fredk

I once made some medieval type kit for a chap, belt, knife sheath, belt pouch, drawstring bag, wrist bracer. He insisted on raw fresh leather, no smoothing of cut edges etc and it had to have chicken fat rubbed into it. The leather darkened nicely over time but about 6 months later it all smelt very rancid. Stooopid guy reckoned 'thats what they would have used' I got paid so what do I care if his stuff was so stinky that no-one would go close to him.

Round my way kitchen fitters do not use real granite or marble. Grave stone makers use concrete internals faced with a thin veneer of granite or marble. So getting a new reasonable sized piece of real granite is not easy. All of which is odd as one of N.I.'s main exports is granite! But: I dropped into a local B&Q on Friday to see what they had in 'paving'. They have pavers of granite, about 30cm /1ft square. about 25mm /1 inch thick. Polished on one side, rough on the other. £4.64 each. However, when I checked with a B&Q chap they are to 'order' only. The order being 80 pavers! The chap, ever helpful, used his phone and checked and found another branch not too far away (8 miles) had 56 for sale individually, so I headed there and got one. The rough side doesn't bother me, I'll give it a base of scrap leather glued on. https://www.diy.com/departments/silver-grey-paving-slab-l-295mm-w-295mm/5015111965204_BQ.prd If you search B&Q for 'granite' these don't show up.

Make 1 piece for going around the sides and back of the waist. Make it wide, say 1 3/4 inches, then make two shorter end pieces, maybe 1 or 1 1/4 inch wide and sew to the wider piece.

Red = a Christmas seasonal colour. Fortunate I'd say, they can be rescued

Nice. Cute lawn-mower design

I've only ever seen them in copper. But you can get a chemical which blackens brass and copper. I'll see if I can find my bottle of it and get the name

In N.I./UK/Ireland we do not have Id in the way the US or mainland Europe has where every citizen needs to have an Id card. The 'Id' window in our wallets are usually used to show bus passes, or works id, ie passes needed by your employer etc. I put photos behind my plastic window, others I know put their bus passes there. Mr.Plod in N.I./UK /Ireland accept our word on our Id and only insist on something more in a serious, very serious, incident eg a road traffic accident On the mater of RFID blocking. Plumber type people use an thin aluminium tape to cover pipes. I've tested it and I use it sometimes in card wallets. A roll of this tape will cost you about £/$ 5. The roll is usually about 2 inches wide and 50 metres long.

The hole is in the middle of the clear plastic window so the Id can be removed? Use a very sharp punch and smooth the edges with some fine grade wet & dry grit paper

Eco flo is a water based acrylic. It can be re-constituted by adding water. But add a wee bit of alcohol to it as well. Something like methylated spirits or rubbing alcohol will do. If the Eco has not gone too far in its thickening, about 1 alcohol to 3 water should do it. Add small amounts, shake vigorously and then let sit awhile, do this till you get it as fluid as you'd like

Whilst searching ebay for a cheap airbrush I came across this https://www.ebay.co.uk/itm/Mini-Action-Air-Brush-Airbrush-0-3mm-Kit-Gun-Compressor-Paint-Art-Nail-Art-/402246944638?var=&hash=item5da7c9477e An airbrush with a mini rechargeable compressor. Seems to charge through a USB port. ~~ I have a few items which 'charge' off a USB but I run them off a USB adapter plug which goes into my mains electric socket Potential as a starter set? Handy to have around the leather work area. No need to dig out the bigger compressor and the hoses There are a great many of a variety of this set up currently on ebay, different types of airbrush and styles of the compressors

yes, I've noticed that too. I glue, clamp up, sometimes tap with a rubber mallet then sew it up. I leave a margin for cutting off so after sewing I use a good sharp knife and straight edge to cut that allowance off, which cuts thru the glued section and if I've done it right the leather there is well glued. I bevel the edge corners then slick it up.

Its a block of crepe rubber material. Sometimes it can rub off contact or surface glue. Remember crepe? shoe soles were made of it in the 1950s - 'brothel creepers'

Looks nice Right hand carry, trooper's twist draw?

You'd need to put a 'Custom's Declaration' label on it declaring it a present. Without the label the package will be opened and examined and HMRC will decide if taxes are liable. If they think you are cheating they will inform Oz post who will prosecute you for fraud. The US IRS are novices at collecting taxes compared to HMRC, who have several hundred years head start Its seems the answer is almost yes; Amazon and ebay, but not etsy which is a sales window.

1. When you sent the items to the UK, it arrived and went thru the courier's system. They looked up a formula table they have which told them how much import duty and VAT had to be collected, then they added an administration fee. The courier would inform the customer, 'you have to pay £xx before we can hand this over to you'. After the customer had paid the taxes were paid to HMRC eventually. You never knew of it. 2 The £15 allowance was a cert, but sometimes, actually quite often items worth up to £50 slipped through without taxes being collected. This now stops as everything will be checked 3. Having been in the Eu, anything bought within the Eu going to another Eu country, ie UK, VAT was not collected as it was a common-area trade tax and had been paid already in the country of origin, and as a common-trade area no import taxes were collected either. No longer 4. Some of us in the UK were used to adding the taxes and fees onto items from US, Japan and other places. Basically anywhere from 1.5 x to 2x of the item's price for a guide of what it'll cost on arrival, eg I bought some letter stamps out of US. They cost £31 inc shipping. Taxes etc were £18. = £49

About a month ago I was made aware of the new UK customs regulations which will come into effect on January 1st 2021 https://www.gov.uk/government/publications/changes-to-vat-treatment-of-overseas-goods-sold-to-customers-from-1-january-2021/changes-to-vat-treatment-of-overseas-goods-sold-to-customers-from-1-january-2021 Essentially, if a UKer buys goods, up to the value of £135, from outside the UK the supplier must register and pay the VAT on the goods, except if the goods are bought via an on-line market place, eg. ebay, the OMP, which will be liable for collection of the duties The previous threshold of less than £15 value being VAT/import fees excluded is scrapped and all goods are liable

That would be for veg tan My bit you quoted was for chrome tan

I have moulded chrome tan by taking a very much larger piece than required, soaking in warm water, tacking over the shape and then speed drying it in a very warm kitchen cooker oven. The leather shrinks and hardens and also takes on the shape its over. Care and experimentation is needed as 1. the leather can shrink too much, 2. it can harden too much, but each of these can be used in their own way. eg. I made some hardened leather 'scales' for a chap who wanted some for Roman type armour

The leather looks like veg tan to me, but chrome tan can be moulded if the right amount of heat is applied to it

That would be no big problem. Its an ancient shoe making technique 1. get a wood last exactly to the foot size required but deeper than a foot 2. cut a piece of leather much bigger than needed 3. soak leather in warm water 4. put leather over the wood last, pull it around the last and tack it into place 5. Allow leather to dry 6. cut leather with a margin allowance around the sides for to sew the vamp to 7. sew vamp pieces to sole

Nice. indeedy even a plain black leather holster is very much nicer than a plastic or nylon one

Proops sells on ebay as well, under the name spoorp

@LumpenDoodle2, @Squilchuck , if you put your cursor over a persons name a wee box magically appears, at the bottom of which in the middle is 'ignore user. Click on that. It takes you to page where you choose how much of that person you can ignore. I've done that so I don't see the political postings now. If that ignored person posts something in the main leatherwork discussion I/you has the option to view that posting, or not I've done it before and when things settled down I un-ignored the people.

No, I've not got around to trying it out yet edit to add; maybe I'll do something soon just to test the idea

I made myself a soft mask out of thin chrome tanned leather. I've been wearing it about 2 or 3 times a week, for several hours at a time, for a couple of months now. I'm still here and have no issues.