fredk

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

Many people have converted arbor presses bought cheaply from a US machinery dealer [can't remember the name] Make a search on here for Arbor Press might throw up some better answers. The Tandy fittings for their press fits into some of the cheaper arbor presses Edit; I just noticed I had this bookmarked >

Anything from about 1mm to about 2.5mm thick [3 to 6 oz ?] in veg tan. I would prefer to use veg tan for this, it can be oiled up or stained after moulding Two ways; 1 / wet mould around handle, take off, trim excess leather, punch sewing/lacing holes, put back on and sew up 2 / Trim leather to size. sew/lace in place, wet mould after its in place [chance of shrinkage tho] For the ridges; glue a length of thick thong or string around the handle of the stick for each ridge - wet mould over them. Then if you want to, remove the thongs/strings and glue into the now raised areas of the moulded handle before putting it back on, but leaving them on the stick will help with getting the grip back on exactly where it fitted afore

I would; a/ use resolene thinned 1:1 with water b/ dip tray coat it with at least two coats, letting dry in between each coating. Hang up, clipped by a corner to allow the excess Resolene to run and drip off, into a tray or waste paper; speeds up the drying too especially if you have warm air blowing around them

Boyd and his wife Lynne are Irish Arms [in Cavan afaik]. They have made the equipment for the film 'Arthur', some for 'Braveheart' , 'Vikings' and lots of other major medieval & historic films and programmes He's likely to have been the person who bought that leather.

That wasn't Boyd Rankin was it by any chance?

Buy, buy, buy! You'll not get the chance again. The more you buy perhaps you'll get a better deal on it too. Buy as much as you can afford. Its too good to miss up. Its all very useful; you can make all sorts of small items, plus it can be used for lining insides of bags etc

A suggestion; Theres a Tandy store in Manchester, contact them and see if they know a leatherworker in the Liver/Man area who might be willing to do your items

Wet the leather before you bend it over Cracking is also a sign that the leather is too dry; [its old and drying out] it might need lots more nfo rubbed in

I've given some thought to this; Its a nice bit of hardware but is totally inefficient to its purpose if it keeps coming off Simply; it needs replacing. I would replace the hardware completly with a leather loop tab sewn on and incorporating a lobster crab bag loop/link

and skive the long edges and one end of the gusset piece and the corresponding length of the main piece. Make the bottom corners rounded, not too much, just a bit to ease the the front/bottom/back piece around without any tight corners I like to make my gussets longer than needed, then skive and fold over the top end; give a neat finish

I have a few duplicate Tandy 3D stamps. Can't just remember what they are. Can I send them on to you? Might have a few other odd duplicate tools as well

I'll not be doing that; I prefer to keep my blades covered up where they don't need to be for cutting

you can make a maul out of old [uk] milk jugs, ie hdpe its easy; one of my 'winter' projects

That looks just grand so it does.

I use a photo hosting site. I resize my photos to under 800 x 600 pixels in a very basic photograph program; save them to the photo-host site, then copy and paste into the forum Some photo-hosting sites such as smugmug allow you to choose the smaller size there before copying