fredk

Agree. OT now; I'm making up some basic kits for the ladies & 1 man in my 'Knit & Natter' group to make up coin purses like the one in the earlier picture. I'll be pre-punching most of the holes, but to my standard. Thus, assembly should be speedy @SUP One other thing to do which helps the leather close up and grip the thread is to go over the stitching tapping it down with light-weight mallet or hammer. A small plastic and/or rubber headed hammer is good. Just lightly tap down the sewing line. Leave no marks on the leather. You'll notice a difference

Not necessarily, the size of the hole must match the size of the thread and the size of the thread must match the size of the hole. On this thread the tools we are discussing cut a slit in the leather, they do not remove any leather, but still if the slit is too big for the thread some of the slit will still be seen.Ideally the thread should fill or just over fill the hole. The leather will grip the thread and close over it. Other tools which make holes for sewing remove leather and if the thread is too small the hole will always be seen. Even when the the thread is the same size as the hole the hole will be seen. The thread needs to be oversize to fill the hole as the leather will not close up to grip the thread unless it is forced to do so On these wee coin purses I use a punch to make the sewing holes. It removes leather, about 0.8mm diam hole. I used 1mm waxed cord to sew. The thread is too big for the hole and needs tugged through. It hides the hole pretty well On this Tandy kit the pre-punched holes are too big for the thread or lace and the sewing holes still show and also give an uneven 'jagged' looking sewing line(photo picture taken from an Amazon listing)

Nice variety I think you're getting the hang of making these Carry on

An addendum to the main discussion; Tandy has. or had, in their library two books, 'Leather and Wood' Volumes 1 and 2. Vol 1 is by our hero Al Stohlman and Vol 2 is by Jerry Jennings & John Drake ( Ha ha, it takes two to compete with the Master! ) Many of the projects in the books are rather dated and old fashioned now but I thought youse might be interested in them and maybe get some inspiration Leather and Wood Vol. I.pdf Leather and Wood Vol. II.pdf

Good idea But are they steady enough? I would use pipe joints to put lengths of pipes running between all the legs, to make them all dependent on each other to stay steady

On June 1st I placed an order with buyleatheronline UPS delivered my order at 15.00 12th June. I had to buy much more than what I wanted as the minimum order value from the UK is £135. My eventual order totalled £244. I was warned there would be customs duties etc on the order when it reached me. However, there were no extra charges Overall. I'm please with the quality of the hides and pieces of shearling I received. Even the Grade 3 or Grade B quality is very good I'll definitely be heading to them for my next top up of leather

btw, highly recommended for use with the chisels is one of these; they are easily made so don't be tempted by the ones costing £20! I made mine out of an off-cut of acrylic perspex which I had laying around (I'm always on the scrounge for bits of stuff like this, )

I have these in 3mm and 4mm. Cheap ones, Cost me about £6 or £8 for a set of 4. Never bent yet. Sharpening and polishing them helps them cut. The 3mm set matches quite closely but not 100% the tooth spacing on my pliers type. These are useful for where the pliers cant reach. Also, even with these chisels or the pliers a good sharp diamond awl is required as the holes may be 1. not perfectly through, 2. too small, 3. have closed up a bit When I recently did this book cover I used my pliers type to punch the sewing holes almost all the way around, but they could not reach over the pen holding loop, that's where the chisels were used. As I sewed around the perimeter I had to use the awl a few times to open up the holes

That is one way. Its easier to work on the leather on the flat. But you may loose some definition in the tooling. On this pen case I stamped after it was wet moulded to shape;

The stitching near the edge; the leather could have been skived very thin. folded back on itself and stitched. Those big round things which go through the stitching might be some sort of upholstery nail, although a ready rivet stem with head, ie one part of a double-headed rivet, can be used. I've done that on some of my game boards

Interesting technique. Nicely carried out Carry on

It should be fine. Acetone is used as a cleaner and degreaser. If I have any doubts about the cleanliness of a piece of leather I wipe it over with a generous amount of acetone. Nothing bad has ever happened to the leather. If anything, the leather takes dye better and more evenly

So many ways, so much advice we'll have the poor wee lassie's head spinning like a Highland Reel !

btw; something to watch out for; UK shoe sizes are quite different to US shoe sizes; eg In the UK I buy a size 10 wide but in the US I'm an 11 regular, and size 10 UK is covered by 3 different EU sizes Your father's lasts will probably be all standard UK sizes, no EU or US ones edited to add in this guide https://www.pediwear.co.uk/chart.php

Slightly off topic; I started my personal campaign to get people to stop throwing away old items because they were 'old' and the people didn't bother to find out what they had back about 1977. Back then a friend and I collected old photography items, One day we spotted a brass plate in an antique shop window. the plaque had come off a certain camera. We asked the store owner if he had the camera. 'No. I burnt it. The wood was no good and it was too old' We showed him a recent auction report in a magazine we had just purchased in which a similar camera had been sold. His plaque was off a Louis Daguerre camera of 1829 and was numbered 7. The one in the auction was of 1830, numbered 15 and the camera was described as in very poor condition. It had sold for £12,000. And this man had burnt his. He had burnt money. At that time my sister had bought a very nice modern semi for under £10,000, those houses sell for £250, 000 plus today

Please don't even scrap those. They might be useful as organ donors for other machines. The manufacturers tended to use their own screw threads and getting replacements to service other machines is near impossible. If you were to trawl (not troll,) this forum you'll come across a great many requests such as 'Where can I get a plate/screw/bolt/ . . . for a Singer 29K or a xxx . . . .?' I and my son started with one 1930 Austin 7 Ulster. We now have a large shed full of spare wheels, engines, seats, chassis. We bought spare parts whenever and wherever we could. We have helped a few fellow club members with spare parts. All these old parts are organs for our old cars to keep them on the road. Just like your old 'dead' machines

Have you access to a computer or lap-top with Windows Paint on it? You can resize photos in Paint

ebay or Gumtree, or Le Prevo if they'll take them I'd advise NOT to take them to any auction house. They might be ok with furniture or porcelain but when it comes to specialist machinery they haven't a baldy and will bluff it out and, sad to say, in England there is still a lot of misogyny and they'll try to tell you that you don't know what you're talking about

Always worth salvaging. Shoe makers' and cobblers' machines are scarce enough. Someone somewhere will want it and can make use of it About 6 years ago an old shoemaker/cobbler in a town near me died and his family cleared out his old shop. Machines going back to the 1850s / 1860s were sledgehammered and sent for land-fill. No attempt was made to sell them. afair some of the old machines were very valuable, enough to pay off a mortgage. You never know just what you have there in value

I have a rather large piece of deer antler; The red ruler is 15cm (about 6 inches), the hole in it goes right thru. I used to use it as a bow rest. If you don't get one locally and if this is any good to you I'm willing to mail it to you, foc, by slo-boat. Just to get it used on something

Why not give it a go! as you say you're all set up. You don't have to make shoes. A small shoulder bag, belt things like that. And you've joined this forum. If you have time browse the 'How do I . . . ? ' section. There are plenty of other crafters who will help you develop your skills. We are usually very kind on early efforts. 'How do I do that?' 363 pages. I'm still working through them several years on! I work from both ends, oldest & most recent https://leatherworker.net/forum/forum/36-how-do-i-do-that/ Thats really nice you can buy a basic leather thickness gauge for under a tenner on ebay. Be careful, this very same item sells for very many, mucho ££ by other sellers https://www.ebay.co.uk/itm/224912663552?hash=item345dd6e400:g:6OAAAOSwyq5iRLPy&amdata=enc%3AAQAIAAAA4AYF0cZT%2BNEzh%2BlnQFi2fT%2F%2FV7Ps5uGL1qBm1PRca%2FP0cHHkuj6UwdZJjiAQSxrNmrlw3GdjfIAbSnmCgWbJ%2FRTAgWlke58M0lVtkc6WBONUOnTWjzrl602lmoH0UrS5YnZsMWJhFMmjW4LOOrotcsyhEnM77rxi%2B6%2BxO1ntIgFWNUxqduwTGgGj0EvadezqjF%2BLQYSXAa5ninU8hqBdR3dk%2BNcGELKnv%2F9PpepyEkD9tYsW82NhMDKcyhNLQheonOLyi%2FDig7o8lANhkFkfQ3u61nF0hpbb03t7%2Bi4ob9Hq|tkp%3ABk9SR8qtm9qUYg Currently my orders from China are taking 10 to 15 days to arrive UK price is about £12. Worth it to me, but to you?

1. on here, . There are quite a few UK leather crafters on here who might buy them. The Ozzies and Cranks, errr, the Yanks can get new snake skins far easier than we can 2. on ebay, as 'antique reptile skins' but not as snake because ebay UK/Europe will ban their sale. I've even seen snake skin listed as fish skin. I've never seen a 4ft long diamond-back 'fish' yet 3. its more than just the shape, its the feel, the scales, the thinness which can tell you if its real snake. But you're probably correct. Snake skin shoes were top-notch and popular in the 1960s - 1970s but dropped out of fashion in the mid-1980s be ware of the latest changes in the laws to do with products from exotic species. More have been recently added. Some we, as leather crafters, might not come across, such as ivory from Walrus or Killer Whales, but hides from other animals have been added PS. oh, just remembered, Le Prevo also sells on old leather crafting machines* so talk to them about those as well - but NOT before letting us see them ! * they have or recently had a stainless steel kitchen sink & fittings for sale !

In more ways than one. You need to determine if they are really snake skin or cow/goat skin impressed and coloured. Its hard to sell on real snake skin in the UK as most snakes come under UK endangered species lists and the authorities just lump them all in together. You can get into real trouble over them - but sell on the sly to other leather crafters and no one is the wiser. I'd suggest, for the other hides, if there are that many, contact Le Prevo in Newcastle. Under the previous owner Stu they used to buy in odd leathers from such sources as yourself. They might still do, or sell them on your behalf

I use a small narrow whetstone and swipe it along the length of the blade. A few strokes on each side alternately. Once made good and sharp it only needs one or two swipes to keep it that way

Perforated leather is a favourite for car seats and steering wheel covers but in your case it was most likely for shoe insoles tbh, you can get really decent prices for small off-cuts, in bundles especially, on ebay But be ware that between ebay & paypal fees you loose about 15 to 20% of your sold price