Dwight

Uhh . . . no . . . May God bless, Dwight

Actually . . . the most important part of any video . . . is not the video itself . . . but rather the editing. It is actually the editing that MAKES the video. Anyone can set up a camera . . . run their mouth about all the great things they are doing and want to show . . . and it is not quite as boring as the democrat convention . . . but it is close. If you want to captivate your audience . . . it needs to be short . . . kill the idea of telling everyone about your great aunt's berry patch that let you into leather work 32 1/2 years ago. Stay away from long winded descriptions of this / that / and the other thing. State what you are going to do in all of about 10 seconds . . . then do it. Keep any instructional video at 5 minutes or less. Make a "Part 2" or a "Part 3" if necessary . . . you are not making 60 minutes documentaries. This is especially important if it is the same process over and over and over. For example . . . if tooling a large holster for an old black powder pistol . . . break it up into border . . . flowers . . . stems . . . fill in . . . etc. State what you are doing . . . then do it . . . and shut down. Tell interested folks to subscribe . . . that way they'll be notified of the next one. You might also look into Cyberlink Power Director 10 / 12 / 14 / or 16. They are some of the best personal use editors out there . . . there is a learning curve . . . but it is not a hard one. Cyberlink is trying to go "MicroSoft" and make the new subscribers rent their product . . . look on Ebay . . . you can buy these self contained programs at reasonable prices. PD 16 was the last full self contained . . . so if you can grab it . . . it is the best of the bunch. Finally . . . if you really . . . really . . . want to do this . . . invest in several cameras . . . at least 2 . . . 3 is a lot better . . . we use this one at our church every Sunday . . . we record on 4 cameras . . . take out the SD chips . . . go home and edit for an hour or so. https://www.ebay.com/itm/195172099088?hash=item2d7129e410:g:tt0AAOSwsEBiuedc Also if you want to put in a page of written instructions . . . use Power Point . . . you can import it directly into Power Director and drop it where ever you want. Finally . . . build an introductory screen . . . a short one . . . that tells who you are . . . and what you are doing . . . AND THEN . . . after the video is done . . . list the tools you used . . . the leather type . . . the dyes . . . the finish . . . give the customer a succinct place to come and get that info. Trying to go back and find it . . . even in a 5 minute video can be a real pain. Have fun . . . may God bless, Dwight

Dye is a funny stuff . . . and it is a runny stuff. If and when you use it on leather . . . two things you can be sure of: if it is not sealed with something like Resolene . . . it WILL BLEED . . . and if it is properly sealed . . . it won't. You can rub a dyed piece of leather until the cows come home . . . and it will not bleed . . . then you get all hot and sweaty . . . transfer that sweat to the leather ( or just get some water on it ) and here comes the bleed. If you want to darken it . . . after you have tooled it . . . lay it outside in the sun for a day . . . two days . . . three days . . . and I guarantee it will darken . . . you may get it exactly where you want it. From there a light coat (on the hair side ONLY ) of neatsfoot oil . . . followed by a good rubbing of saddle soap and buffing . . . you will have a beautiful and useable sling. I do dye mine . . . then I put a light coat of resolene on them . . . and it works every bit as good . . . other than it will be somewhat stiffer. May God bless, Dwight

On jeans belts . . . the loop free floats between two chicago screws . . . the ends of it sewn together in a loop. On a gun belt . . . I put the bottom end of the loop in place . . . and sew 3 or 4 stitch holes in front of the loop . . . thru the loop and one hole past . . . but there is no thread in the machine . . . it is just punching holes. I then thread the machine . . . sew the belt all the way around to the loop on the other side . . . stop the machine . . . pull out about 18 inches of thread from the spool and from the bobbin . . . then I basically saddle stitch the loop in . . . plus 4 or 5 stitches on the other side . . . Have never had one come apart on me yet . . . that I know of. May God bless, Dwight

OK . . . I'll bite . . . why does it have to be one piece? May God bless, Dwight

Here you are . . . double layer belt . . . The next step would be to sew them . . . that is what the whole conversation has been about . . . May God bless, Dwight

Add to it . . . Toledo industrial did me right. The servo motor on my 4500 will go so slow that I can move the leather so it goes EXACTLY where I want it . . . which was the one thing I truly loved about my Tippmann Boss. Bob tops it off with a couple spools of thread and a two spool thread holder . . . Had a couple screws come up missing . . . called Bob . . . they were in the mail . . . wicky wicky. May God bless, Dwight

With a double layer belt . . . you have to cut both pieces . . . then cut the stitches . . . so you can slip something between the pieces so you can cut the under side piece . . . and then you cut it off square . . . so it looks dorky the rest of it's adult life . . . plus you will then also have to re stitch each end over top of the place you cut . . . so the threads don't come out. All in all . . . I'm thinking the tongue end has to be faster unless you sew them up to say a 36 . . . and you get a guy coming in who wants that 47 . . . which means you have to hand sew about 61 inches of belt altogether. He would get his belt in the mail. May God bless, Dwight

Well . . . you could stitch the top and bottom up to a certain point . . . in my case if I did it . . . most of my customers are in the 38 inch or bigger category . . . so I would stitch them up to maybe where the next to the end hole . . . and tie them off. Then you only have to stitch the tongue area. If you are careful in how you do it . . . saddle stitching with only one piece of thread . . . your knots would be on the bottom . . . mostly un-noticeable if you are careful . . . Secondary part is . . . that is a very good way to do the tongue . . . you could also impress them with the extra effort you are putting in to their product. But like Lobo said . . . no matter what we do . . . we'll wind up with "extras" in the shop . . . I had to make one for a girl the other day . . . 3 times . . . and her sister ate a couple extra pizzas or something between fitting and delivery . . . hers was not as well fitting as the others. But that is all part of the belt industry . . . Have fun . . . may God bless, Dwight

Now that you ask . . . yes, got a Boss . . . and yes I can do a belt in 30 minutes with it . . . but I'd much rather do it on my Cowboy 4500. If you want to do that . . . pre dye your belts . . . glue em together . . . fix the buckle end ready to go . . . For me . . . I would cut them a 56 inch long belt blank . . . the way I do it . . . that would give me a 47 inch belt blank. My first hole for the buckle is 4 inches in from the end . . . and there are 7 holes following it . . . at 1 inch intervals. If I were going to a fair or something like that using a Boss or Outlaw . . . I'd stitch the first 34 inches of the bottom side of each belt. Tie off the stitches but don't double them. Then when your customer picks his belt . . . all you have to do is cut the end . . . punch the holes . . . finish sewing the bottom . . . make the turn . . . and sew the top side. With my boss . . . I can easily do that in a half hour. And . . . your customer gets to see exactly what his/her belt will look like. AND . . . don't discount the curiosity folks . . . sometimes folks will stand there and watch you . . . just to see how it is done . . . then brag to their peers what they saw. May God bless, Dwight

You can do it if you don't stitch the belt . . . fair hawkers do it all the time. With the stitching . . . take his money . . . tell him to come back in 30 minutes . . . If I go to the fair this fall . . . that is what I will do. May God bless, Dwight

Best wishes on your wife and her health . . . Man but do I ever hate slaving over a hot micro wave . . . May God bless, Dwight

Thanks all . . . Now to just figure out what to do . . . sure wish Dixon had not gone out . . . Might just toss my hat in that ring . . . see if I can just make one for myself . . . May God bless, Dwight

Took a while to find it . . .

There was a short video I saw the other day . . . a Brit . . . he made belts . . . and had a rather interesting looking beveling tool. The thing had a wooden handle . . . and about 8 or 10 inches of metal came out from it . . . had a separation almost like antennae . . . and did a beautiful job of rounding the edge of that belt. Just wondering if anyone on here knows where I could pick one up. May God bless, Dwight

Thanks, Double Daddy . . . That's all I'm looking to do . . . May God bless, Dwight

Welcome to the forum . . . good looking work you do. And as stated . . . thank you for your PGR affiliation . . . it's good work. Also . . . for a moment I tried to figure out when I posted this . . . so I came to look at it . . . Turns out there are two of us on here . . . May God bless, Dwight

Don't have a dog . . . but it would go there if I did. Now you want to hear the really scruffy part ??? I made the second one . . . out of the same side of the hide . . . was careful to make sure no defects . . . careful to make that buckle end come from the "back" . . . umm did it look good. Went out the next morning . . . checked it before dying it . . . darned if it didn't have a bad spot on it . . . picked up a small drop of contact cement . . . will not let dye thru . . . looked like garbage. Made a third belt . . . got it all sewed (double stitched all the way around) . . . dyed . . . noticed a small scar on the back side of the belt. Thankfully the final finish will cover that one . . . I am going to be glad to hand this order to it's owner . . . and he and I will laugh about the problems . . . as we are good friends. Thanks everyone for your comments and your support . . . May God bless, Dwight

If you can find an old cobbler's last . . . it'll take all the pounding you want to give it I would think' May God bless, Dwight

Gotcha . . . but for what I'm looking to do on the leather only . . . do these 300 . . . 400 . . . 500 dollar lasers do what I'm looking for??? Some guys use theirs for cutting . . . I'm not really interested in that . . . more just the engraving . . . decorating . . . etc. And . . . how does it do the engraving? I'm thinking it just uses the power of the compressed CO2 . . . would that be how it is done? Thanks, may God bless, Dwight

And what exactly is your problem??? I asked a couple of questions . . . because I did not know the answers. If you have a problem with people asking questions . . . maybe you ought to go somewhere else where people are more like you . . . . and know all the answers all the time. May God bless, Dwight

Three word question: does it work? If it does . . . it is great. . . marvelous . . . wonderful . . . excellent. Fancy billfolds . . . gun holsters . . . some knife sheaths . . . some belts . . . they all need special cutting, some tooling . . . some stamping . . . just so they are really presentable to the general public who will view them . . . and criticize them given the opportunity. This is a utilitarian leather tool . . . be glad it works . . . that is all it needs to do. AND . . . you are braver than me . . . I don't tackle them round projects . . . May God bless, Dwight

I make holsters, belts, knife sheaths, and gun bags. Whenever I "get in a rut" so to speak . . . I just go braid a billfold . . . or make a billfold. It usually cures any bad feeling I had earlier . . . then I toss the billfold and I feel better. Seriously . . . I enjoy what I do . . . with some added stuff. . . I do a little bit of bead work here and there . . . or paint an image on a holster . . . or just make a new type/style of holster. May God bless, Dwight

I'm thinking that is the route I'm going to have to go . . . I looked at adding the extra layer . . . but it won't be like the sibling's belts . . . and that just one way or another may start a family fight . . . and like you said . . . lose the customer. First of the week I'll get back to it (church yard sale going on now . . . and I'm the grill cook . . . lol) May God bless, Dwight

I have zero experience with the cowboy . . . but comparing them side by side . . . to me it looks like a cheap . . . sorry . . . imitation. OTOH . . . 20 yrs + with the Boss . . . it's still carrying on . . . doing what it was intended to do . . . it has had excellent support from the mfg staff . . . I now own a cowboy 4500 . . . but am keeping the boss for backup. May God bless, Dwight