fredk

basically yes, try just one end, or a piece of the strap. Really soak the leather and keep wiping it. I think it will eventually start to show being too dry again. There are many and good conditioners available in supermarkets. Don't use a cheap one tho. I'll not mention any by name as I'm in a different country and I don't know brands available to you.

In other things I store small items in re-purposed soft cheese boxes, but these days they are made bio-degradable and they only last a couple of months at most before they start to crumble into dust. Good for the planet earth, not good for my storage. say laa vee

First off, do not put the leather into hot water. For sure you'll be putting it into the trash after that. Hot water will 'cook' the leather, shrinking it and tightening it up. 2. I once put too much NFO on a piece. I ended up dumping it as no matter what I then tried would lessen the oil content - corn starch, cat stuff, newspaper, certain chemicals. These days I'd try washing it down with cellulose thinners [aka lacquer thinners] and clean rags. I'd try to get it back to a 'dry' condition which read 'feed me' then I'd start again on it. I know from experience cellulose thinners does remove oils out of leather but whether it will work on this scene I do not know hth

I started with a stepped block of wood drilled out, then graduated to two blocks, but as the tools multiplied more blocks seemed not the best idea. That is very nice indeedy. Unfortunately I do not have the facilities to make my own

On the matter of edges; First. Make sure your blade is really sharp. Put in a new blade, or snap off a section for every project. Cut on a smooth surface. Cutting on an old board will not give a smooth cut. Get something like a piece of MDF, hardboard or self-healing cutting mat. 2nd. get some 'sand' paper of various grades from about 80 to 800. Each sheet should cost about 60p. Do not get the cheap packs out of PoundWorld, they shed the sand more than they actually work. Get Wet & Dry type out of a car accessory shop, maybe Halfords. Grades; 80, 120, 240, 320, 400, 600, 800 Use the W&D paper to smooth the edges after cutting. The roughest grade can be used to smooth away cutting line wobbles, the smoothest grade will get rid of those wee bits of fibres which tend to stick out. Get a cork sanding block out of Home Base. They cost £1.50. Its use in leather work is manifold. Here it can be used to sand a better edge by wrapping the W&D around it. Using W&D in your fingers won't really smooth out any cut line wobbles 3. I use beeswax and neetsfoot oil (aka NFO) mix on my edges. As a starter; get yourself some 'clear' shoe polish in Tesco/Asda and use that to burnish into your edges. Later you can mix some beeswax and olive oil or NFO as an edge burnish. Also use a piece of linen, calico or denim to rub the shoe polish or wax into the edge first. Rub very hard and fast, the friction builds up heat which helps melt the wax into the edge

I'd reckon they'd be looking about a 50% reduction Your extra outlay would be (minimum): sewing machine $500, Press & dies $500, edger machine $300 = $1300. Or $1.20 per tag. You'll need to put that out first. If you have funds ready thats ok, but if you need to buy on credit (credit card, bank loan etc) factor at least another 20% = $260 = $1560 = $1.42 per tag just for the machinery. Get a contract if you are going to have to make extra outlay. Get a forward payment that at least covers the cost of the new machinery. To my error I often did not and ended up well out of pocket when the client pulled out of the deal

Not 4 in total, but 4 per group, ie, 4 for A, 4 for bevellers, 4 for camouflage etc. So thats about 50 spaces

Questions for you good folk who do tooling. How do you store your tooling stamps and is each tool easy to find in the way you store them ? I've not done very much tooling on anything but having just had an unexpected windfall of very many raspberries** I decided to buy lots and lots of tooling stamps and try a lot of tooling on things this year. First thing I'm doing is painting the code numbers on the handles with matt black paint then I intend to sort them into these paint brush holders. The few tooling stamps I had were stored in one, so I bought a few more of them I'll group them according to initial letter, eg all the A series together, B (bevellers) together. Then each row will be lowest number to front, highest to back. In each group I'll leave maybe 1 to 4 spare spaces for future purchases. The paint brush boxes are plastic. I have sheets of plastic card which I'll cut and make wall dividers for the groups, gluing these on the top grid. Down the front of each box I'll mark the group division and either just label the group, eg A, B, C, or the letter and type ~ B bevellers, and maybe even list the numbers in the group below that. Thats the basic plan. Its currently a work in progress. Please share with me your storage methods, ideas and anything you might have to say about my plan. ** for the UKers; I got one of those companies to chase PPI. I got over 8 times what I thought I might get so I decided to buy a load of leather work stuff as a treat.

That looks very nice indeedy.

yeah but . . . . yeah but . . . . yeah but . . . . . as a Manchesterite you'd not, but in Ulster ~~

That looks the bizz alright,

A. mostly in my almost dominant right hand B, we used to call a hammer a Manchester screwdriver and a sledge hammer a London screwdriver

I thought YinTx had erred in the proportions. It seems to be too much oil to dye, I thought it would be the other way round But Feibings says; To achieve this highly desired result the trick is to mix 6% of Fiebing’s Leather Dye with 94% Fiebing’s Prime Neatsfoot Oil Compound. This works especially well with all of the brown tones and the primary colors like green and blue. As one who is never sure just how much NFO to put on, is it getting into and through the leather? etcetera. I'm going to adapt this idea and add a small proportion of NFO into my thinned dye, thus I'll oil as I dye.

I've not heard of this either. I too must try it out

1. as soon as the dye is dried in, or just about dried. As I do my oiling later YinTx might have something else to say on this. 2. Neatsfoot Oil, aka NFO. I use a beeswax and NFO mix which I put on after sealing with resolene or Super Sheene [ both thinned, 1:1] ~ YinTx puts his oil on before final sealing, we both get results we are happy with. Either way, the NFO really helps. Note: use Pure NFO not NFO Compound 3. as soon as my resolene coat is dry, or sometimes as it is nearly dry I apply the beeswax/nfo

Thing is, I reckon, cos I wouldn't, you'd not notice a wee bit of uneveness in the colour as it dried out due to the stamping pattern - which looks very nicely done

I'm having a problem visualising this construction. Especially the bit I've hi-lited

Possibly, could be, uneven penetration by the thinned resolene due to the belt being a bit too dry. I'd try a few more coats of thinned resolene, maybe even thinning it a bit more - just about almost but not quite soaking the leather. Then see how it dries out over several days

yeah, I'll ask, asking can do no harm

No answers for you eh? What ever you do will be a compromise, to ether weight or handiness. Here's what I might do. 2 soft wood frames, each maybe 2 ft x 1.5 ft. Hinge the frames together, book form. Panel over each with 3mm MDF, or even 6mm. Paint it all undercoat/primer white. Attach pieces of various leathers, patches no less than 4 inch square. Attach the leather using two ready-rivets or chicago screws, one in each top corner, allowing the leather to hang free. Attach in neat rows across and columns down. Print and attach description labels for each leather. The panels should each take about 20 to 24 pieces, less if you make the pieces larger. The book form panels can be folded for carrying, opened up to set on a table top. The loose ends of the leather lets people touch and feel the leather. Add more double panels to your display when needed.

Yes, they did. About 1 week after I paid a load of butterflies for 'Elite'. Say laa vee

I think it would be more use as a press for 3D figure and letter stamps

They are indeedy very nice but. . . .but. . . . but. . . . . we need details!! Leather thickness, dyes used, finish used, plain back or other material on the back side???

I would imagine; starting at the left most stitching, across, round the knife, across the back, around the spike sheath and back to the left line of stitching and then carrying on to the right line of stitching. One piece of leather. This would give 3 layers of leather at the stitching area. Skive the two ends and the place where they meet on the back piece and you can get it down to just over 2 thickness worth

First reckoning is what you want to make with it. Shoulder is fairly stiff but not as stiff as back bone part of a butt, a shoulder is not very wide, not wide enough nor thick enough for a man's belt but you can usually get a woman sized belt out of its width This chart done by Tandy is handy. It is a guide only, you don't need to stick to it absolutely For a first leather I would, and did, select a 2 to 2.5mm leather. Its a good all rounder and you can thin it if necessary. So that would be the 026 I've dealt with Le Prevo for about 20 years. I've not dealt with any others mainly as none would send to me in N.I. Email or phone Jan or Stu at Le Prevo. Tell them what you want to make ask for their advice & suggestion. They will help you choose ** be aware that Le Prevo prices need 20% VAT added plus a delivery charge & 20% VAT on that too PS. Look in Le Prevo's Clearance Offers. There might be some cheap-ish leather there.