fredk

I would get some lengths of thinnish (3mm to 6mm x 300mm ) nylon plate. Glue three pieces of plate in a stack; bottom is base, 2nd plate as belt edge guide and 3rd is the distance from the belt edge. The 2nd piece would be the thickness of the belt. Run the wheel over the leather as you feed it through this 'jig'

Naa, it should only take a few minutes, 30 mins at most. Use warm water, with a tiny wee bit of dish-washing liquid soap in it. After soaking stretch it along its length in your hands, squeeze out excess water then lace it through the holes. As it dries it will stiffen up and shrink a wee bit tightening up You can do this whether the strap is dyed or not

You could try using a wet strap for the conchos. Pull it up tight wet. Then when it dries out it will be even tighter

I use the Axxx stamps as backgrounders and the Bxxx stamps as bevellers. B series bevellers are available with patterns on their faces You 'walk' them thru a background turning and overlapping the impressions on each hit. They give the background a fine 'hatched' appearance making the main design standout. Hatching, in the way a pencil artist draws

I copy the images and print them out A4 size, then I draw over the lines to thicken them and leave out elements that I don't want, using 'Tippex' (white-out?). When I'm happy with an art work I scan it in. I put it thru my photo editing programme to clean it up and re-size it for the stamp making. I save every stage of the cleaning up and re-sizing so I can go back to any stage

The edit is below the 3 dots, top right. You may still have time to edit

You may not want to know this; but I got a replacement groover off ebay for under £8 inc shipping. Also, I had a choice of the size hole in it. I decided on 1.8 mm

Pretty snazzy

After The Flood Noah was seeing all the animal off his ship saying 'Bye now, don't be strangers, visit me. Go forth and multiply' As all the animal wandered off in many directions there were two snakes left Noah said 'Go, go, go forth and multiply' The snakes said 'We can't' 'Why not?' asked Noah 'Cos we'er adders' boom, boom

If you are making lasts for boots you need to make the last come apart at the ankle otherwise it wont come out of the constructed boot (ask me how I know) A solid last is alright for shoes and boots that only go slightly above the ankle

Buy Blue guns, for fitting

Optivisor - I couldn't remember the name earlier This is the type I have. But my wee light is broken and I'll have to cobble up a new one

I have and use different powers of reading glasses for my close-up work. General use is 2 diopter, with 2.5, 3, 3.5 and for very close work 4. But the main thing are to have plenty of strong light and don't work in your own shadow I find using a jewelers loup awkward as it used with one eye only I also have, but rarely use a head band with changeable magnifying lenses

Thanks, and a good tip there

That was a method advocated in my medieval circles for making shoes. Not resin nor plaster of Paris but using cement, as in concrete. I used that way to make some lasts