fredk

Ok, I'll be first to be cruel, in a kind-hearted sort of way, I hope The edges look rough, they look uneven. The letters look cramped and not aligned. The background is too dark and looks uneven. That makes it harder to distinguish the porker Now, here is the way I would do this. 1. Make a cardboard template of the top. 2. Use coloured chrome tan to totally cover the top and side edges of the brush.. A nice bright colour, contact glued in place. 3. Draw around the card template on to the front/grain side of a thick piece of veg tan. 4. Cut that out but leave a big border around the shape. 5. Do the tooling on it. Move the initials further towards the centre of the length, just a bit, space them out a bit more and make sure they're aligned, Draw in your animal, a bit of tooling on its edge. 6. Apply a 'resist' on the letters and animal. Carefully dye the piece with a bright colour. 7. Paint the initials and animal, and anything else 8. Cut the extra border away from the piece, bit by bit, offering it up to check it conforms to the shape of the brush. When it does, dye and slick (smooth) its edges. Almost there. 9. Cut a piece of thinner leather, from the chrome tan maybe. Make it the same shape as the tooled piece but smaller, maybe 1/2 inch/1cm all round smaller. Glue this to the back of the tooled piece, in the centre 10. Now glue this combo onto the brush. I need to scratch the top of the chrome tan piece on the brush for the glue to work. 11. As I stick it down with strong contact adhesive, on one end of the rush I insert the ends of a length of thong or lace. The lace is about 16 inches long. 2 inches of each end are under the tooled piece leaving 12 inches loose, but doubled over giving a loop of about 6 inches, for hanging the brush 12. As I glue I use a small rubber head mallet to tap down the glued edges of the tooled piece onto the chrome tan covering the brush 13. Apply a finish to the tooled piece, polish it up 14. present fancy brush to new owner mm, I think thats it

Oim a fergittin ma maners; your cases/holsters/sheaths shore do look good and robust, ready for plenty of outdoor (ab)use

I doubt it very much. Research is money led. Only when something is affecting a big company's profits do they research & develop. No one is fussed about leather - just use the same ole thing we've used for centuries, it works, it will work, don't change it. Its not just in the leather industry but in other fields as well Jars of olive oil from about & over 3000 years ago exist and the oil is/was still good, In good airtight sealed containers veggie oils will last a very long time, hundreds of years. Once opened their life is in months. But NFO can go bad in time as well. Petroleum based mineral oils do not go rancid Just, do NOT use chicken fat or grease, without refining it maybe - in my history presentation group a chap brought me his belt pouch. It was well dried out and needed NFO. But he insisted I use fresh chicken fat/grease as 'thats what they would have used in medieval times' (uh, no, they used a version of NFO) about 3 months later he brought the pouch back to me, in a sealed plastic bag. Could I clean it? The chicken fat had gone rancid and was rotting the leather. I tried to clean it but it was too far gone. Ever smell rotting chicken? its F**king awful and sickening. That pouch was burnt by the owner We'll start. When I'm out shopping next I'll get some 'Baby oil' and vaseline. I have virgin olive oil. I'm not currently working on anything that needs oiled but soon I will be One other myth which is perpetuated on the internet is that 'ready rivets' are not strong. In my experience it is the opposite. Years ago when I was on facebooky, I asked a few of these peeps who said the rivets were not strong. None of them had used them. General answer was; 'I won't use them because I read they aren't strong.. . .'

also, when you have enuf savings to survive for 3 to 5 years without having any income

When I did a lot of camping, what is now called 'wild camping' in the UK I used a small, 6 inch, crows foot wrecking/pry bar. Multitude of uses. The hook end, or the eye on these, for pulling up the rope stakes, the flat end for splitting small logs, by putting the flat in a crack and either hitting the bar or twisting it. And for bashing that tin of beans because you forgot the tin opener! When I was a beek we used a tool called a scraper, a kind of flat pry bar. Sure wish no I had a belt sheath for carrying that, I lost quite a few in long grass, even when painted fluorescent yellow! Might be a market for someone to make belt sheaths for these

Maybe This is THE forum for US to experiment and check these things out. To get to the truth. Even the tanneries will only repeat what is said by the greater un-washed There is a discussion type which I call a circular-argument. It goes like this; I read it in a book, I put it up on an internet forum, someone else reads the forum and puts it in a magazine, I read the magazine and I know I'm right because I read it in a book and a magazine. Thats how a lot of these myths become perpetual I've thought of something. My Austin 7 car was built in December 1930. In its drive system is an item we call 'the donut', aka a fabric coupling (rear wheel drive BMW cars use something similar in looks) I have an original one from 1929. Originals are made of laminations of heavy fabric/canvas and leather, all tightly compressed and held together by those triangular plates. I know its from 1929 as the date on manufacture is stamped on one of those plates, That was retired as the rivets on one plate set ripped out during a race. Anyway, servicing of this item was to take it off at regular mileage intervals and apply some light engine oil to it to keep it supple. Not to soak it in oil, just a small amount I can say that when it came off a few years ago it was 87 years old and neither the leather nor canvas showed any signs of rot or deterioration. Another; the Austin engine was fully overhauled in 1984. I did it again in 2004. Inside the engine are some oil seal gaskets made of oil impregnated leather. They are in constant saturation with the engine oil. None of those gaskets were being destroyed by the engine oil. They were changed because they were too compressed to re-use

In my vintage car world leather straps are used to hold bonnets and boots closed, to keep spare tyres in their carriers, a lot of other places as well. Our cars spray hot and cold engine and gear box oils pretty much all over the place, over parts of the cars and passengers too. This makes it sound like we're an environmental hazard on the road but its an accumulation over time. We only use high quality mineral oil. Our engines and gearboxes cannot use the alternatives, they weren't built to do so Since I took up leather working I looked at the car straps. The straps which get the worst of the oil are the first to rot through. In places where the oil can be washed out the straps last longer but still rot. I had to replace all the straps on my car and when I did I gave them a good feeding of NFO, and used to do it regularly. My straps have lasted 24 years now. I've noticed that others in my club are replacing their straps every 3 to 5 years I think, the difference of using mineral oil on us is it is very highly refined and we are living. Our skin is a living organ and deals with it whereas leather is dead and just absorbs the oil and does nothing with it. Putting even highly refined engine oils on us can give us serious skin complaints - I know, I used to work on my cars without wearing gloves. Eventually I got serious dermatitis because of it Don't take other's words as gospel truth. Try it, experiment. If something works for you, thumb your nose at the nay-sayers

Interesting I just use thick thread for heavy duty, thin thread for light duty. I've never even thought about the thread strength Considering that tent and tilt and truck curtain makers use a double run of stitching and their thread doesn't look overly thick I reckon you could use two stitching runs. Spaced well apart and maybe with the sewing holes staggered, and maybe threads of different colours?

Here is a pixie of some of my stock. You reminded me that I have them and I had started to paint the pink ones and I think I actually paid slightly more for per 6 than you did for 10 The ebay seller I got them from has about 6 or 8 trading names on ebay and even tho I bought about 50 or so of these and the deal was fine he has me blocked from buying again. But my ex buys for me and gets them sent to her address and forwards them on to moi

I used to get them from a chinaman seller on ebay. Last lot I bought were about the same price you paid

Can you still buy the books which list brands? A copy would be handy for when we add some brands to our leather for that 'unique' look, I mean, like, one brand per hide ain't enuf, we need more

Have you back-flushed it regularly?

If your extra holes are bigger that 2mm, get two of the hole punches and wrap duct tape around them. Start the punching with double holes, then singles, using the last hole made to put one of the punches in to keep the spacing

Sounds like a bit of cattle rustling went on

I used to get that mis-alignment problem with pre punched holes when I first made these; Problem solved by punching holes along outside edge of the front and back pieces but punching only one hole in each edge of the gusset, at centre bottom, for parts alignment, then using either double-sided tape or glue to hold the gusset in place and making sewing holes by using an awl, a few holes at a time, sewing up, then more holes and so on

Its because you have two circles of different diameters

oh no? At one time I used to make shoulder bags out of upholstery leather. I'd bought several Kgs of it as off-cuts Anyway, a woman asked me to make a shoulder bag for her. I rootled through my stock looking for some nice stuff when she spotted a nice coloured piece with a large scar on it, The scar was about 6 inches long with a real ugly edge to it. She wanted that piece as the front of the bag. After finding out what it was, in her opinion, 1. it was unique, and 2. only real leather would have it

Could I have the stencils please?

Actually, I find I'm using a quality handle with 18mm snap-off blades much more

similar, but I don't like a retractable blade and my main knife is a 'carpet fitters' version shape; the middle one and for roughing out I use a hook blade in it;

A. inform local trading standards offices of your concerns. I'm thinking that most places have such located at, in or near the local town hall B. Many years ago now, about 15, I was in touch with my TSO;, In the EU 'Leather' is no longer just the material made from the skins of animals, its just a describer. In the same way 'cloth' can be used for wool, cotton, silk

deviation; I think the very dangerous thing I/we used to do as youngster would be called a 'mortar' Here, the real fireworks had long fuzes, which gave you 20 to 30 seconds to do anything.We got a length of plastic water pipe. Stuffed a 'sky rocket' firework down it. On top of that we put a paper cup or paper cone filled with fire-crackers. We lit the fuzes on the fire-crackers or other small fireworks. Then one of held the pipe as another lit the fuze on the sky-rocket. The tube was hastily shoved into a bucket of sand or soil, at an angle off from vertical but close to. The sky-rocket fuze had been cut short so it would go off well before the fire-crackers. If all worked well the skyrocket launched taking the paper cup up and as it exploded it sent the fire-crackers flying out, and then they went off, whirling and twisting as each section exploded. Sometimes, one of us (usually me) had to hold the bottom of the pipe to stop it falling over, and sometimes (a lot of times, ) the fireworks didn't go skywards but dropped on to somebody's house roof PS. as my friends knew I was from Chicago they gave me the nickname 'Chicargo Chuck-a-boom'

Years ago I came across a craftsman, who I knew casually, at an out door craft fair. His specialty was/is high quality wood turned items and other wood work using extremely very nice woods He had printed signs on groups of his items. But he had one price sign that said £2000. He placed it randomly on his wares. As I watched I saw the sign working for him Like this; 'Is that really the price?' 'yes it is' 'What, £2000 for that ?' My friend lifts the price sign, turns it round, looks at it and says 'oops, thats in the wrong place. Those are only £x each' 'oh, thats better, Can I have that one with the dark & light wood?' My friend then tells the buyer what woods they are, how to look after it, then throws in foc a small tin of special wood polish See, psychology, the customer is drawn by the £2000 price sign and even when buying at the lower true price in the back of their mind is the thought they got a big discount bargain, £x instead of £2000