Jump to content

fredk

Contributing Member
 View Profile  See their activity

  • Content Count

    5,420

  • Joined

Everything posted by fredk

  1. fredk
    Well, thats a nice little quickly made piece
  2. fredk
    To re-enforce the above; if you need to apply heat you are only warming the leather and the mix - you are not taking it up to cooking temperatures
  3. fredk
    How soft is your mix? and what is the [roughly] temperature at which you work? Bees' wax melts at a very low temperature. My mix is like very soft margarine. My working area is quite cold, about 18 degrees C [64* F ?] As you rub the mix in both wax and NFO will be absorbed by the leather. The NFO will go deeper tho leaving the wax nearer the surface, to be burnished. I have never yet heated either the mix nor item to get the mix into the leather, just rubbing it in is enough. Rub some mix on a bit of thick scrap, then cut thru it and you'll see how deep it can go.
  4. fredk
    Yes it does discolour. Mine, when fresh is a very, very pale honey colour, old stuff has darkened to a tobaccy-stain colour. If in doubt, throw it out; it might be contaminated with dye or somat else you could try a bit on some scrap and see what happens. If we don't hear from you again then we'll know it wasn't good stuff
  5. fredk
    I wuz jes teason
  6. fredk
    looks very nice whoa there; today is June 1st - for Christmas?! are you early, late or using a different calendar?
  7. fredk
    very nice I don't make anything really big; but I have lots of scrap upholstery leather and felt which I put under anything I'm working on if necessary to protect it from too many scrapes and bumps
  8. fredk
    tidy, neat,
  9. fredk
    There will be some subject where you will be the more knowedgeable and can add and further our learning. Remember that bit in 'Smokey and the Bandit' where Burt R basically says 'how stoopid you are depends where you come from'? You know guitars - I know nothing about them, but I bet you don't know how to strip, rebuild and tune up a 1930 Austin 7 Ulster racing engine [actually - I don't either, , ............................just kidding, I do know ] yup, some people want to keep their 'secrets' to themselves. Come across it lots. Sad innit? When I come across anyone enjoying a hobby/subject I enjoy and they want to learn I'll happily share any info. They ask questions; I answer if I can or direct them to someone who knows the answer if I don't
  10. fredk
    A. a link; http://leatherworker.net/forum/forum/9-patterns-and-templates/ there are over 10,000 postings; I'll let you search thru them b. This forum is good & friendly; I've been on other forums which have been the very opposite
  11. fredk
    Well....you could make the circular bottom larger than the hole, skive round the edge, glue into place with the skived edge folded downwards, then stitch thru, or put the skived edge folded upwards and stitch thru, going around the outside of the bag
  12. fredk

    3 new tools

    fredk replied to Sanch's topic in Leather Tools

    Very nice, all of it
  13. fredk
    I reckon that is most excellent. A simple product very neatly done
  14. fredk
    Any of those sorts of bags I've made have been in anything from 1.5 to 2.5mm belly leather [1.5mm = about 4oz, 2.5mm = about 6 oz]. The bigger the thicker the leather. Heck, I've even used 1mm upholstery leather for smallish bags, [about 6 inches x 7 inches x 1.5 inches] OK if its not to carry much weight
  15. fredk
    Interesting discussion this 1.Not very long ago I was contacted by a 'craft' shop. The offer was I rent shelf space in their shop. They do the selling, packing and accounts. Rate was $5 per square foot of shelf per week, minimum 5 square feet for inside regular area, $10 per for main sales area, $15 per for premium area. The shop would take 10% of sales price per item to cover packing supplies. Seeemed a not too bad offer. I and #3 son checked it over. The shop was in the side part of a shopping centre [mall]. We watched it over a few weeks and did a clicker count on footfall. On the best of busy days it had three shoppers average, most days there were none, zilch, nada customers. On-line chat with other crafters, someof whom took up the offer. One sold one fabric handbag in 6 months, one sold a couple of bracelets in the same time. So, not a great place to sell from. 2. On a recent visit to a shop in Belfast to inquire about something I've ended up, perhaps, with an outlet for certain leather goods [not fetish ones - I don't do those] which I never in a lifetime reckoned there was a requirement for in N.I. I need to learn how to make these items - not hard - make them, get them to the shop owner. I think it'll be a wholesale sort of pricing deal. For him I need to keep prices low-ish but it promises to be a lead in to more and other leatherwork
  16. fredk
    I had two, similar, but to suit my measurements made by a lazer cutting company for under £10 [$15] plus £2 for bolts
  17. fredk
    Carnuba adds hardness to any wax mixture. Too much can make the finish brittle and flakey when it has dried. Car waxes have a large amount of carnuba in them but car bodies ain't supposed to bend or flex like a belt or a tote-bag edited to answer one of your other questions; I use my soft wax on the flesh side of belts. It soaks right in and just a little buffing with a polishing brush gives it a modest shine and smoothness. On the outside of belts and bags I apply resolene first then my hard wax. It takes a bit more effort to buff up using a scrap of linen, denim or a stiff polishing brush. The heat generated by the buffing in both is enough to melt the mix into the leather. I've never yet used a heat scource on them on applying to the leather. Just in winter I need to warm the hard mix to soften it enough to use.
  18. fredk
    my soft wax is sort of about 45% NFO, 45% beeswax, 10% olive oil My hard wax is roughly the same but about 10% carnuba added I don't measure precisely, its, umm, sort of dumped into a bowl, warmed up and mixed
  19. fredk
    You can get a brass stamp cut by a Malaysian or Chinese maker for as little as £14 [2 x 2 cm]. It comes with a screw in bar which will fit any ordinary soldering iron or pyrogravure. The ordering to delivery time of a stamp is about 10 days
  20. fredk
    Different rules in the EU for bee products to be 'organic'. The hive has to be 5 kilometers from any major road thoroughfare. Impossible to do in Northern Ireland Bees will fly up to 3.5 miles to collect nectar to make honey and pollen for food. Pollen is pure protein. Nectar is sugars. Bees process the nectar in a honey stomach to turn it into a thick pure sugar solution. Then some chosen worker bees are fed honey by their sisters and these bees turn the consumed honey into wax. It takes 5 to 7 pounds weight to make one pound of wax Because of recent infections and pests beekeepers feed their bees antibiotics and other chemicals - during the winter, when there is no honey collection going on, so that these medicines do not enter the human food chain. However these chemicals remain in the wax as we are not supposed, or expected, to eat that - but many people do Ask your beekeeper what chemicals/medicines he/she/they use. Normal use is usually low amounts, too much is very bad BTW; I use my own beeswax from when I was a beekeeper. I still have several pounds of it.
  21. fredk
    Are you buying the bees' wax sort of 'off the shelf'? or direct from a beekeeper? If direct from a beekeeper ask for cappings wax; its purer and cleaner I'd avoid cod liver oil; even the best that I know of still smells fishy - I wouldn't like a leather product smelling of fish
  22. fredk
    Shurly tallow is just another form of unrefined neetsfoot? Both being the fats from cattle
  23. fredk
    May I say; In Northern Ireland it doesn't matter where the components come from; its the finished article which matters I suppose it might be because we have to import about 90% of things to produce finished goods
  24. fredk
    Wouldn't it be easy to convert it to a foot pedal operation by attaching a push-rod to the main handle and a crank at the bottom of the push-rod, attached to a pedal. Like a crankshaft - cam operating over-head/side valves in an engine via a pushrod, only just one set rather than 16?
  25. fredk
    Yes, but thats what I and my [few] customers want. We find it a. more comfortable b. easier to get into the bag without the strap getting in the way c. holds the bag closer to the body when turned around, for greater security
×
×
  • Create New...