Need to practise my painting skills - kept getting red dye on the horse figure, and damaged the tooling trying to remove it. Ah, well, pleased with how the stitching turned out! Am still trying to get my hands on a bar of glycerine saddle soap for finishing edges. Fortunately, most of the edges on this are inside the bag, so didn't have to bother. The ones that are exposed were finished with Pear's glycerine soap, which is too sticky to do a first-rate job. The tack store says they'll call me when they have some in. This was AFTER they said they did, and I made a trip there to find SOMEONE never bothered checking the shelves...

For that reason, Bill, I often save the original bag a pattern came in, if it was part of a Tandy kit!

We have a sea chest in our family from the first Jeffery to come to Canada, in the late 1800's. He came from a small town near Winchester. The chest is decorated with Tudor roses. That might be something you can use. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tudor_rose