JMWendt

Can you give a list of what you have left?

Yeah, I built my own vacuum press from a plan on the woodworking veenersupplies.com website (http://www.veneersupplies.com/categories/Vacuum__Press__Items/Vacuum__Press__Kits/). Chose the EVS kit to build. Very simple and cheap. Runs off my air compressor and gets 20" Hg, so really works well. Radically altered the look and snugness of the holsters I make, to the point where they can be too tight and need to be loosened for ease of draw. The vacuum press is the way to go. Whether you buy a vacuum press from Harbor Freight or build your own, it will change the way you bone in and mold holsters, sheaths, and other leather goods, for the better.

It's Hollywood. It's probably hot glue and velcro.

What kind of scabbard? Or more importantly, what kind of rifle? Scoped, iron sights, bolt action, lever action, etc. Determines the scabbard design.

Rotate the tool 1/4 turn prior to each hammer strike until the rivet is set. This will keep the tool from sticking, and it will make a nicer finish.

That's what I figured. Very nice work.

Looks nice. I like the dye job. Gives it the look of woodgrain rather than a solid dark color. Don't let anyone tell you it looks "unprofessional." What function do the tassels serve?

Those prices are nuts. They're just asking prices, not bids, I assume. No one will pay that much for those stamps. You should stop looking at ebay. It is skewing your sense of reality.

Of course, all this being said, I wouldn't sell any of my stamps ever. And I'm always looking for more. But the important stamps are the ones that really do a lot of the effects . . . bevelers, backgrounders, special shapes and patterns, basketweaves. I've never cared much for the figure stamps like the angels and crosses and other full-art depiction stamps. But my kids do love them because they're a cinch to use.

Used Tandy stamps are worth $3 apiece, tops. Rare older stamps are worth $4 apiece, tops. Custom stamps are worth whatever you want to pay for whatever you need the stamp to do. My personal top price is $4. Given that we now live in an age where a person with a computer driven laser or CNC or 3D printer can make any stamp very quickly, the value of stamps in general is hitting the floor. I'm with TonyRV2-- they're worth what someone is willing to give you for them (Fair Market Value). Of course, "collectors" are nutbags who are just burdening their offspring with the job of getting rid of their personal effects (euphemism for "garbage") after they die. Some of it might be worth a couple bucks, but it is almost never worth the pain in the A of sifting, sorting, evaluating, estimating, then auctioning or selling. Ugh. Sell them on ebay for as much as you can get for them. They're just stamps, and frankly they're not even useful stamps. All they do is that one dumb thing. I'd rather have the money in my pocket than the angel on my workbench. Of course, I don't see the point in having figure stamps like these.

No doubt. Or they're having to pay storage on the thing. Needs its own garage space.

That tool doesn't walk as well as a 101, 104, 105. I tend to use the 114 for small corners of things, not whole areas that need backgrounded. You've got the hang of it on some of your samples. It's backgrounding . . . it should never look "perfect" . . . it should just push the things that aren't backgrounded to the front. You don't have anything in the front on your practice piece, so it can't look that good. Carve a flower, tool the flower, then background the stuff that isn't flower. You'll be surprised how much better it looks.

So I don't get it. Are we complaining about folks turning opportunity into cash flow, or are we bitter because we didn't take the initiative ourselves? Listing on ebay is free, so they have a great opportunity to let it sit out there until someone who needs the machine and can afford it at the price they're asking. Sounds like good old American ingenuity and good business sense to me. I'm sure if you still want the machine(s), you could contact them and offer double what they paid and they would take it. They're just looking to make some profit. Double the money now is better than an imaginary ten-x the money in a year.

I hate to say it after your comment about the Harbor Freight belt sander that broke down quickly, but I am using an $89 Harbor Freight belt sander with a cheap mini-shop-vac attached to the back hose hole to control dust. I use it daily, sometimes excessively, and even use it in place of skiving for some projects. It's been functional for some time. I replace the belt around every six months, or I find I have to apply too much pressure to do the work, and I think this might lead to breakdown in the long run. The leather dust issue is a nightmare. You have to have a vacuum system in place or you'll quickly be knee deep in the fluff.

I've noticed with these machines that I tend to screw up the thread occasionally when I remove an item from the work space. Then on the next round of sewing, the thread is wrong . . . usually the second tension disk where I accidentally get a loop of string in the spring around it, or I get it so the string is completely out of the disk. In the first case, the tension on the top string is too high, and I see knots on top. In the second case, tension is too low and I see knots on bottom. I have also seen spools of thread that just unwind poorly from the thread stand, and they tend to twist into themselves then bind going through the feeder holes. This seems to happen on stiffer bonded threads, or anything I made the mistake of leaving in the sun for a month. My machine is near a window. I'd check the thread path first before focusing on mechanical issues. But if the thread path looks good, then I'd monitor the thread behavior during sewing . . . just watch what is happening and see when it gets tension and starts showing knots. Then and only then would I start to look for mechanical issues.