fredk

I admire your all-round skills to make this

So many choices, but I'd suggest Walnut. But that would be for chip carving

I looked up 'dental dams'. They are not necessarily used by dentists! Its a couple of months away to my next dental check-up and if I remember I'll take one of my pairs to my dentist to see what he makes of it. Just to find out

A long time ago, about 30 years ago, before I got into leatherwork I did some work with a place that did old commercial vehicle restorations. I remember the chap called in to do the door cards on the vans. He used canvas bags of wet sand to hold the leather or vinyl in place The wet sand was in plastic bags, then a canvas or linen bag outer. afair the bags weighed about 10lbs each The upholsterer glued the material on with time-drying contact adhesive. A modest size area at a time. He had various wooden tools to prod and push the material into place then he slapped a sand bag on top of it.

Is this another example of a tool finding its way into different practices?

Just one wee tip; keep that pointy cone sharp and true. Its quite easy to mis-align it with those holes in the circular plate and you can blunt the point. Every so often I give the point a swipe with a diamond sharpening plate

I find it most useful for punching the lacing/sewing holes when I make these little coin purses

Yup, I have two of them Tandy sells them, or they used too They cost about $25 from Tandy but I bought my last one for about £12 They're very useful for rapidly making holes in thin leather

and, btw, yellow, orange and red are the hardest colours to get even

This I've given this more thought Start again on a fresh piece of leather 1. its a very special present and deserves the best of the best 2. no matter what 'fixes' we can offer, it will still be a 'fix' 3. you'll spend more time, maybe wasted, which you can put to use on a new piece 4. and more cost of solutions to fix it than a piece of leather is worth 5. you'll never be happy with that fixed piece, but you will be on a new piece. You'll constantly worry if the fixed piece passes muster, but no worries that a new piece will do 6. Keep the old piece for practicing on or use parts of it in other projects

btw, with using all these different solutions on your leather they take out its natural oils which makes the leather go as stiff as a piece of masonite. You'll need to give it a feed of neatsfoot oil, aka NFO. But go easy with that, too much and its ruined. To make sure I give just a small amount of NFO, I have a wax & NFO mix which I apply and rub in, then buff off.

I had a thought; there might be a burr up the tube of the punch. Either; try a different punch or get a jeweller's rat-tail file and file the insides of the punch you have. Not to sharpen it but to smooth the insides of that tube

Fiebing's Deglazer is very expensive for what it is. I can't remember just what it is actually made of but I use cellulose thinners, aka lacquer thinners. Costs me under £10 for 5 litres NFO in the dye doesn't really help prevent blotchiness. It helps a wee bit. Wetting the leather first helps more

NFO wont help now

Work it over so the splotchiness is more even. Then it becomes 'artistic' !

meabee I got included automatically so I don't need no 'green bar' like you lesser minions do,

IPA, vodka, beer, . . . . but not wine, unless you want it red + 1 on the dipping to dye

An extreme measure; mix up a big basin of water with lots of alcohol in it. Dunk your piece in it for a while. Agitate every so often. You should see the dye staining the water after a while. When the water is quite yellow, change it for a fresh mix. After a few goes of this there will be less dye in the water. Lay your piece out to dry naturally. It should/might dry out with a more even yellow tint to it or start again. wet your leather before dyeing, this helps with the distribution of the dye through the leather

Finally finished this game set for #1 favourite dottir Not that it took me very long but I meant to give it to her for last Christmas! She's coming over for a visit next week so I thought I'd better finish it! The Board; MDF covered with a purple coloured chrome tan and the playing area is veg tan, stamped and lines gouged, and then glued onto the board The box and its contents; The dice tray, which has her shortened name on it in Elder Futhark Runes And the dice cup. Veg tan leather, flesh side out and a piece of embossed 'snake' (?) skin leather glued on the outside Now to finish my own set

I had a 'green bar' flash up yesterday evening, for about 2 seconds. I haven't seen it again. We have 'green' bars and 'orange' bars here. As I'm colour-blind I just drink at home

and now it will be very jealous looks as others fill their cars petrol tanks! sorry, I forgot my manners. That is just grand work on that harness and, you know goats will eat anything? When I kept a few goats, they'd eat nylon ropes, chew on metal chain but they would not eat leather straps

They are all quite similar, but the top makes use ball bearing races to make the swivel smooth whilst the cheaper ones just rely on the yoke turning in a drilled hole. If you buy one of these; first, dismantle it and put some toothpaste into that hole. re-assemble and work the yoke turning in the hole. the toothpaste will smooth the action. dismantle, clean out the toothpaste and apply a light coat of 3-in-1 oil

I came across these punches; the working end is much more parallel, even more than the photo shows. I have them in 0.5mm, 0.8mm, 1mm, 1.5mm and 2mm. Most excellent for making hole in thick-ish leather that is not 4 times wider on one side than the other

There are still parts of Europe where in rural areas people use goats, dogs and even pigs for pulling small carts. Carts big enough to carry produce to the local market or to take children to school. These are still used in rural US more of an old tradition rather than for need I can't find a modern image of a pig-cart but I do know they are still used, mainly eastern France, western Germany, lower Netherlands and south-west Belgium