fredk

You can now buy plastic boxes meant for small or dismantlable re-useable Christmas trees; they can be got in lengths of between 4 ft to 6ft 6 inches or so and about 1 foot square. Be careful of storing the leather under the bed; I stored a load of veg tan temporarily under mine and the smell and/or chemicals given off made me quite ill - nausea and headaches. Once removed to the afore mentioned plastic boxes the illness disappeared

Line the inside and outside of the jaws with good heavy weight leather, put on flesh side out

Welcome to the forum No question is stoopid, so ask what you want

A/ you can never make real leather goods water-proof. You can only make them a little bit water resistant, light rain proof B/ much of the 'leather' goods sold in shops at the cheaper prices is made of PU Leather; an artificial leather mostly made of pvc type plastic which does not need aftercareeg the handbags sold in Tesco and ASDA. Quality leather goods do 'wear' and the outside does need regular feeding and treatment - examples; saddles, leather seats in quality cars [I've just been asked to refinish the seats of a few Series 6 BMWs as they are worn], briefcases, holsters...... C/ Any sort of finish for leather can be put over any sort of dye, once the dye is dry and buffed to removed surface excess. Choice of dye and finish is up to the personal experience or thought of the worker - we all have our favourites. Ask 10 of us and get 20 answers. Personally I use Fieblings acrylic dyes, followed by thin coats of Resolene to seal then a coat or two of a neetsfoot oil & beeswax mixture. Some on here prefer oil dies, some prefer Snow Proof or Aussie Conditioner over Resolene. Start with one type of dye, eg the acrylic dye, and say Resolene - get used to how they work together, if you can work with them keep with that, or change one at a time until you get results you are happy with. Being in England you might be near one of the Tandy shops, buy what they have; its repeatable stock so you can get the same time after time hth

Once you've sewn over the glued part the pieces are attached to each other so you're not gonna be able to remove the glue. Contact adhesive is good, or double sided tape. There are thin double-sided tapes made for leather-work and regular cloth sewing. I prefer a contact adhesive. Here where I am there are two which come in tubes; UHU and Bostick. I prefer the UHU. I run a thin line of it along where I want it to stick, putting it on both parts, wait a few moments for the glue to dry a bit then I stick the parts together. The tube glue is handy as its nozzle allows just a thin line to be placed, easier than using a spatula and a big tin of glue Go to your local DIY or Hobby shop or even a $ store and you can get glues like my UHU brand.

I've not used 'oil' tanned. By the look of your piece its very thin, and you say its 'stretchy' - that sort of leather is near impossible to edge burnish unlike thicker and stiffer veg tan. Your piece is not too much unlike the chrome tanned upholstery leather I use. For neat edges on it I skive the inside edge a bit using rough sand paper [a skiver just doesn't want to know] - I do about 2cm wide, then fold and glue that edge over, blattering it really flat with a rubber-head mallet. Not only does that give a really neat, tidy edge the double thickness is an advantage for the sewing or lacing Don't make the really silly mistake I made when I first used a rotary knife. I used it with my usual straight edge. I found the supposedly really good rotary knife had only partially cut through the thin leather. Tried a few more scrap pieces - same result. The centre button of the wheel blade was riding on the top of the straight-edge allowing the blade to just touch the leather!!

I use a similar arrangement but I put the excess of the screw cramps under the bench so there is only a bit of the frame up top. It means the excess is not in my way and I can work over the cramp ends if necessary

Most excellent

I stamp, dye, seal then use a gel ink pen, then seal again On poor back-up puter tonite; I'll put a photo up 2mrow thru my better puter

Alcohol will remove acrylic paint. Dampen a cloth and go slowly and carefully; you should be able to remove the paint with minimum damage to any coating underneath. Keep turning the cloth so you always have a fresh clean part otherwise you'll start to rub the paint colour into the surface too much

Here we have two quite similar tube contact adhesives; UHU and Bostick. They are both rather thick, the Bostick being more rubbery than the UHU. I usually use the UHU. I run a bead along the edge of parts to be joined, let dry for a few moments then stick together. It doesn't take much to make the join, not enough to seep thru the thickness, and if I get it right, none squeeezed out the join. Hows about using a glue like that along the edges but double sided tape on the inner part?

Any liquid adhesive can seep thru or at the edges. As you are sewing the felt to the leather, hows about double sided adhesive tape? It can be bought 2 inches or more wide so only a couple or three strips put across will cover the size of the mat. Quick, easy, mess free.

My two are a/ a bit of a sheep's rib & b/ a bit of antler

Because they just started the scheme a few weeks ago thats why

Its the cutting on glass and the granite is dulling your blades fast. Its okay to cut at an angle, eg skiving, but cutting down directly onto the glass or granite dulls the blades. Try cutting on a self-healing cutting mat, or a piece of MDF/hardboard

The one I did, and the hats are sewn outside-to-outside using saddle st. Then they are folded out so the seam is to the inside. On a bag you could do them overlapped; one down, one up, next one down _--_. Just trim them as necessary and fit them on, by over-lapping they don't need to be a perfect interlocking fit

Why waste time cutting into rectangles/squares? Disassemble football, if necessary just trim the edges of the pieces if they are worn. Sew together using your favourite method and style and build it up like a jigsaw. I've only made one possibles bag this way and people have asked me to make more and bigger patch-work bags. Its quite a fashion and they can fetch really silly prices when they have a top fancy name on them. I make leather caps/hats this way too

No. It uses either a powered engraver, something like a mini-drill, or a hand engraver which is just a pencil like tool with a harded point. Both just cut thin lines into the subject which is usually a metal trophy or metal/plastic plaque; it will only scratch leather, its no replacement for stamping The pantograph itself is just a set of interlinked bars; used in art and design work, you can have one point following a drawing and the other will draw the same thing either same size, enlarged or even reduced. Sometimes they are sold as children's toys or basic art tools. Its handy to have one about tho as you can copy a line drawing at a different size for cutting etcetera into leather Which reminds me; I've lost mine to #3 son, who borrowed it and never returned it. Time to buy a new one I think

The item in the photo is an engraver's pantograph. It uses engraved letter blocks. The engraver sets these up, a needle point on a set of arms follows the shape of the letter whilst an engraving tool a the other end is used on the subject. Adjustments can be made to make the engraved letters just about any size

I've used some veg tan camel

Details of the badge would help us help you Detail; size, shape, thickness etcetera

JK; if you thought it needful to do, then thats fine. If it works out for you thats fine too A tidy job on the welding. Long time since I did any, most times I got pigeon-poo as I was never trained. Just my preference - I'd grind the weld down till it was even with the main piece

You ask 'will it be sufficiently heavy'? How heavy do you want it? a medium weight suede would be needed; say 1.5 to 2mm I always skive the area where the buckle goes; I find it fold around the bar better, and the end of the billet is so thin that there is hardly a bump where it meets the rear of the billet. I would skive the ends of the suede piece as well You don't really need a pattern for this. Use cardboard from a cereal packet to draw out the length and width of your billet ends and use that to mark your main strap Don't forget to allow plenty of extra inches for the fold over at the buckle and at the tongue end; its easier to cut this back than to add to a belt that ends up too short for comfort

Basic regulations; bringing into the EU [including the UK] anything at all made from a protected species, endangered species or associated endangered species WILL attract a hefty fine [can be $5000 or more and and a custodial sentence which might be suspended] Alligator / crocodile / elephant / bear / praire dog / neraly all snakes / walrus / seal / whale are just some of the animals which are listed. The customs people take this very seriously and prosecute every single case through the courts An old product, eg carved ivory, can be brought into the EU as long as the item is over 100 years old, has a certificate of authenticity saying so and has government paper work confirming it. A licence to bring it into the EU has to applied for before it is brought - this can take up to 3 years to get Essentially; stick to cow/horse/indian buffalo/camel leather, either plain or impressed patterned [eg faux snakeskin pattern cow leather]

Forgot to say; your stitches will be important visually. I'd use either a base-ball stitch or a hidden-end [under & over ends] X stitch