Bree

Are you sure that you want to learn stuff from me?? The sign over my desk says "Old Age And Treachery Will Overcome Youth And Skill!"

I use my 1541-S to sew patches on biker vests. I use Organ 135x16W's (130/21) for heavier leather like a coat but more often I use Lammertz 135x17 (120/19) roundpoints. The roundpoints work well in garment thickness leather and don't slice the patch threads. I have a bunch of Schmetz needles as well. Groz-Beckert makes terrific needles but I find them harder to get. Here is one of the best publications on leather needles I have found. Groz-Beckert Leather Needles The 1541 likes #69 thread (.0115" dia)... at least mine does. It will sew #92 and #138 but I have always had to do tension adjustments and I find it annoying. So I stick with #69 on the Juki. I buy thread from the Thread Exchange. I have always been happy with their products. I now have enough to last several lifetimes! The Thread Exchange

Thanks guys! I haven't done a lot of site exploration yet but what I have seen is so very impressive. You guys do such good work. Some of the project PIX I looked at are just terrific. LOL!! I have spent more time today on Leathernet then I have on my gun forum XDTalk where I spend a lot of my free time. I'm sure that I will learn a lot here. Thanks again for the kind welcome.

I'm new here but I just wanted to say that is one fine looking gunbelt. Great work. You will be able to support any handgun with that belt... no doubt about it. I was wondering... do you ever skive the tongues of your belts? My other question was did you glue the two layers before sewing and if so what glue did you use to bond the layers? I also wanted to say that Don's comment about stitching across the belt snapped me right to attention. What an excellent observation! I never noticed that or even thought about it. I don't think those particular holes across will cause any problems but Don's suggestion is certainly an eye-opener. I have a gunbelt very similar to the one you made in process right now for myself. I have cut the two strips of leather and I am getting ready to bond them. I am going to rethink the attachment of the keeper as I planned to do it basically the same way. It's funny because I often tell my patch customers that every hole put into leather is permanent and creates weakness in the leather. So I always remind myself to be real careful about how many holes, their angle (using leather needles), direction, and placement to avoid excessively weakening a garment's leather. A little aside about holes in leather... I had a guy a couple of weeks ago who brought in a leather vest which his girlfriend tried to sew a patch on with a home sewing machine. She is a seamstress and she set the stitch length to something like 16 or 20 stitches per inch. In some places the holes bunched up and the stitch length was even less!! He had removed the patch because it was crooked and he wanted it properly aligned. My first reaction was "Wow! This looks just like computer paper perf." I was afraid that the whole piece of leather might just punch right out especially if I resewed the patch near the existing holes. We finally decided to put a much larger patch over that whole area and bond it all with glue to help allow the patch to reinforce the damage that she had done to her boyfriend's vest. Anyways... great job on the belt. I like it a lot.

Hi! I'm Bree. I found the forum by chance and loved what I saw so I registered. I do a little bit of leatherwork in my spare time. I have a small business named Bree's Patch and Leather Repair here in Buffalo, NY. I sew patches on for bikers and repair leather goods for members of my club and other bikers. I haven't been as involved in making things as much as fixing things. I would like to do more in the making things end of the business particularly gunleather... holsters, mag holders, belts etc. I work full time as a webmaster for IBM but my job will be gone by the end of the year so I may get out of IT and do more of the things I enjoy such as leatherwork and gun stuff. In that respect I am thinking about adding a new machine which is how I chanced upon the forum. I was doing some research and hit a forum post. Today I have a Juki 1541-S flatbed, longarm 29K60, short arm 29K58, an old but nice 29-4 and a 29-4 parts machine... the cylinder arm main drive is broken and it isn't worth fixing so I keep it for spare parts. I also have some old home machines... a VS2, a 19-51 100th Anniversary, and two White Rotaries... one portable and one in an oak cabinet. We have a home serger and home Singer as well but I seldom use them for anything. Indeed, I don't really use anything but my Juki and the 29K's for my work. I just like old sewing machines. I probably should get rid of them and get some industrial machines that I can use in business. I have my eye on a 441 clone from Raphael's in Montreal... the GB6-180-2. I also like their Bonis clone... the 402 Fur machine. That would be very useful for sewing sheepskin covers for motorcycles and other nice things with sheepskin and pelts. I am always a little suspect about equipment with very low prices. The GB6 has such a low price that I could literally get the 402 for free compared to what it would cost to get some of the other makers' long arm cylinder heavy stitchers. So I was looking for negative (or positive) reports before I purchase. So that's what I do and that's how I got here. I doubt that I will ever produce goods of as fine a quality as some of you folks here but I will keep trying to get better and better a little bit at a time. Thanks for your time and attention! Bree