Bree

I just ordered about 8 pounds of bonded poly from Campbell-Bosworth on Wednesday. Their price was better than Weaver and better than Thread Exchange. Artisan only carries nylon which I really didn't want. I did pick up some other goodies from C-B and I'm looking forward to getting the order this week.

You can get a good thick rubber mat at a sporting goods store that sells weight lifting materials. They use them under weight lifting gear.

I think there are quite a few. The FJR would be a good long distance bike. I was thinking about buying one once. It would go nicely with the Virago I have out in the garage!

If it has cast iron components be certain to treat it as a fragile item. An old treadle for example is made of metal that is very brittle and will easily crack if dropped. I had a Singer treadle shipped from Montreal via DHL that arrived with 18 breaks. It was poorly packaged and roughly handled.

Here's a snip of the email I found in my Inbox today... Pretty cool young man. He invited us to one of their concerts and promised that there would be tickets wating at the door.

LOL!! I hear ya! My Juki would take off like bat out of hell with the clutch motor. I would get blisters from flywheeling it. And then I have all these treadle machines and you have to flywheel those all the time too. My mom flywheeled her old Singer which she taught me to sew on. I have done it on every sewing machine that I have owned so I guess it's burned into me.

I thought of that... once you go black there's no going back! Here's what happened... the young man and his girlfriend just left. They play in a saxophone quartet. They are probably late teens. He has never owned a new car. He has a tiny tenor saxophone made of silver. It's about 14" long! The cutest darn thing I have ever seen. It is probably 75 years old. He has the original case which is made of wood, fabric, and velour. The Cronkhite case interior has thick fabric covered memory foam which fits the sax like a glove... unlike the original case where the sax bounces around. This young man loves this sax and sees his future playing it professionally. So I examined the case with that in mind. The leather is chrome tanned pigmented leather. It has distinct color layers on the top, middle, and bottom telling me that a pigment dye was applied to both sides almost certainly at the tannery. The center layer is undyed showing the chrome tan color. The leather was supple and actually looked aged despite being fairly new. He applied some Meltonian dye to the damaged area and it gave a near match though slightly lighter and obviously newer looking... glossier... less dingy than the original which appeared to me to be designed to look a little distressed. The case work is quite complex and there is a lot of stitching and attachments. The strap is matched with leather attachment points and matching brown webbing. Not a good sign for nuking the case black. It would not be an easy dye job. Deglazing would be necessary and lots of masking of things that you wouldn't want the dye to contact. All in all a lot of work on a small item. But as I talked to the young man and saw his love for the sax and this case, I began to think about the blues guitarist Jimmy Thackery who I know. Jimmy would come to concerts with several guitars but he would always default to his old 60's era Fender Stratocaster. That guitar was so beat up it looked like it came out of the trash heap. But it was customized to his liking and it was his constant companion for his entire career. He loved that guitar. One day someone stole his Strat at a gig. He was heartbroken. He got a new guitar but clearly it pained him deeply. Luckily he recovered the guitar and continued knocking out new albums and great blues with his spirit renewed. Now I thought to myself... this young man is headed where Jimmy has been. That sax is just like Jimmy's Strat. And the Cronkhite case will be part of the journey. It is going to get banged around dented, scratched, tossed and turned in every way. Yet he will keep coming back to that sax and that case. Nuking the case is just going to take away one of his stories about his beloved equipment. Better to let it age gracefully and show its battle scars then try to make as if new something that by its nature is designed to become worn and tattered. Well I shared these feelings with him and showed him my own motorcycle riding half chaps purchased a number of years ago in Sturgis and which I have never ever cleaned. The original bugs may still be embedded in that leather. The top grain has been abraded off to where half of the leather looks like Nubuc. My chaps... Jummy's guitar... Jake's sax case... they are all peas in a pod. Well Jake was in seventh heaven. I guess he heard what he secretly wanted to hear. Because he truly didn't want to nuke the case. He came to understand that the damage was just like the first scratch in your new car (which he hasn't experienced yet)... it's inevitable. It's like a knot in wood... it is a sign of authenticity... of genuineness. We made two new friends and they invited us to come to their next concert. He has his case and instructions from his leather doctor Bree to use his hand to rub the section that he tried to repair while he is watching TV and sooner or later the sheen that differentiates the repair from the original will fade and it will all blend together... not perfectly but in just the right way. And he will talk about dropping the acetone on the case and fretting about it and meeting someone who understood what he really wanted and kept that case natural with its first battle scar intact. Thanks guys for your ideas and thoughts. I explained everything we talked about to him. I explained all about his leather the likely construction of that case and what would have to be done to "fix" it. But then I sent him down a different path and he was very, very happy! And I am happy too.

No I am using a non-positioning servo on my two machines with servos. I never felt the need for one because I am an expert flywheel jocky. I am always wanting to reach for the flywheel to do fine positioning. Jerry at Artisan had to convince me that it was easy to control their servo to sink the needle to the down position. I watched him do it on a T-3000 and he was right. It was easy. I have verified that on my own machine. You kick up the servo's low end torque by adding a speed reducer. That allows you to give it more oomph than you could without the reducer... or just grab that flywheel and give it a torque boost!!

Ed... you shouldn't be going to those racy websites!!!

What kind did you use?? I had trouble with Pliobond. It just didn't do the job at all for me. The job I'm talking about is cementing patches both fabric and leather to leather coats and vests after which they would be sewn. Contact cement isn't real good at bonding leather especially if it is smooth. It needs to be roughed up so it has some bite on the cement. Another thing is not to overcement it. Too much cement is almost worse than too little. Oh... you need to make sure that the glue is dry enough or the bond won't take very well. All that said, there are major differences in the various cements. For example, there are VOC/solvent-based cements and aqueous-based. Cement used for laminates can have different properties than something like Tanner's Bond or Barge Cement. Most contact cements are basically neoprene rubber. But there are also acrylics, polymers, and other substrates that all share the characteristic of bonding to themselves after the glue dries. I prefer Barge cement. I buy it by the gallon. I have used it for years and years and it works very well for me. Titan DX is pretty darn good too!

Peter's belt is unwearable. It's too darn beautiful to wear!! If I had the skill to craft something like that you can bet that there would be three 000's after the start of the price!! That thing goes under Lexan on a pedestal with museum quality lighting on it.

Yep that's a winner I want one!

That son of a gun Peter Main is giving you a run for the money in the who crafts the best belt contest!! I'm still backing you HP because Peter's would be too much like wearing a canvas against my bod!! That belt has a painting on the inner blank!! Yours have carvings. I would be more worried about losing the paint than losing the carving!!! LOL!! Awesome stuff. Sheesh.

I like the leathercrafting and woodworking a lot ... very nice job... but I can't say that I like the rendition of the theme. Sorry. Maybe I'm just too old to understand it.

You are off to a good start! The decorative cuts are tricky. In the swivel knife class with Chan Geer in September, we were taught to get the knife in deeply at the start... fully 1/2 way into the leather... then make that nice initial rotation and then sweep back in one motion easing off the pressure as you approach the end of the cut. The effect is to have the line not only make a graceful curve but to narrow and get shallower as you get to the end. When it is done right, the decorative cut does not appear to be a cutline waiting to be beveled. Also make sure that the knife is well sharpened and stropped. That helps enormously. The knife goes through the leather like a hot knife through butter. Hope those comments help. I am not an expert carver so I am just repeating what I was taught.

What a great idea! I want one!!

Great! I don't think it is essential to have a new needle plate or special presser feet. It makes life simpler to have a flat plate but the stock stuff will work. Just remember that you are using a jackhammer to do chip carving when you go down to a real low thread size like #69. The bigger you go the better the machine will like it. I am doing round point stuff with #92 poly thread on my T-4000 LA-25. But it likes 277 or 346 a lot better. If I use the big Toro for patch sewing I will buy a separate hook and adjust it for the light thread and simply replace the whole hook so I don't have to mess with the bottom tension.

LOL!! I have lots of them. I number them as I go along. I spent 15 years doing management consulting for small businesses and entrepreneurs back when I lived in Florida. People came in with all kinds of wacky problems and ideas and they naturally give rise to these principles. In the case of this one, it is the result of losing about $50,000 in fees not collected from deadbeats who in one way or another conned me out of the money. Having a kind heart, generous soul, and believing attitude is not usually good for little businesses like mine. Here is one you don't find in the books... Bree #7 for when you are selling. Share your customer's prejudices. It's amazing how when you walk into someone's office and scan their books and paraphernalia you can get a quick picture of how they think. A little bit of listening later and all of a sudden you have a picture of their likes, dislikes, and prejudices. I found that people love to buy from salesmen or saleswomen who share their prejudices. I suppose it's a trust thing. They bond on stupid stuff... irrational stuff like prejudice. But in selling, production is what counts unless some sacred principle is being violated in which case, you can compute the cost in lost sales, commissions, and profits of your high moral compass. It's a sad but true fact of life and business. Here is Bree #11 A really good business always does the same thing at 2:00 PM on Tuesday. I had a client who ran some Dunkin Donuts locations. He was totally ignorant about acedemic theories of business. He was from Portugal and had some $$$ and bought a franchise. He simply followed the book Dunkin Donuts gave him. He became very wealthy doing it despite his lack of formal education or training. In an operations review for a business plan that I was writing for him, I noted that every Tuesday at 2:00 PM they started cutting donut holes. The dough for the donuts would go one way and the hole cut outs would go another for processing into Dunkin Donuts Donut Holes. It was a PROCESS... the same thing done over and over and over like clockwork. The business was just a machine running the same operations according to a process. Management was all about monitoring and tweaking the cogs of the machine making sure that it was running fine. His manuals gave him all the process tools he needed to WIN. Bottom line... the closer that a small business comes to being process-driven like that Dunkin Donuts, the more likely it will survive and prosper. People blindly proliferating products, techniques, and deviations end up in process hell. And they fail... very very fast. So make PROCESS one of the most important words in your business vocabulary. Define your processes, document them, and most importantly follow them religiously. It makes your nice little business boring in a way. But that is the boredom that generates money and profit... the boring hummmmm of success.

Actually it will sew thin leather with thread down to #69. You will have to get some 794 (7X3) Round points in size 120 (7X3-120). You can get them at Weaver. It's a funny looking needle with the lower half very thin compared to the upper shaft. Nevertheless, you have a needle size comparable to what you would find on a normal industrial machine. Of course, you will have to reset your bobbin tension if you go down to #69. Most other sizes don't call for lower tension adjustments but the #69 (and probably #92) do require some adjustment. You can get the flat needle plate and pretty much have yourself a flatbed without the bed! LOL! And you can make or buy a flatbed add-on if you wish. And if you get yourself a manual for that White Rotary and get familiar with it, get a good needle on there, you will find that it will sew through light leather like a hot knife through butter! Mine do!

HP... Glenn got the texture corrected but he was unable to acceptably match the color. I didn't expect that he would as the stain was blotchy and irregular. I told that to the customer. Now The Major's method might well work if you can get a color match. Glenn is the guy who knows exactly what he used and maybe he even has some from the same batch and run. But it didn't work out. So I have tried to have the maker do the fix and that didn't work so I see no real choice but to nuke the case. It's the only way to cover and blend that stain and do so affordably and with little risk. If I spend a lot of time the price is going to quickly jump to the cost of a new case. That won't work. What do you think about the issue of using an alcohol or solvent based stain versus an acrylic dye? Plusses and minuses?

Sounds like you are wanting to try to match the color and feather it in or do you think I should nuke it black?? If I do the whole case shouldn't I deglaze all of it?? BTW The guy called about 30 minutes ago while I was on a conference call. He will be calling back in about a half hour! LOL! He is persistent.

BTW Art... Ivan's motor would be an excellent replacement for your motor if it ever gives up the ghost! And wow! I used to have that exact drill press vise! And that C-Clamp looks pretty darn familiar too!! I love old tools! LOL!

I am constantly sewing patches for bikers and other things requiring both decorative edges and following complex patterns. The two most valuable sewing control tools that I have found are: First and foremost the servo motor which allows variable speed stitch-by-stitch control Second, the topstitching foot which has a little spring loaded "wall" to guide the foot along the edge of the material. The spring allows it to ride up over the material when necessary. My big new Toro doesn't have a topstitching foot but I do have a roller guide to help with alignment for edge stitching on real heavy leather. For lighter leather you can get all kinds of stitch guides for edge work on different kinds of machines. I have a magnetic guide that I like to use because it is very easy to reposition. But I suspect that you are really more interested in the decorative patterns then running uniform decorative edge stitches. For that kind of thing nothing beats the servo motor. Controlling a clutch motor, at least for me, requires great foot precision riding the friction point as well as taking one hand and riding the flywheel to slip the belt and slow down the sewing machine so I don't overrun a pattern. With a servo motor you seldom if ever have to ride the flywheel. You have both hands available to position your work and do the turns and intricate moves. You can slow the machine's speed down to a snail's pace with simple changes in your foot pressure. That allows you to follow any pattern easily and without fear of overrunning the pattern. When you couple the special topstitch foot to get nice straight decorative borders and the servo, you have an unbeatable set of tools. Here is the kind of foot I am talking about: These feet are for an industrial walking foot machine like my Juki 1541S. You can easily sew wallets or other light to medium leather projects with this type of machine. http://cgi.ebay.com/111W-206RB-226R-LU563-...1742.m153.l1262

Yes I have some but they are not very good. I also have a Photoshop image to show what it might look like after a monotone dye job. I did a virtual dye job! LOL! The first 3 PIX show the damage near the edge of the case and the last two PIX are Photoshop renditions of what a dye fix might look like.

PIX???