RockyAussie

Sorry to say I think you have to remove and try as I said.

I stuffed up.. In a rush trying to get another 100 odd ring boxes done I didn't notice that my new filament in the 3d printer melted a little easier than the previous lot. For any who have not seen the post on "How I make Wedding ring boxes" check it out.- Anyway the result is I got over 200 hundred boxes that are splayed oversize where they touch the hot plate. This pic shows what I mean I think- Sanding them all down by hand with my normal clean up tool was going to take at least a couple of days not to mention a lot of Oh golly's and gosh darn its. I got to thinking about a spare sewing machine that I recently put on a servo motor and if I could do something with it. I didn't want to totally dismantle it or spend too much time on it either so I just clamped it to the side of the machine as shown. Once I got the pulley off, I saw that it had a key way so I decided I'd just print up a holder for the ring cup. One piece so I could get it down to sit on the bearing and another piece to go on top and have enough room to bolt down. 1/2 hour to draw and 1/2 your to print. Note: that I used some bicycle inner tube to have some method to apply outward pressure and some masking tape to get the cups on and off quickly and easily. Using the edge of a steel ruler it shaved the lip of nice and easy A little sanding and she is BEAUTIFULLL I am sure that these could be used very nicely as vertically or horizontally mounted burnishers, sanders, transporters and just a whole big heap of other stuff. If you've done anything else with one of these motors please feel free to put them up on here. Brian

Could be a bit of loose top grain there but I suspect that your strip is too thick. Around 1mm or less would be better. Also when attaching this type of thing when it has to be folded a general rule of thumb is to bend it as you attach it to around 90 degrees. Your strip would be maybe 3mm shorter in length + -. Easier to cut it after though.

Once the drawing file is done and from a stl file into the G code, its pretty much turn the printer on and go on working on other stuff. I do have a plastic extruder that took a LOT of work time to lathe up the moulds for these bangles and they are quicker to do in time but maybe not in the labour cost. BTW if you get into the 3d print stuff the hangers holding the bangles in the third picture are something I came up with to make it easier to get an individual bangle or bag on and off without taking off a whole lot. Here you can see if you want to get to a bag on the inside you have to remove all the outer ones first. I had to come up with a something to put in a shop so this was my answer.

Just in case it helps some. As you would have found out I think it can be difficult to sand around the edges whilst its round. What I found in the end to be quicker and to get the more oval wrist shape is to cut the pipe into lengths to get the width then cut into the side (65mm pvc vent pipe I think) I then procede to heat them up with a hot air gun and flatten them right out straight and allow them to cool of under a flat slab. They are then easy to shape and chamfer etc. I found a piece of steel pipe and based into an oval shape and from there I heat the pvc pipe again and bring it into shape. After that I attach foam and leather and lining etc. Now its easier to just 3d print them in pla. I have not done the watch band as such but here is the open back bangle shape. I think the weight of the watch may just beat you on this but you'll never know lessen ya try Might be able to mix the ideas a bit

Safety first. Beer comes after ya get it down ...Right.. P.S. if you ever get to painting the barrels in that heat paint and dry it in the oven Remember that the liners drop out at a certain temperature and can make a memorable sound that you will be reminded of for years and years. If you got a wife that thinks them stoves are only for cooking that is.

So I AM not the only one guilty of working on my bike in the lounge room . Did a total rebuild on one 2 floors up once. Nice side bag and extra good for your first leather work.

In my experience you would best look at your local buckle suppliers range. Here in Australia 30mm has a very wide range for dress belts which can often be a clip on style and sometimes reversible. 38mm(1 1/2") is very common but more for the casual jeans type wear. 32mm (1 1/4") is the next most common width range and can go suit dress or casual and I do a lot in 35mm but that size range is a lot less available.

All of the card pockets that get put together in our wallets get a second cut before the edge strip goes on them and that gets them exactly straight and is done on average less than 30 seconds per section. Same with edged business card holders as shown below, most things get cut out 2.5mm oversize then attached together after skiving and gluing then second cut which then requires very little sanding before edging is applied. This process is done on about 90% of the products we make including belts except there the second cut is through a combining/cutting machine. This is the reason I believe that a clicker press is one of the most essential pieces of equipment that someone looking at getting into competitive manufacturing can have. I could not imagine how much time and wasted effort would be spent trying to make that key tag all perfectly line up and be made ready to edge. We get orders for them in the hundreds with whatever logo they want and the timing is not much more than you see in that video. This is the sort of thing that made me think there would have been a little more interest in seeing how these products get made but unfortunately the costs to produce them would cost way more than I could hope to get back.. Gotta find some other way of doing it I guess.

Black.....the mistakes are easier to hide and while you are learning that will be common. It may pay to show a picture of the patterns here as from what I have seen before none of the patterns sold are worth having if you are thinking of building a competitive business. Just a tip ....a clicker press is more important than a sewing machine when you want to start making money from this. Second cutting of parts made is almost never shown I've noticed here and in the videos and in the patterns sold. Even a key tag this can be true - https://www.themorningbulletin.com.au/videos/wild-harry/43913/ Note: normally these would be edged with an edging machine and I had no intention to do this as a tutorial when they interviewed me. Hope this helps some.

Take this or leave it. I am not saying you should do it or not do it. I have never given a written guarantee or warranty on any product. I have said before getting me to sign anything is pretty hard to do. I have never been asked for it and I doubt it would make any difference to my sales. The customers I make for have never asked for it anyway and most of them I have dealt with for 20+ years. I have had sometimes something come back to be repaired and I do all I can to HELP them get it back in the best condition I can. One member here for whom I have the utmost respect helped me to get a belt fixed up for a customer in the USA at my request. The belt was over 10 years old and worn in hard yakka conditions every day. It took a fair bit of communication between us and I am very pleased to say that the customer reported back that the workmanship was excellent. I would so like to thank him again and I would love to say his name but ....that is up to him to attest to really. One thing about repairing shoes and leather goods for years before starting to make them gives you a really good idea how to not make the mistakes other makers have made before. I really hate zips in products and do state that if they want them, that part of the product will cost to be repaired if its needed. Truth is that is the most common thing that needs repairing and although I have not had any of my own fail I do get to fix a lot by other makers. Below I can show a little of why mine last as well as they do. The purse on the left is made in Singapore and is a pretty good maker, the one in the middle I made and the one to the right is made in Italy. Previously this customer had them made in the other places to try and save a few dollars. Both of the other 2 makers purses I have to regularly replace the zips in for different reasons. The Singapore version puts them in a little too tight but does a very good quality in most other respects.He does work to a measure and mark method which unfortunately means that some are tighter than others at times. The Italian maker is really sub par in many ways. The zips are put in too close to the edge and sometimes even miss getting caught by the stitching but even worse it has a full cardboard stiffener done in the way if you were making a book cover that means when the purse is full the cardboard puts extra pressure onto the zipper. Worse yet the cardboard is glued down right to the edge where it contacts the zipper. That means when it gets full the cardboard separates back to the stitch line and wow that sure then looks bad. This pic shows the zip from the edges better. Note that the Italian orange ones lining is very proud as well. With mine I made a 3d printed mould that helps to keep the zip held consistently at the right spacing, depth etc. This here also gets held in the other wooden jig shown. This pic shows the zipper now attached over the inner lining and importantly take note of the orange part to the right in the picture. This is the inside view of the outer section to be attached over the zipper section later. Note that the centre section of the stiffener is removed and showing the foam that is attached to the outer skin. This is why my design allows mobile phones to fit inside with out damaging the purse or zipper. Note also that the stiffener has been coloured over and around the edges. Here you can see the outer skin now attached but only glued up as far as the stitching will reach. Stitching down shown here Product now stitched. NOW I want to ask you as all 3 products are similar to each other visually, Who is copying who and who's nose is out of joint and should I care @JLSleather Hey Jeff....I love it . Please do not think that I condone copying and breaking copyright laws as I don't but I do profess that I like to see that we all learn better by studying and copying techniques in harmony amongst ourselves. I would hope by sharing that we all help to lift the bar a little higher. IF what you do is something that ANYBODY can do, then don't be surprised when ANYBODY does.

The power of the brand is something I have been addressing here and something that can take many years to achieve. Many as some have pointed out earlier have done it through celebrities. Many of us wonder why if we make an excellent product that it will not sell for anything near the same price range. Truth is I think that the marketing of the brand influences perhaps more than 80% of the sale. This following is an example that happened to me many years ago now. I had this wealthy customer from Hong Kong that every year or so would drop in and get me to make a wallet or something or other. Quintin Tz........ though wealthy was still fairly young (20-25ish) and this time wanted one of the briefcases I made as in this picture below. It has a nice Franzen single combination fitting I imported from Germany I think and the pine timber and ply shell I made as well.The lining was mainly done with a golden tight nap deer skin suede. H inges imported from Spain. Now as nice as the bag was the price was not all that inexpensive. In today's terms probably about $2000 au. At the time when Quintin came to pick up his briefcase he noticed that I was making some ostrich purses for the brand Bally and and had a lot of their little metal badges that had to go onto each product. He asked me how much would it cost extra to have one of these badges put onto his briefcase. I said that is not possible as I don't make these briefcases for them. He showed me that he was wearing Bally shoes and that he would be happy to pay plenty if I would as he loved the Bally brand. He offered me in the end more than what I was charging for the whole briefcase. I had to decline of course but if he was not flying out that day I might have been able to organise it I guess. I have to say that for all of my hard work and craftsmanship that little badge was worth more to him.. Still hurts a bit. I will finish of tonight by saying that as great a leather work artisan you can become, without building a recognised brand you can not expect to sell your products for even 1/2 the price or sometimes a 1/4. I am saying this as it is apparent to me that many good people on here work really hard at trying to become an expert leather worker thinking that their good work alone will somehow lead on to good sales. No matter whether you are a fan of of Nigel, Newa or Nitz without the marketing you are no................

I do see that often on here and elsewhere where volume production is somehow associated with shoddy workmanship. That is often true but very often not as well. I will say that you could pick out anyone of a hundred belts I make in a batch and put it alongside 99% of any other makers belt and mine will be as good if not better. It is what you do that matters. Your first point that involves scale is correct as well but Rob also said " If money starts pouring in that mindset might change". If I had to put my money one way or the other I think most would try, if the money is pouring in. I am sure that it would not be difficult to get the product done elsewhere in Sweden to his design specs if it toooo boring. I am going to say that my experience with sales has generally been very good and for several reasons I can think of like homework, trust and creditability,and working with customers in a collaborative and helpful way. I like to help people where and whenever I can and that often comes back to make the other reasons that much easier. For Rob tackling something like the band Sabaton may sound a high challenge or not. If it does I can suggest how helping others can make this easier. Many other artists could use help in getting their products in front of the public and thereby enhancing their name/brand. By starting off a combined artist promotion group like (Swedish artists international promotions) (Made in Sweden artists collaboration) and inviting some artists to join and and collectively promote each other you then have an advantage in introducing yourself to other prospective customers. The letter head from Swedish artists promotions to a prospective customer and particularly another Swedish artist (The band) should at least warrant a read. I am not going to give you the words but you should see where and how this can help I think. In my own experience I will add that quite a few of my large (multi millionaire)customers work collaboratively together and make deals work to each other advantage VERY well. They HELP each other.

Hi @robs456, sorry for taking this long to reply to you, its been a busy end of month for me. I have read your outline of thoughts a few times and I have to say that there is a lot of contradictions within it that leave me to suggest a different strategy than to what you are stating you want. I said above and underlined it This is what you need to do for YOU. You have gone into shops and asked I think that that may have been the best result and here I will say why I believe so. I asked you why a person would buy Rob5? Your answer told me a lot of different things for instance you said " Did do a lot of cardholders but they're getting so boring to make now, except if I can make an artwork out of them like the 'samurai' ones on my insta... and " Though they tend to buy the 'typical Swedish things' which are not what I'd even like to do" and "Thing is at the moment I'm at the mindset that I don't WANT to scale up" Your answer told me that you did not really want to sell into those shops. You want people to buy the product that you want to make and until the product becomes boring to make. Thank God that for you and them it is not up and going. From what you say and what can be seen in your insta you have within you an artist streak that needs to be satisfied and that needs to find a way to come out and earn you money and reputation as well. I will point out that the brand Rob5 looks fine but you are mostly not ever going to be get many sales from it if you and your work/art achievements are not seen and heard about. You no doubt have heard of the Swedish band ABBA but many here would still be unfamiliar with a Swedish band called SABATON. Yeah they are pretty popular there and doing tours in the USA next month I believe. At any rate bands more than ever in this digital age would struggle getting any royalties in comparison to the bands of years back. Selling products online and along with them as they tour is now more of an important part of their income. Having light and easy to haul around products would no doubt be an important consideration but also products that can bring them a high return for their part. Your guitar straps and wristbands branded Rob5 at this stage won't work but if there were a custom made guitar strap made especially for them (plectrum recess etc) it could work if done something like this. On the back you have your Rob5 brand. All of the group put their signatures on the back and sometime during the concert they advise that this custom made guitar strap made by the internationally recognised leather artisan Rob5 will be sold off. (You are on this world wide forum and I and a few can recognise this )This should be a big money spinner for them and worth some serious consideration. A clicker press pumping out a few hundred simple leather wristbands with their brand on should be a fairly simple sale as well I think. This would then be a very easy sale to other groups if you wanted more. Check this terrible wristband link https://store.sabaton.net/product/accessories/wristbands/silver-logo-wristband/ and this -https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sabaton_(band) My dinners ready I've just been informed so I will have to get back with some more detail tomorrow. Selling is often best achieved if you can think of it more like a collaboration in getting products sold instead of here is my product I want your money. The first thing in sales is that they need to like you and then become comfortable with you. Normally a nod and a general acknowledgement smile works for me to start with. If you are not comfortable with selling yourself and you find that people don't relax quickly after meeting with you than there is a fairly easy answer to that as well. I will touch on this a bit later.

I have quoted Wiz above for you to see his advise again. If you are trying to pull 138 thread up through a hole made by a size 19 needle I think you got buckleys chance. Note where wiz said #22 is recomended for 138 thread and he prefers a larger needle than that. On real soft leather you might just nearly make it work but on 1/4" veg .....

It was a waste of a read and then such a pearl

Congratulations @YinTx it looks like you are getting there. That is pretty good for that wide a skive I think.. On the spring pressure adjustment on the left at the side it varies how easily or hard the feed wheel drops down when the leather goes in. Try turning 1/4 off anticlockwise and test then try some more. You will find an ideal point for a given thickness and hardness and will help avoid them holes and generally go through smoother. I just did a check back and saw that some of these Chinese machines don't have a fine adjustment knob on the end of the spring pressure adjuster. They may only have the lift it out and stretch or release type of lever with slots. I don't know what yours has yet so I will have to check.

I'm not much for giving flip answers @robs456 and I as usual up to my eyeballs with orders to get by the end of the month. I do have a few suggestions but they will have to wait until the weekend I am sorry. For now I am curious if you could tell me why a person should buy Rob5? I don"t mean that product ....I mean the brand? You may only have 8 million people there but 29.9 million tourists went there in 2017. Tourists in Sweden spent 317 billion kronor in 2017, enough to make it the top year for tourism of all time. Could you tell me what is the nationality of the largest amount of tourists that go there?

HOMEWORK - HOMEWORK – HOMEWORK I often observe where a new coming leatherworker questions why his or her products are not selling well. Many here have been bitten by the bug to work with leather and then go on to look for sales for their sometimes almost great works of art. Many people they know will compliment them on their talent and even suggest they should offer these products for sale. As well meaning as this advice is given it is GENERALLY WRONG. I will offer two reasons in particular: 1. The product has not been exposed to any proper market research yet. 2. The product is often not ready or able to be reproduced in a profitable manner. In this post I will address the first of these reasons. Many people will make what they themselves think should sell and put this up on Etsy or some other sales platform and basically do little more than roll the dice. This will give you very little feedback other than if it does sell and how quickly. This to me is needles expensive gambling Other people will take it to markets and if they are clever will enquire from onlookers how their products could be changed in some way that would make them buy the product. What price would they pay for it etc. Remember this – You are NOT the buyer......They are. This is a correct method if selling into these markets is what you are happy to do. Way way back I tried a little selling at the markets but for me I could earn the same $ back in my shop every day of the week and without having to give up my weekend. The packing up stuff to take and laying it out and packing it back up and unpacking again was just not that much fun. All of us have different personalities and some are happy in a market place surrounded by people, some will prefer shops where a more one on one is possible and some like myself like to be left alone to work on their craft. I grew up in the outback bush in Australia around the Barcaldine Longreach area which is the environment for which I always have the fondest memories. For me the best is to be able to live and work in the bush and work on stuff that I mostly enjoy doing. I went from a shop in town where I often had customers waiting in line out the doors and up the footpath to a factory I had built out in the middle of a hundred+ acres in the bush. As I had to have regular dispatch and deliveries being close to a major town was essential so we ended up about 15 minutes out of the town Rockhampton. In an earlier post I said that I would expand on this statement – “Your comments have given me food for thought and bring me to realise that an expansion of how I get products into the market would be something to share for some that may have any interest. I do not have any problems getting orders for product or customers in fact quite the opposite. Over the years I have had to become very selective about what further customers and product types I can handle”. In order to get to this stage what I did is my HOMEWORK. You can be a good leather worker and you can be a good marketer or seller of product but very, very few (including myself) can be good or anywhere near to optimal at both at the same time. 1. I established my best markets to target. A person from Japan or China if visiting Australia has no interest in buying something here that they could buy back at home. Likewise if I travel to Bali I would buy a memento that is made in Bali. Not Korea or Singapore or anywhere else other than Bali. In everyone’s country there are generally established tourist areas. Having the country where it’s made on the product is essential. Australian labour is not cheap and getting the highest possible price point is important. Shops in these areas are often paying expensive rents and their mark-ups needed can be well over 100%. Means you’ve got to be quick and efficient and very reliable. These businesses realise that they need to supply products that are made in that country ideally and that to some degree you and I are not competing with cheaper products made in other cheaper labour countries so much. In Australia most of the town shops sell products made in China and that is by far the biggest amount of sales. Funny thing is that the Chinese are today my biggest end buyer and will pay more than most Australians will to get it.!!!! 2. Armed with a few prototype products I made appointments to discuss with the buyers the type of products that they would like and what type ofproducts they sell the quickest. This was sometimes hard to get to the bottom off and get straight answers. Better than friends and generally acquaintances by far, but still they do not want to say what is wrong with your offering so much. One ladies purse in particular I did, I thought would be a sure thing and after a lot of discussion and checking with a few different buyers it was agreed that the credit card slots needed to be an upright position when you opened the purse. But I put to them the buyers that the cards if they ever fell out of the slots would be caught in the middle of the purse. Turns out that the Japanese were the largest amount of tourists into the country at that time and the way they presented their cards to people. When and how they took out the cards and presented them to the receiver was important. Another thing I found that although most Australian buyers liked the full leather linings in wallets and purses the shop buyers did not. The combination of using material and leather in the linings came in to place and gave the advantage of being thinner and holding more cards etc. Japan and Germany and some other places have high denomination coins and coin pockets in wallets become more desirable feature. The point is that there are many sometimes unexpected differences in different market places that need to be found out before committing time and resources $$$ into making up stuff to sell. In production a clicker press is normally needed and the cost of the knives will soon tell to do your homework well first. As I already had some machines and experience at working with leather from my shoe repair and shoe making businesses (not essential to have at the start but helped) and my homework on what the market wanted and orders in hand, I then went ahead. Years later I now have less but much larger customers that give me more orders than I need. Most of these including the largest are on a pay before it leaves basis and that is what I recommend to build toward. The slowest paying customers are generally the largest ones and even with them paying up front they can sometimes take a month or more because of all the signatures involved. Sometimes signatures have to be done in other countries as well. Last note: Some in the trade would be surprised to learn that I have not and will not sign any contracts with my customers. Some have large brand names and if anyone wants to sue for some perceived fault in a product that they can dream up, those persons would be likely to go after a big brand for money than me who nobody knows. In my books they make big money of my stuff they can take that risk themselves. Some like ORVIS will try and get you to sign where you have to pay them if you’re late in delivery of their order. Nope- no way. I sign NOTHING. I will attempt to get into the How to get products ready in a profitable manner in another post on some other weekend. I hope that in some way you may find something of use to you in this and please feel free to add any comments that you think may assist others in finding their markets as well. Brian

Just a comment for what its worth....I have for many many years always sewn my belts on a post mostly or a cylinder machine for this very reason. I should say though that I think the problem here is the leather itself and it has a loose top layer. If you push your finger firmly along it you can see the skin move along like a wave. When you are doing a lot it can catch sometimes and sometimes it is not visible until the belt is bent one way or the other.

I will look forward to seeing it done. Take care my friend.

Coming from people like yourself with your own awesome talent ....I am soooo happy that you say this. I hope to be able to work out a way to be able to share my knowledge and generally if I want something I find a way to get it.

Thanks you ...I sort of felt after all the high references from @mikesc about me above I better throw something in here. So much that you have said Mike would appear to be true. I will get back tomorrow to touch on these thoughts a little more. It is almost like I need to write a book of my past and experiences to date and finding the time to explain myself better is always a challenge. I wish I had the way with words that you and JLS at times seem to have in abundance.

Mostly that goes into key tags and wristbands but its too beautiful to just throw away. Here's a few for you

Beautiful is the only word to use here I think. Funny thing about carving on leather is that I sort of prefer it without all the colour. To me its like painting a Greek statue.Could you imagine David in some way painted? From your other works I suspect that you could prove me wrong.