fredk

Don't use hot water; at the most only luke warm and apply with a sponge

I think its very attractive nicely made bag

Start with a guide line; use a pair of compass dividers or an adjustable creaser or even an adjustable stitching groover. Work slowly. Do the guide line before you bevel the edges. Use a thick straight edge to guide your knife in the prepared groove line, do a section at a time, eg 30-35cm, then the next but over lap the guide by about 6 or 7 cms each time

There are just soooo many designs for this sort of bag. But you have two starting points; a shoulder strap and outside pocket. I'd base it on a tote; but with a flap to go over the top to close it. Multiple pockets round the outside, some with closing flaps and some without; use velcro for keeping the flaps closed. Use upholstery or clothing weight leather

Your stitching is showing at the seam. I think its pulling the soft leather. Try sewing it with a thin welt Aye; those shoe lasts are so common here; antique stores sell them for £1, many homes have three or four, or even more, and they are commonly used for door stops. I have two of them and have turned away dozens offered for free. They are useful for other things than shoe cobbling in leather work

- love the eatin tools!

How to remove rust/corrosion from hard to clean parts metal parts Soak in a citric acid or in vinegar. The vinegar works faster if salt is added, it also works a bit more vigorously when its hot Last November whilst at RAF Cosford's Conservation Hangar a conservator showed me an engine he was recovering. It had spent 72 years in sea water and sand. One of he crank shafts he shewed us [there were two] and its connecting rods and pistons were just a mass of corrosion. Here we have multiple metals; steel crank, aluminium connecting rod, aluminium magnesium piston and white metal bearings. Then he showed us a treated assembly; it had spent six months in an airtight container soaking citric acid - it looked like it had just come out of an old working engine , not totally pristine but almost all the corrosion was gone - even the piston rings were movable it their grooves. Since then I've been using this technique to clean mild surface rust off old neglected tools. Usually a few days or a week's soaking is enough. I've also used it to clean brass electric components on a certain job order and,......btw CokeCola no longer works for cleaning anything

I had the fortune to meet Fred D and have breakfast & tea with him. All cooked on a coal shovel and eaten off it too

A teacher of mine did somat like that. He was a chemistry teacher and he kept a row of t/tube on his desk. Each had a chemical sort of label on it. Each actually contained whiskey, brandy, rum etcetera. He knocked them back one after the other during the day

Sorry, I was only joshin ya. Shud've used a smiley thingy

*snigger* old?! I used to live on an old farm, the house was built about 1883, the out-houses, in which I had my first leather workshop, were built in the early 1720s. One of those buildings which I used for storage was built in 1711-1712

On your internet browser there should be a browser menu, usually at very top right of the browser menu bar. Open that menu and you should have within it a 'zoom' control which you can use to resize the main window tab. You can enlarge the contents of the screen to see the content at larger sizes. I do this sometimes to see details in pictures

I'm enjoying this thread immensely. I'm currently re-fitting/remodeling my work space and there are so many good ideas on here which I shall blatantly steal and adapt to my own set up. Thank you every one for sharing your work spaces set up

Go on then. Keep it rolling....................rolling, rolling.... rawhide....RAWHIDE!

naw, its just shows that folk on here vary from business' like you to one person working on a old table in a spare room, storing their leather under their bed. Besides the art of leathercraft what we all have in common is the willingness to share information and help each other

The item and word is Aglet/Aiguillette. Two words mean the same thing. Its the decorative or functional hard piece added to the end of a cord or lace The small metal or plastic end on a shoe/boot lace is one version. A more elaborate decorative version is worn on a cord by senior military persons, eg aides-de-camp to Presidents or Prime Ministers. The word aiguillette has transferred from meaning just the attachment at the end of the cord to meaning the whole cord. This cord is not to be confused with the 'lanyard' which is a functional cord worn by military personel

I'll leave my question open for a while longer As for wine, many old practices have dropped away from lack of use. One was wine was to be poured into a decanter, then from that to a glass, whilst pouring into a decanter the wine was to be poured through a fine sieve to remove any lees [the sediment] Also, your host was to offer you the use of a tongue scraper, if you had not brought your own. There are various explanations for the concave base of a wine bottle. Most do not stand up to study eg; it was done by glass blowers so that bottles could stand up-right. 1. At the time the concave bottom on glass bottles was introduced carbonated soft drinks were in favour and they had a pointed bottom end. 2. both wine and the early carbonated drinks were meant to be stored laying down. Wine should still be kept this way if it has a natural cork stopper; its to keep the cork wet to stop air getting into the bottle and spoiling the wine. 3. laying flat the lees cannot collect in the ring around the concave part. 4. see above, in 'proper' use wine should be decanted through a filter before it goes to a glass; modern drinkers take the wine straight from the bottle. 5. At the time the glass wine bottle was introduced the glass blowers were blowing their glass into moulds for the bottles so they had no opportunity to manually push the base of the bottle inwards. 6. There is evidence that clay/pottery wine bottles made in Flanders in the 18thC had a modest concave bottom. These clay bottles were to be stored laying down as well, many of them had a flat along the side so they could lay down and not roll. A wine with lees is a fresh wine; lees is the dead yeast after fermentation. Its not harmful to drink them, but they don't taste nice. I make my own wine and I have wine over 10 years old which is still fermenting slightly and dropping lees. The older the wine the less lees. During the aging fermentation a wine should be decanted regularly into a fresh fermentation container to take it off the old lees.

Ok, since I won that round its my turn. What is the common link between a boot/shoe lace and something which denotes a military rank?

Have you a free community newspaper sort of thing? An advert that you have excess small pieces of leather to go free to any school/kids group. Word the ad so it doesn't sound like you are giving away garbage. Limit the amount per group. Just a thought

The concave bottom is to counter the pressure of the fermentation gases within the bottle

Rules and regulations I suppose. Its different where I am. We have 'Play Resource Centres' which thrive on useable waste from businesses. Every so often I take my scrap over to one of their places. The scrap/waste goes into big bins and teachers etc come and get some for craft/art at their school.

Well, no one has jumped in with help or advice. I reckon, by experience, you can do that but you'll have to face-up to the deglazer removing some of the dye as well. Resolene can be removed with alcohol as well; methylated spirits, vodka.... A more aggressive cleaner is lacquer thinners, aka cellulose thinners I would; reckon on going over the whole piece to remove all the resolene, this will probably remove some dye as well. Depending on how I [you] want the final look; continue to remove dye to even it out, or leave it patchy. Patchy, as long as it doesn't look a mess, can add interest to a plain coloured surface

Definitely not. The pure beeswax is best. Yellow beeswax is fine but if you can get the white cappings wax its even better

It does look like a home-made stitching groover

Not been asked yet; what type of leather is it and how did you prepare it for the dyeing?