Bree

We disagree. Big businesses make money because of good management and well thought out decisions. There are countless businesses that had loads of money and with poor manangement and poor planning they simply lost loads of money. Circuit City is an example in the news recently. You can also take a look at a little company named General Motors.... a company that was swimming in cash and squandered it through incredibly poor management over many years. Can you do a business plan in your head?? I suppose that you can. The difference as I see it is that the "processes" that a well planned business operates under, documents, reviews, monitors, and constantly tries to improve are habits in the "plan in the head" business. Like other habits, they are hard to break and change. Sometimes it is hard to even recognize that they are habits. That's why it is hard for some small businesses to respond to change. That's also why out of the ordinary events tend to be crises for small businesses while for large businesses they are variations that they have planned for time and time again. They have clearly defined procedures that go into operation at the first sign of trouble. They can actually look up what to do in most cases. Someone... usually a team of people... has written down a set of steps designed to address issues and opportunities. The small operator has to reinvent the wheel constantly. That is his chief disadvantage not lack of capital... huge amounts of wasted time and effort.

I just finished a double layer gunbelt I am giving a friend in Georgia as a gift. He wanted a black belt to match a black holster that he has. Here are the details: Leather - Weaver natural shoulder with blanks skived to 7oz. Billets skived to 3.5 oz each. Finish - Weaver Tuff Kote Black and Clear Edges - Burnished with wax and mechanical burnisher, Fiebings Edge Kote Sealer - Weaver Tuff Coat Clear airbrushed Stitching - 277/207 Poly on Toro 4000-LA25 Hardware - Stainless Steel Roller Buckle and Chicago Screws I am pretty pleased with it and I hope he will be too. I like the little gunbelt railroad PIX LOL!

I am old now. I need light and lots if it to see what the heck I am doing. It is a problem with my Artisan Toro 4000 LA-25 because it is so big. Most lights can't reach out to where I need light and those that can don't put out as much light as I need to sew. Right now I have the halogen spot light from Artisan and a nice little magnetic gooseneck spot light from Rockler. They are good spots but I really want something that floods the whole area with nice white light. I found it!! I was over at Rockler Woodworking yesterday and found this fabulous Verilux Shop Light. And I got it for $59 instead of the normal $104 plus I got an extra bulb which is worth $20. I attached it to my LA-25 and turned it on. WOW!! Beautiful light... shadow free white light and tons of it. Just fabulous. It is well worth the full price. http://www.rockler.com/product.cfm?page=17...r=shop%20lights I switched on my other lights and it is very clear just how much light this Verilux is putting out. It's HUGE. Needless to say I am quite pleased. Not sure if I am going to keep all these spot lights. The machine looks crazy with all these lights. Here are some PIX... excuse the mess. I was moving a bunch of stuff around and installed this light in the middle of that operation.

I took some PIX of the problem. I put a piece of scrap with a crease to show how the needle is not going to get close enough and I took a PIC of the slope in the csting that is causing the problem. As Jerry said this appears to only be a problem in the LA-25 models. They are going to have the castings changed. You can't beat that for customer service.

I thought that I might share a little trick I am using to get perfect alignment of 2 belt blanks and excellent adhesion of the blanks. I use my drill press fence and a clamp guide which you can get at Rockler or other stores. http://www.rockler.com/product.cfm?page=16...p;filter=guides You could use any fence or even two clamp guides. They are just the right height. To set your distance between the fence and clamp simply put your blank in there and clamp down the guide. Perfect fit based on the actual material to be put into registration. I roll the top belt back in the opposite direction of the bottom belt so there is no possibility of having the contact cement come in contact at the wrong place. Then I just roll it forward into the channel formed by the guide and fence. The sides are always properly alligned. I use a registration pin to get the ends aligned though that isn't visible in these pics. It's easy and is adjustable for any size blank. To make sure that the two blanks are properly bonded. I am using the new Espresso Tamper that I got along with a piece of tightly woven LINTLESS cloth. The tamper has a flat bottom with rounded edges and is just slightly wider than the 1 1/2" belt. It glides over the lintless cloth which stays stationary on the leather. There is no possibility of abrading the leather and I can put pressure on to make sure the glue bonds uniformly. I can also give some extra pressure to the edges where delamination is most likely. It produces a very tight and straight seam which burnishes out very nicely... but that is a different subject.

Small businesspeople tend to be so busy doing the operational work of the business that they spend less time doing management tasks. Planning is a management task. One consequence of failing to plan is that the business tends to run on inertia. The direction of the business is set by past action rather than projected vision. That makes it much harder to respond to changes in the market. You just keep doing things the way that you have been. When the entrepreneur does respond it is typically impulsive and all too often very detrimental to other areas of the business. Good planning is essential to good management.

Whoa! That's one fine lookin piece of work!! Great job! Can we see a PIC of the entire belt??

Nope. Not a 1st holster without PIX!

Karl!! You're a genius! I have been pondering making a strop board like Weaver sells for my edgers and here is a brilliantly simple solution that requires practically no work! I love it and am heading out to get one!!

A double line will drag at a curve because the two blades have to cover different distances. The outer radius blade will cover more distance than the inner radius blade. I really think it's the inner blade that slows it down. But in any case, they are not in sync as far as the amount of actual cutting that they are doing. So you have to take extra care on a curve and remember that the two blades are not doing the same amount of work.

I wrote business plans for entrepreneurs professionally and full time for 15 years. I can tell you that most small businesses do NOT rely on business plans in any serious sense of the term. I can also tell you that very very few large businesses fail to create and maintain business plans. You will find that almost all substantial companies devote considerable resources to this exercise and do so on a continuous basis. I work for IBM right now and they have more people doing business planning than most companies have employees. The old saying is that if you fail to plan, you are planning to fail. Here are the latest stats on the small business failure rate. Small Business Survival RatesSmall Business Openings & Closings in 2007: There were 637,100 new businesses, 560,300 business closures and 28,322 bankruptcies. Two-thirds of new employer firms survive at least two years, 44 percent survive at least four years, and 31 percent survive at least seven years. Findings do not differ greatly across industry sectors. Sources: U.S. Small Business Administration Office of Advocacy, September 2008 Survival and Longevity in the Business Employment Dynamics Database, Monthly Labor Review, May 2005. Redefining Business Success: Distinguishing Between Closure and Failure, Small Business Economics, August 2003. Now of the 70-30 at 7, which group do you think took business planning seriously? The best way to learn planning is to start doing it. Experience is a great teacher. :soapbox: :soapbox: :soapbox:

Johanna... Your story is moving. Your dedication to this community is inspiring. I have been a member for awhile now and have seen firsthand the worth of this forum. I want to thank you and all the members for creating something of inestimable value. Consequently, I have chosen to go blue today by donating to the operation of this forum. I encourage all members to dig down deep and send something in to help this great lady continue offering and improving this oustanding resource to the community of leatherworkers. It is only proper that I should give back something for all that I have received from this forum. Thanks again.

VHB is really strong stuff designed for bonding to low surface energy materials. It's tenacious as hell. I had some that I had to remove and it was a tough row to hoe to get that stuff off. It is very expensive but the best stuff usually is. Good luck!

3M 76 is very unlikely to work well. 3M 72 or 90 would be much stronger on poly. But I have to warn you even the very strong 3M 90 isn't going to give you a great bond. I have 76 and 90 and I think both will delaminate fairly quickly. I think the VHB has a reasonable chance to hold and some of the special Scotch Welds. That superglue link is worth looking into. There some very power super glue mixtures out there. And this one is supposed to be specially formulated for poly. When I get a chance I will try to find my special 3M poly glue which I got for bonding stuff to my polyethylene sea kayak.

I would definitely try VHB if you have some. Polypropylene is VERY VERY hard to glue especially if it is structural. Same thing goes for polyethylene. It has very little surface energy. You need a glue specially formulated for this type of material. I saw this stuff recently. It is worth a try. http://superglue.supergluecorp.com/15104.html I have some 3M adhesive that is designed specially for polys. Maybe 4475. I just don't recall and the glue is in a box in the shop. Check the 3M distributors' websites. They have what you want.

LOL!! Yes I do. Reminds me of one of my favorite songs... a blues tune by guitar god Jimmy Thackery called Cool Guitars. Google up the lyrics. It's kind of like reversed but who cares! And I can't post them on this family-oriented system! LOL! I remember the last time I saw him play, the crowd was screaming out Cool Guitars!

No parts are NOT necessarily interchangeable. Most are but some aren't. Go to the Singer Industrial machine site and download the Instructions for the 29-4 and the service manual with the parts list if they still have it online. When seeking a replacement part use the original part number from the manual. People with spares know the numbers and usually know what goes with what. The 29 series encompasses a lot of models made over a lot of years. There are improvements over time and that causes some parts to be incompatible. They were also built in several different locations. Very likely yours was built in Clydebank, Scotland. My 29K-60 was built there. It was a very large manufacturing facility employing over 10,000 people way back when. If you can't track down a manual, I probably have one somewhere either in PDF or in photo images that I pulled from the Smithsonian.

Cheap or old handgun. A good modern handgun has an internal drop safety that prevents exactly this thing from happening. Now if someone sticks their finger into the trigger and pulls it inadvertantly... new ballgame... but then again we are trained never ever to do that!! Finger off trigger until the moment before you are ready to shoot!!!

It's a darn good bag. Those flaws you speak of are nothing but signs of genuineness like knots in wood. They are hidden features!!

You might be thinking right. It depends on what role you want the thread to play. Strength wise going up a notch will give you about 1/3rd more strength. The question is do you need it? You can get many times the strength of #69 by thickening the thread. If you stress the item with 2 pounds of tension you have a lot of overkill. But if your purpose is to show off the thread, then the thickness becomes decorative and not for strength. That may be valuable in the designer's mind. Ask her! Heck you may have to hand stitch it with 6 cord!! LOL Or buckstitch it with contrasting lace!!

I have never used it. But I have a batch brewing in the shop cuz these guys convinced me that it was the thing to do!! So I have about 7 or 8" of fresh steel wool sitting in a coffee can (plastic) just rusting away. When it is disgustingly rusted, then I will add my vinegar and let it brew some more. Get that nice ferric acetate and then I will see what I can do with it. I am going to see if I can generate a nice black belt out of veg tan.

You can stamp on it. Just don't do anything that will cause it to crack or chip... don't allow that certifiably flat surface to get unflat. Don't let a steel hammer face directly contact the stone. Don't let anything act like a chisel on the stone. Keep any force spread out and buffered. Then you will be just fine. Hey it's SOLID granite!! It's Mohs 6 or 7 depending upon how much quartz is in there. It is basically one step above magma... pure dense, heavy, igneous rock. You don't have to baby it... just don't abuse it. Keep your Mohs 8 or 9 sandpapers and abrasives facing AWAY from the softer stone because they WILL scratch it. You are gonna love your new stone. And I'll bet you that nobody else on the block has one!!

They put on the holds to protect themselves. Unfortunately, there are many many unscrupuous sellers who will rip you off in a heartbeat if you let them. Almost every bad guy was a good guy right up to the moment that he committed his first crime. EBay doesn't want to be somebody's first victim. I don't blame them. Having been ripped off many times by my own customers, I feel their pain. OTOH... EBay's security is no picnic for good sellers who have to suffer these restrictions and service delays because of the bad guys. The deal is simple though... you can walk right now. You can find another way to market your products. There was life before EBay and there will be life after EBay. I suspect that much of the bad feelings has to do with people becoming dependent on EBay as a primary marketing channel. That is a very dangerous thing because it puts your present and future into the hands of an organization that you don't control and can have very little influence over. Bottom line... never rely on EBay. Use them when it is convenient but don't get addicted to EBay marketing heroin. Bad things inevitably follow. My $.02.

Whatever you do preserve the decals!! You can't replace them. They add to the value when kept in good condition. Psychological thing I guess. Heck that machine looks great compared to many I have seen. I would remove dirt, give it a little touch up with a mild degreaser and then start oiling it up!! The part to check for dirt is the INSIDES of the machine that you can't see. Open the access port and clean... turn it on its side and get at it from the bottom. Make sure that the shuttle area is clean. Check the rocker arm and the needle bar assembly. Check the device that rotates the presser foot. Get all of that cleaned and oiled. Check your treadle carefully for cracks. The cast iron can be quite brittle and it can easily be cracked. If you spot one... you can't just weld it or even braze it without a real good chance of causing even more cracks. The cast iron has to be put into an oven, slowly brought up to a higher temperature and the crack brazed then slowly brought down to avoid stressing the rest of the metal. Most of the time this just isn't possible. So I surround any cracks with hi-strength epoxy applied liberally. That helps "freeze" the crack and replaces the impaired structural integrity of the cast iron with the strength of the epoxy. Parts are widely available for most 29 class machines. It is very hard to kill these machines. They will likely outlive everyone on this system. The stands may not but the heads will. I have one 29-4 which is dead. I use it as a parts machine. Somehow a prior owner broke the shuttle gearing (fixable) and froze the needle bar in its housing (not fixable). I don't know what he did but that thing was locked up tight as a drum and utterly useless. My other 29 class machines all run like the day they came off the assembly line.

LOL! WE are survivors! I am almost sad that they kept me around. I was prepared to go into my little leather business making stuff or should I say manufacturing stuff. And I still am ready. Just working out the bugs so that I can have a process that turns me into a fine production line worker. Of course if sales are not great, I can always build a website for fast cash or do my other expensive specialty... write business plans for entrepreneurs looking to raise capital for their businesses. I spent 15 years doing that management consulting work so it's always good for paying some bills. I am condemned to work until death so I have to have multiple ways to make my $$$... and ways not controlled by some big corporation's whims and caprice.