fredk

You're lucky the 2-tooth makes holes. Very often these tools need sharpening and the edges 'polished'. An afternoon, or evening, doing the sharpening and polishing will transform them

Wrong hammer; a rubber head mallet, a very small one should be sufficient

I may have a couple of these but if so they are in my storage unit which I can't get to until Tuesday. If I have them I'll post up and we can take it from there - OK?

Water based does not always mean water soluble. Most acrylic paints are water based but will not be soluble in water once dry and cured, same for many glues. I use a water based PVA glue which is water and weather resistant when dry.

I'm contrary. I did new bonnet and boot belts for my vintage cars. On the old belts the round holes had ripped the leather into an oval hole and distressed the strap. On the new ones I punched oval holes and after many, many months of use the holes are/were the same shape with no distress to the leather belt strap

All my books are packed away until late spring/summer time. Check out some of the 14th century Books of Hours and Psalters There is a Leatherwork museum in the Midlands of England. Have you contacted them?

yup, thats wot I do, just cut lightly around it and the soft rivet metal soon separates. I got fed up just cutting the rivet shaft then spending ages rounding it again so it'd fit into the head part Depends how many you need to cut but another way is to get some thick copper wire, stuff it into the shaft and cut both the wire and shaft in one, then shake out the short bit of wire

The OP does say he'll be sewing them, the glue is just to hold them whilst he does so

I do hope all you guys do not suffer to much from this unusual adverse cold weather. I live in a very mild weather place and a heavy frost is enough to cause consternation!

I've certainly seen illustrations dating from the 13th century depicting leather workers and shoe makers using clams, both attached to a bench and between the workers knees.

About 25% to 50% should do as overlap - just depends on how long you want your oval. Use a smaller size hole punch [individual bar type] as a bar to burnish and smooth the hole sides. Even with a single oval hole punch you should do this. Oval hole punches are not very expensive. Heres a link to one of 6 x 4mm. just about right for belt holes; https://www.ebay.co.uk/itm/4mm-Leather-Craft-Oval-Rectangle-Punch-Hole-Hollow-Tools-Strap-Belt-Square-Hole/253632650535?hash=item3b0daf1d27:m:mOKIZkFkSuQ00-e1dRVDpxA:rk:4:pf:0&var=552864877734

Ordinary contact adhesive should do the job. If sticking to the grain side of leather, roughen up the glueing area with 60 grade sand paper first

It doesn't sound like a packing - in delivery, damage to me but a manufacturing problem. Even tho you say they are 2 different burnishers; if they are the same type and look its possible they came from the same factory It sounds like the drive shaft is not mounted into the burnisher correctly and true. You might be able to take the shaft out and refit it after true-ing up the mounting hole. Without an image of the burnisher I/we can only guess at a fix for it.

Nope. My boxes are stout see-thru plastic with clip on lids. Not exactly the same type but close; https://www.argos.co.uk/product/3594740 A ballistic nylon bag with oddments goes on top of a couple of these boxes [sometimes, its usually under the bench, in the hall, generally under my feet somewhere!]

For any beginner; you can't go wrong having some of Al Stohlman's books handy. He did some on making cases, on making bags, on making wallets and purses. He teaches the basics in a very easy to understand way. Once you know those basics they can be applied to other projects. Also, having read his books and seeing his instructions helps you to understand what people are doing in some youtube videos

The gasolene will have evaporated off by now. It'll leave some smell. I would hang them where a breeze can blow thru them for a couple of days then treat them with neatsfoot oil to replace any oils the gasolene has taken out of them. The smell will go eventually, quicker if you don't lock them away in a drawer or some place, but hang them up so air can get around them

I use side-cutters, but I have a woodworking round awl with a steel shaft which fits into the rivet shaft. Cutting the soft metal of the rivet carefully doesn't even mark the awl shaft and it keeps the rivet part round. ~~ however, I keep quite a range of rivets of different shaft lengths so I rarely need to cut any down

Wot he says; I'd go for the easy way. double-tape some wet & dry to a board and rub the stamp over it, using a circular motion. Use 600 grade w&d, wet. You could also use a marker on the letters and when the marker ink is gone off them you'll know they should all be even.

Nothing has changed for me. Might it be your browser changing the look? I used to run Firefox and a certain website had a very different look on my desk computer compared to my laptop

well, thats certainly a different take on the usual boring look of the points. Nicely done

Tandy does the four suits as individual stamps in their 3D/2D mini stamp range. You'll need to scroll thru the list to find them; https://www.tandyleather.eu/en/category/mini-2-d-3-d-craftool-leather-stamps

2 inches - which way? Length, width or for 2 inch strap?

Risky; soak the sandal in hot water; block out the sandal with scrunched up newspaper, and dry quickly in a very warm, but not overly hot, environment or with a hairy dryer played over it

I would wash it down using warm water with detergent soap and a very small about of bleach added

For this I use a Desk Top Publishing programme ~ aka DTP With this I can import any image into a box on a page. I can resize the image box, in direct proportion ~ that is, if the image is A by 3A, I can resize it to 2A by 6A, etc, or I can stretch the box, to A by 6A, or 3A by 3A etc. I can rotate the image box, add other image boxes on top or underneath the first one. I can draw simple geometric shapes within the image box or alter its shape from square, round, oval, star etc. I can add writing to the image box. If I download an image from the internet I save it to a file then drag it into the image box on the DTP page for manipulation To scan an image I use a printer/scanner/copier. I scan the image into a basic photograph editing programme. I clean it up then save it to a file to then drag it into the DTP page The artwork for this stamp was all done on the DTP, using several overlaying boxes; eg each letter of LAZY~D is in a separate box, each rotated, the oval frame is a separate box. It was drawn up at about 15cm across. When it was done it was exported as a JPEG image and sent to the stamp maker for a brass stamp 3cm across. hth