Bree

Thanks UKRay! I took some pics of the cutting but it is just a plain old big belt so I didn't want to bore you guys. It did take a good bit of sanding on the drum to round off stuff so it kicked up a lot of leather dust. (Wear a dust mask) I had to redo the keepers because they were too small on the first go around. I didn't want to recut them larger so I enlarged them by taking some scrap suede and stitching it to the keepers on the bottom. Now they have a little stretchiness to them which actually turned out to work well since the belt is so thick. The 277 machine thread is quite nice for hand stitching the keepers together. BTW... that little expresso tamper is just the cat's meow for rubbing down the leather and bonding it to the contact cement. I love that little thing. It got a lot of work on this project as there was a lot of contact cemented surface area. I made a terrific profit on this one. I used some old leather that I bought several years ago and had little use for... both the saddle skirt and the suede. And I traded for goods worth many times the value of the belt. I didn't invest a lot of time in making it and told the guy that fact. Nevertheless he seems to love his new belt and chastised me for not stamping my name on it. I guess he would show off the maker stamp to his friends... adds bragging value I suppose. The other day he offered me a nice Jet mortising machine which is basically unused for $25. That baby is selling for $350 at Rockler!! It's like magic. Can you imagine what I could score if I produced the really high quality work like the folks around here do??? I would be positively dangerous!! LOL!!

LOL!! I buy it when I find it on sale. I remember this guy who calls himself Uncle George scored a couple of boxes of long curly fringe and was selling it on EBay. I snapped up a bunch of it. I knew that I could not possibly cut the fringe for the price I was paying to Uncle George. It is a pain in the butt to cut it without a specialized cutter.

Sounds to me like a problem with the leather and not with the thread. The dye was not sealed and it bled onto the thread. If your dye (or the tannery dye) is not weatherfast, you must seal the leather to prevent bleeding should the product get wet. No normal white thread can withstand being dyed a dark color and not show it. I use white poly thread often with water-based dyes but I make certain that the leather is well sealed usually with a deep penetrating coat of sealer and multiple layers of airbrushed sealer. My $.02

No fighting boyz. Relax. Regardless of who's who in this hypothetical, it seems to me that business is business. People fight to win in business. Sometimes they fight a little too hard or a little unfairly but make no mistake they are playing to win. The question is do you want to win or engage in philosophical meditations? If you want to win, then fight to win. Follow your own sense of what is ethical but ACT or lose. There is nothing at all wrong with self-promotion nor with pointing out the plusses and minuses of both your product and that of your competition. Indeed, failure to do so almost ensures that you will lose against a determined competitor. Is your work art or is your work a commercial product? If it's art then you needn't compare it to anything else. It is what it is for whomever wishes to view it. If it is a commercial product, then get busy SELLING it so you make money and can pay the bills.

Call 1-888-838-1408. Ask for Steve Tayrien. Your problem will get resolved. Simple as that.

I made this belt up for a friend over the weekend. He wanted something similar to a weighlifting belt to support his back at work. He no longer lifts weights. It is 6" wide narrowing to 4" wide per his specifications. It is made of saddle skirt veg tan with the suede side of some light pigskin grained cowhide on the back. The padding is about an inch thick and is made of poly-fill. The suede was contact cemented to the belt and about 3/8" of the belt edge in the padded zone... just enough to hold it down until the sewing machine could lock it in with 277/207 poly. The friend wanted the belt natural with no finish other than oil. So I applied three light coats of neatsfoot oil to the veg tan and nothing to the suede. I put some Antiqwax on the edges and gave them a run thru the burnisher with a heavier burnish at the end as it would get more abuse. I wanted to paint the edges black but he said that he wanted it just the way it was... natural. Okey Dokey. It is a heavy belt to be sure but the customer was very pleased and ran around the store showing it off to his friends. LOL! It isn't my best belt by any stretch of the imagination but it was fun to make and had its challenges.

Very sad news indeed. Western New York has lost a great artist and craftsman. He will be missed here as he was quite well known in our gun circles.

TOXIC!!

Some great advice Art. Good job!

If I am not mistaken, the 206RB-5 lifts to 9/16" max.

Medium yes... heavy no. It will max out at just a bit over 1/2" Excellent medium weight machine

You must consider the heaviest and lightest leather that you plan to sew and ask if the machine can handle both. Machines good at heavy leather are usually not as good at light leathers and vice-versa. There is no one machine that is best for everything. It's a game of compromises. For moderate to heavy needs you won't go wrong with a Toro 4000. You won't regret getting the longer arm. Use with threads up to 415. The Juki 1541s is a light-medium range powerhouse for thread in the 69-92 range.

This is a public forum Trooper. Now that you gave away all your survival and stability secrets people will come from the Fed to nationalize your assets!!

Bruce hit the nail on the head. I use different weight mauls for different tasks. I want to pretty much let the maul fall and allow the weight to accomplish what arm force would have accomplished. The reason why I have different weights is because different tasks require different amounts of force. Choose the right maul weight, aim it, and let the tool do the work.

Machine made products are typically very precise and repeatable. People often see that as valuable. They see the machines themselves as valuable and expensive. They sometimes don't see people as having the same worth as a multi-million dollar machine. Custom work is sometimes viewed as imprecise since two different pieces of the same kind will exhibit variation... like knots in boards. What we often view as prized features, the public rightly or wrongly can view as flaws.

Another day in the world of politics. It's happened before and will no doubt happen again. Keep carving to keep your mind off of it.

I would be much more worried about the little bugs that like blood and might get into the leatherworker's or the customer's body! I don't think that using blood is a good idea.

Great answer!

Here are some peening instructions http://www.forth-armoury.com/research/peen...een_a_rivet.htm http://www.cowboyway.com/HowTo/BlevinsBuckles4.htm It isn't hard to do. Get good nippers because it can be difficult to nip the rivet.

I would try a smaller needle... with #69 thread you can use between a 100 and a 120. The 140 is really better for #92 or even #138 in some cases. I would try an 18/110 and see how your thread likes it. Usually the smaller your needle, the less likely you are to skip a stitch... so long as the thread can feed through it without too much trouble. So the heavier the material, the more likely that a slightly bigger needle will be needed. Try taking a 3 ft. piece of thread and see if the needle will slide easily from one end to the other. Raise the thread up and down to see if the needle slides freely. If the needle does not slide freely from one end to the other by its own weight, go to the next largest needle. Start sewing using the smallest needle that slides freely. If your material demands it, then go up a size from there. Here is a compatibility chart. DYNA ROCKS!! Are you a Patriot Guard member? We may have a Mission coming up very soon in Lockport for Pfc. Albert Jex (killed by and IED near Mosul, Iraq on 2/9/09). Check the PGR website for details. (www.patriotguard.org)

I'm a webmaster and web developer by day and by the time I finish 10 or 12 hours of work I can't stand to even see the word... website!!!

The aluminum oxide might be worth more than the airgun depending upon how much they include. Weaver sells it for their strop board... 6 oz. for $11.

Brent's suggestion was really great but I know EXACTLY the brick wall that you were running into. Black means blacker than a coal yard at midnight. The carving is beautiful and the old school bike looks great. I would love to see that sled fully dressed.

Looks real good. The only comments that I would add are that I try not to sew across the belt as it weakens the belt and I would stitch the keeper just like you did the belt.

I am pretty sensitive to stuff like this. I was booked on Air Illinois Flight 710 from Springfield to Carbondale on Tuesday Oct. 11th 1983. The day before the flight a guy called me and was insistent that I fly over to Michigan to see him about some business matters. After badgering me for some time, I asked my secretary to change my tickets and I went to Lansing instead of Carbondale. Flight 710 to Carbondale crashed and all aboard were killed... 10 people. Had I not changed my flight the day before, I would have been amongst them. That guy in Lansing saved my life. This is the exact plane that crashed. It lost all electrical power and went down near Pinckneyville, IL. Crash was deemed to be due to pilot error. I ended up in Kalamazoo Tuesday night as the Lansing airport was closed due to fog. I was supposed to drive over to Lansing on a bus the airline had arranged for us. Instead, I got a rental car and headed over to the Thornapple Orvis store in Ada, Mi. I decided to learn fly fishing. The store was right across from the big Amway distribution center and had a huge front lawn. The salesman wasn't busy and I told him that if he showed me how to fly fish that I guaranteed to purchase a fly rod and reel. So we spent 6 hours out on the front lawn trying out every single pole that they had including the bamboos. It was great fun and quite an adventure. My boss wanted to talk to me when I called into the office. He was clueless about what happened. He asked where I was and what I was doing. I told him that I had been booked on the plane that crashed and changed flights at the last minute. I found out about the crash Tuesday night, called my client, and told him I would be delayed. I told my boss that I then headed for the fly fishing store to learn fly fishing. I really didn't care what he said and there wasn't a moment's hesitation in my voice as I described what was going on. He stammered and stuttered and finally said "Oh... OK... No problem." Some things are just more important than work.