fredk

So there you are, you have to stamp a name on an item, you dig out your letter stamps You have one set of lower case alphabet. But lots of names have multiples of certain letters. eg, William, Stevie You are supposed to use another letter as a spacer or if you have them, and you don't, use a letter from your second set I have only the one set of lower case letters. What to do? I took some polymer clay, some childrens' type because when it sets its like rubber. I use this type when I need moulds. I pressed the letters I required duplicates of into a blob of the clay then cooked it. When I took it out of the oven I removed the metal letter stamps and I had moulds of the letters I need spacers of. I used polyester resin to cast some copies. I added silver colouring to the resin just so I can see the letters better. Polyester resin is the resin used in glass fibre body work. Its cheap. These casts came out imperfect but I'm only looking at copies for spacing purposes In use, like this and the finished name Another aid I made recently helps to keep the letters aligned. Please note: I do not have access to drill stands, power drills etc, everything has to be done by hand and I buy in certain pre-cut parts I made this jig for doing letters. I got some 3mm clear acrylic cut to my measurements then assembled it. A base of 10mm thick HDPE and the acrylic parts pinned to it. Overall its 20cm x 10cm from the end The first layer of acrylic is pinned but not attached permanently, then a wide piece of acrylic with a piece pinned and glued to it to make a double thickness. This wide piece is also removable. It can slide up the posts. The gap underneath it is thus 3mm, thick enough for most leather I use, but it can be raised for thicker leather. The distance from the inner edge to the outer edge is about 2.5cm. The letter stamps butt up against the double thickness acrylic. With this I can stamp at a constant 2.5 cm from the edge. But I can do other distances from the edge. I got a piece cut and made it up so I can stamp at 2 cm from the edge, and I got two spacers cut, which when put under the main piece I can stamp from 0.5 cm from the edge and if I add one to the top I can go to 3.5cm from the edge. I may get some more acrylic cut to take me up to about 5cm from the edge. In use This lot cost me under £10 to make PS. I use a Tandy Pro Hand Press for doing my letter stamping

I would make it something like the shape I've drawn over your image

A few simple questions with multiple answers. 1. what type of holster do you want? a hard stiff one or a floppy one? For a hard one use no less than 2mm (5 oz ?) veg tan. You can wet it and mould it around the scissor blades and finger grips. Make it as if it was a knife sheath. For a floppy one use chrome tan upholstery leather, 1.5mm would do. 2. I don't machine sew, just hand sew. In both cases I'd glue the leather close to the shape of the blades and sew following their outline PS. others will tell you not to use chrome tan with metal items, but I have done for 20 years and never had any problems

I cannot say about oxalic acid as I do not use it. It is not available, in any form, in my country But I can say cellulose thinners will remove any lacquer finish and can also remove some dyes. In my case above I used it on raw leather, but I also use it on dyed leather to remove the lacquer and some of the dye so I can re-dye it.

Thanks Tom

Wheres about are ye located?

no one is rushing to your aid If its of any help to you - just the other day I had what looked like an oil spot on the grain side. It was about the size of a quarter dollar coin / £2 coin. I used my old favourite, cellulose thinners, to clean the leather. I used a clean rag wetted with the thinners, applied plenty to the leather, not just on the spot but on the whole area around it. I rubbed the thinners into the spot and just lightly in the surrounding area. Then I let it dry. No sign of the spot and the piece took dye ok.

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not forgetting that Neats Foot Oil is not actually an oil. Its a water soluble liquid fat

The 1/4" refers to the width of the blade. All swivel knife blades have a standard sized shank above the cutting blade which fits up into the swivel knife body see here: https://www.tandyleather.eu/en/product/craftool-steel-swivel-knife-blades

I suspect that your two examples are from different companies, possibly Tandy and Midas. Was it a 2nd hand set? I'd think that some letters were replaced by the previous owner. Or was it not a boxed set? just an alphabet set? I stick to one make - Tandy, for all my letter sets except one. My 'runic' set is by Ivan. All are boxed sets and align very well. On other stamps, the picture ones, I can see a difference in placement and also the support block size between Tandy and Midas. On pictures it does't matter but obviously it does on the letters. If you can afford it, invest in a new boxed set of alphabet letters, and numbers too, from Tandy or one of their re-sellers. Lay them all out and check their alignment. Send them back if they're not right. You cannot do any good lettering with those you've shown. - or at least it'll be hard to do.

thank you

Is it better to have a. just one set of holes cut through to from the edge? b. to cut the sides of that cut to an 'arrow head', or just trim them a bit, or need they be trimmed at all? I'm thinking, trimmed to an 'arrow head' might be removing too much material for the gripping, not trimmed and the bits might not lie flush too well, just a little trimming will help them get through the other hole but yet have enough material to grip ??

I've been following this on the Q-T. Interesting construction method. I've finally got my head around it. Now to design somat I can use it on

I'm not going to get mixed up in a bun fight. Threads often drift a bit on here. If anyone thinks a thread has drifted too far or is being hi-jacked too much lets direct the offender in a nice way (no accusations, no pack drill) - sometime it will be you/me that offends. Lets just be friends and get along. Right, back on subject; a mix of ideas - clamp up about 6 straps between a couple of lengths of timber, allowing the edges to stand proud. Swipe on to them all some beeswax mix and burnish in with a linen/denim cloth. Doing 6 at a time like this would take only slightly longer than doing one. If the strap edges are bevelled, do a final quick burnish with a carrot slicker when the straps are separated.

If you try to shrink the goat it will thicken and harden, what you don't want. Put your hand out with fingers spread, close your fingers together then make a fist, thats what happens to the fibres in leather as you shrink it, they pull together. Two things causing the shrinkage after glueing: 1. using PVA glue, which is water based. as the wet leather dries it pulls in. 2, You might be stretching the goat a bit as you place it As you don't want to change these the only thing I can think of doing, which I do with goat lining, is to cut it oversize and cut it neat after the glue has not only dried but cured, eg after a couple of days.

If you can't get what you want from a mainstream commercial seller check out contacts through the SCA - the Society of Creative Anachronism and other medieval re-entactment type groups. Usually either a member or someone associated casts their own buckles and fittings. As you do not seem to be looking for very many items they might be able to meet your needs

Either before or after, it really makes little difference. I usually put it on after sewing as it helps in around the thread and gets down into the thread holes Carnauba wax just makes the beeswax a bit harder when it all dries. you can do without it. Heating up both the wax mix and the leather helps considerably. Use a hairdryer on low heat, you just need about 60*. If you live in a very warm place then extra heating may not be needed. My area is 8*c now (very warm for winter) and rarely goes above 21*c in summer so extra heating is required. But if your wax mix is soft enough it will just rub into the leather. Let it sit awhile, give it a second coat, wait, then burnish it in and off with a rag and polish brush Whoever told you not to heat the wax is either in a warm place or should be there for giving false information

yes and no. Craftool is Tandy, but there are many, many copies available with Craftool on them but they are not from Tandy yes, Tandy originated the name Craftool, but see above. Early Craftools seem to be all steel & brass, newer ones are a cast alloy. Cheap copies are an aluminium alloy or low grade steel with alloy heads (the stamping part) To hide the low quality they chrome plate the tool and the plating fills in the detailing of the stamp. Its a lottery out there whether you get a good tool or not. I have 'Craftool' stamps from Tandy, some are good and some are rubbish. I also have cheap ones from Taiwan and China which also say 'Craftool', again some are good and some are rubbish.

I made a silly mistake, x 9, today. I'm making something to which I want to add a loop for holding a pen. I cut the loop pieces, x 9. Then I glued two of the opposite edges and clamped them using stainless steel bulldog clips. When the glue was dry I wet them and slipped them over a couple of dowels to mould them. I re-clamped, but tighter, using the s-s bulldogs. I clamped up all 9 pieces first then I meant to go back and put some lolly stick between the bulldog jaws and the wet leather. But I got distracted and didn't. By the time I remembered, a few hours later, I have iron staining where the jaws were on the wet leather and a little bit has spread further. Its no biggie as, a. these are being dyed very dark brown b. the bit with the iron staining will be sewn into a seam and hidden.

I very much doubt that: she has form, having previously tried to hire a hit-man to murder a fur wearing person. She needs a spell of incarceration and rehabilitation. I could fill volumes with tales of animal rights activists and the damage they have done here in N.I.

and I fell for it Just another finished goods seller spamming us

I'll tack this news story on here. I just hope its not going to set a new trend and we'll need to wear kevlar vests in the near future https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-us-canada-50519899

Check your notification settings, you should get an email. I used to turned it off. I chose to only get an email notification when I get sent a PM. Also check your spam box and check that emails from this site are 'white listed' add a small amount of disinfectant to the water

I don't know the whys and wherefores but I've found the harder the blade it sharpens well on a plain steel. My local butcher uses a plain steel rod for sharpening his knives and they are razor sharp. I used to have a proper professional butchers knife. The only way I could sharpen it was along the stainless steel shaft of my spud masher. No stone would sharpen it.