fredk

There is a certain amount of wet moulding needed on these steering wheels. And a certain amount of shrinking the leather in place

Sounds like it was 'hard'water. Have you tried washing it down with a mild dilute distilled vinegar / water solution?

example https://www.tandyleather.world/products/solid-brass-double-cap-rivets-100-pack?variant=32642873000071

Superglue on a cotton bud or cotton ball will actually ignite On one of those 'hacks' on youtube a foreign chappie showed how to light a fire with a cotton bud and superglue. In case you are out in the wilderness and need to light a fire I would think that if you are out in the wilderness you'd not have superglue with you but better fire lighting equipment, like matches, a cigarette/ pipe lighter or even an iron fire striker. If not, you deserve to die and be eaten by dingoes / vultures / crows / hyenas / rats

So that last blade, what we call a 'Stanley' knife blade, is of reasonable sharpness straight from the box?

Simple check; take a magnet to them. I have never had nickle plate on brass tarnish but I've had nickle plate on steel showing corrosion, the corrosion of the steel coming through. I only use plated brass or unplated brass now I think they may very slightly stronger. The head over the base keeps that base from pulling through too easily, or easier than without the head cover. But the double header is far nicer in appearance and useful. I only use double headers now, just very occasionally single headers in a very small size

Many questions; are they nickel on steel? are they tarnishing before use or after use? what way are they stored unused or when used?

I've used superglue on leather; to stick tag ends of sewn thread down. Any excess superglue soaked right into the leather and dried very quickly. It dried very hard. I doubt any machine sewing needle would be able to get through it I once tried superglue on its own and also mixed with talc powder as a filler on some edges, to seal them before waxing and burnishing. The superglue dried extremely hard and stiffened the edges far too much. I had to cut away the edges

I guess the starting slow would be a bonus on a sewing machine. I like to go slow on mine but the foot controllers just go from slow to fast too easily and quickly. I suppose I just need to sort that out

I prefer a full hide, or full half. As I make small goods I can get useable pieces out of the naturally squiggly belly edge or the sticky out bit where the legs were White, bright yellow, bright blue, bright green, bright red, bright orange in various thicknesses, from 1mm (2 oz?) mm to 4mm (10 oz?) mostly and did I mention WHITE I have an old order to recover car steering wheels. The customer would like to have them done in bright coloured leather. I've been sitting on that order since 2014 now. I think he has 350 to 400 steering wheels he wants me to do but I just cannot get the bright coloured leather in pre-dyed veg tan. When I try to dye it always turns out very dark

there speaks experience edit; I've just asked for some of this thread chat to be separated off as it has drifted so far from the OP's question

You can get filament and liquid resin printers. I have a resin printer. The resin costs about $25 for a 1kg bottle This figure is 28mm tall. It used 5p of resin, about 6c? Even if the whole bottle of resin were to be used that would be $25 or £30 (resin is dearer here). But at a guestimate only about 1/3 of a bottle would be used. The main price is in the scanning and making the computer file Doc says a blue gun is $50. Bunkhouse Tools sells resin cast SAA type guns for $36 - https://bunkhousetools.com/shop-1/ols/products/colt-xn-45-sa-5-1-2-barrel-xs9j It would cost another $30 to ship it to me if I wanted one Once you have the printer file you can print off as many copies as you want. You could sell surplus copies. (And within the computer file you can resize the object)

search out, if you can, people who do 3D printing. They operate places called 'workerspaces' or similar. They can 3D scan a gun and print it out in plastic. There are local restrictions tho You really don't want to use 'foundry' type moulding with an original gun. I used to that on a small scale to make car badges and such. You use 'oil sand' to make the mould, but that can get into the gun mechanisms which I think, unless absolutely & fully cleaned out might damage the mechanism

The easiest sewing machine in the world to larn on - you and

Hand sew the second time?

mmm, might be a way to get rid of that body I have in the freezer. . . . . .

or a blue plastic gun, but the holster still needs to be sewn up tight firstly

I think the bit you are missing is that its usual to sew closed a gun holster then wet mould it for a tight fit

Do it your normal way, but use a waste/slave* thread, then after its dyed, undo the thread and restitch with a better thread of the colour you want * in the vintage car world when we use something for temporary and its to be changed for a permanent item its called a 'slave' eg, we use spare wheels with bad tyres on them for moving the car around or when spray painting the car, those are 'slave' wheels, to be replaced with the better ones later

I noticed that the unusually strong sun light we have had here recently was bleaching my favourite black hat. Its my favourite hat right now because its the only wearable one I have right now. Also, with it getting soaked in the rain down pours we have had and its fast drying in the sun it was getting drying stains. So what to do? What any leather crafter would do. I got out a bottle of thinned black resolene and sponge applied that over all. Result! My hat be black again And to celebrate; remember its the LAW that your turn this up to 11! One of the greatest pieces of all time by one of the greatest bands of all time!!

I'm interested in some of the skins, but maybe not all. I need to workout a price to offer you. I want to give you a fair price for them (this my 4.444 recorded posting! )

I'll look into that

Skive first. If the edge is still too thick for your liking, very lightly skive the lining leather a wee bit. Goes against the 'rules' but that skived edge will be hidden by the sewing

I meant, if you go through a metal detector at a government building or an airport the lead will block and the security staff there will want to know what the lead is hiding

you can buy sheets of extremely thin self-adhesive lead. Its meant for fly-making for fly fishing*. But, 1. its expensive for all you get 2. its much heavier than the aluminium tape, 3. if you go through a metal detector / scanner it will block that and you'll be pulled and searched * who fishes for flies?