fredk

No difference except price. When I started leather work I got my sail grommets - the ones with washers - from a sail maker. Then I found Le Prevo and bought from them. On a couple of occasions their grommets came in packs with the same name on as the ones bought from the sail maker

Depends on whether you want to buy in US or go abroad. I get my brass stamps made in Hong Kong, Taiwan, etc. A 2cm across stamp costs £15, a 6cm across stamp costs £25, and sizes in between and over at pro rata prices. I send the artwork as a jpeg and I get the stamp back in about 10 to 14 days usually. The artwork needs to be binary though. My makers stamp, 3 cm across, cost £16.99 afair

1. Dyes penetrate the leather fibres into its depth. Paints only go so far in but really remain on or near the surface 2. Paints designed for use on leather remain flexible, other paints can crack and even peel off when the leather flexes. For small areas the craft shop paints will be ok

Scrap value, about 75p. Current scrap steel/iron price in the UK is about £75 per clean ton. However, I've seen a vintage car engine that was used as an anchor totally rebuilt and put back into a vintage car. The engine was given to the car owner as an anchor for his boat. One man's scrap is another man's required item for a resto

What size is this thing? I think the way I'd tackle it would be to make four wood bucks; #1 for the main body and #2 & #3 one for each end and #4, one of the complete shape. Then wet mould thin leather over/around the bucks. When they are dry I'd sew them together around buck #4 I think thats a way to do it. Anyone else have any ideas?

@Chris623 Just round them a wee bit, not much, and smooth the top corner edges and the corners 1. just a bit off the edges will help prevent the leather getting marked by any roughness there if the leather is drawn across the edge 2. if you round it as much as a counter top edge there is chance, however slim, that you may accidentally do some work close to the edge and the piece may slip round the curve and ruin what you are doing (don't ask how I know this can happen, )

12 x 12 inch or 14 x 10 inch

you had to ask, didn't you? you just had to ask! I don't think anyone really knows what the letters DFS stand for. There are plenty of ideas tho DFS is a furniture company which has 'this week only' sales running just about continuously through the year. Their short-term sales never end. Its become a joke in the UK. You have to see their TV adverts and experience them over several years to really understand the humour

It'll probably be fine.

The glaze is basically a top coat varnish. Your fav finish won't get through it. It'll just stay on the surface. But if its to feed the leather you can get in through the back side.

Its a matter of both quantity and refining costs. There is actually not a lot of lanolin on the wool fibres. This has to be washed off carefully and then go thru several refining stages to clean it and turn liquid oil to a creamy state. As an idea; imagine how greasy/oily your hair feels if you don't wash it for a few weeks, but there is actually very little grease/oil on the hairs, one wash and its off. But you cannot see it in the wash water.

Depending on just what leather stamping tools you have, you can take a pippin Swiss or jewellers needle file or a cutter in a dremel type motor tool and improve them. The state of your leather at the time of stamping also plays a part. The leather needs to be 'cased' just right. Too wet and the impression will be a smudge, too dry and it wont be deep enough to be sharp. Try some recutting of the tool face first before investing in the more expensive and better tools

Probably bad photos as BK has a very high reputation on this forum for extremely good tools edit; I'm hoping others on here will see this and have some input

Use a few thickness of thicker leather, just folded over. If the blade goes thru suddenly it might just go into your finger, so fingers either side of where the hole should be. A cork from a drinks bottle, usually wine, or I use part of a cork sanding-paper block. Available at hardware stores for about $1. Its about 4'' x 2.5'' x 1'' thick. I cut a piece off and use that.

Now you have a sharp blade, the problem might be there is too much 'give' in the thin leather. On the opposite side to your awl hold a piece of cork against the leather and push the blade thru the leather into it

1. Barry King ~ https://www.barrykingtools.com/

okee-doakly, a few folks have had their say about C-19 Sort of back on track, I see Tandy is having yet another sale. For UK readers, it looks like Tandy is doing a DFS,

On these projects its more fun, and sometimes frustrating, to keep the shape of the scrap piece and match others to it rather than cut them all four-square

Two places I can think of to direct you; 1 Will Ghormley, he sells pattern packs; http://www.willghormley-maker.com/OWC.html 2. Free from the old Tandy Library Belts_and_Holster_Patterns.pdf

I'm getting a 'THE PAGE YOU REQUESTED CANNOT BE FOUND!' with that link

The only method I know to test for real leather is a destructive test. Take a piece of the material, hold in pliers, put a flame to the material. If it shrivels up and smells like burnt flesh its leather. If it burns with a black smoke giving off small black sooty particles, its a plastic

a. they are not electro-plated b. nor are they 'electrophoresis' coated c. they have a chemical blackening d. you need to ignore all that and sharpen the teeth. You need a very sharp cutting edge and smooth sides to each tooth

Are the teeth really sharp? Those holes suggest they are not. Sharpen them and polish the teeth up, both the cutting end and the sides. Also press into wax before every, or every other, strike. It becomes a rhythm; into wax, punch holes, punch holes, into wax, punch holes, punch holes, into wax. . . . . Mark your line on front and back. After the first set of holes check that they are coming out on the line. If not adjust how you hold the chisel. Use the side of your hand to press the leather down and the fingers of that hand to guide the chisel. Hold the chisel lightly, just enough to keep it upright.

Its not the colour per se. Its the purity. Basically yellow wax is old wax, it contains microscopic grains of pollen and dirt. White cap wax is season fresh and almost 100% clean. To see the dirt in yellow wax. melt two or three blocks in something you can remove the wax from when it hardens again. When it does harden, look carefully at the bottom of it. You'll see it covered in very small dark specks. Thats the dirt and pollen Rub in some beeswax / carnauba / nfo mix. That'll soften it up, seal it a bit and polish it up a bit