RockyAussie

Thanks to you both and I hope that it may help and have some useful answers sometime... if not now

Thank you. Thankfully the customers love what the 3D printer allows me to come up with as well.

After the Scotchbrite sanding it should now look pretty clean like this - They then go through the edging process as before shown and then the detailing is done prior to the polishing. you can see here where having some smaller fingers would come in real handy. Note the edging on top... and again this comes off with a lot of wetting back and spit and hard rubbing and oh did I forget BAD LANGUAGE? Somewhere in there I forgot to take some pics of the hole burning in but this pic should give you the idea. The crew punch holes and tongue holes are all smoothed in and shaped a bit with this purpose shaped soldering iron tip. Mostly the back lining is concentrated on as I like the buckle tongues to slide into them nicely. Following that is the polishing so back at the finishing machine and with some clear Hooco wax polishing stick With the polishing I like to get all of the edges done first as I can generally get 4 or 5 belt edges done together as shown then the tops and backs get done and then a cotton glove really brings them up nice I have found it best to use towels when doing a lot of polishing and handling from this stage onward. Some like these get snaps put in and they often need to be 2 pack painted in an earlier operation. PITA. take note that I like the smaller snap fitting to the front of the belt. That is about it all so other than getting a few more shots of some buckled up belts later on... please feel free to comment. I must add that the methods here are only what I have worked out to do myself and any improvements and criticisms are equally welcomed and sort after. Regards Brian

Just another thought ....I think that plastic wiper thing will be spring pressured and with the plastic block being somewhat thick it may act as a funnel and be excellent at trapping the leather until it wears down to where there is no edge left and it is firm against the feed stone. Try having it run with the feed stone engaged until you can see no ledge. What have you got to lose?

Oh mate i am feeling the pain from here. I dont have any of that scraper stuff on mine and I suppose that is because of the suction equipment on them. That dish shaped ejector thing at the back is about 15mm or less in and that keeps the bigger strips from going around and around. From what I can make out in your photos the scraper is a plastic wear style thing and should be adjustable to run right up against the feed stone. If it is held against the feed stone with a spring pressure it may not be adjustable in which case a smoother feed stone may be an answer.Almost any gap will work to trap the thin skived pieces so if it is adjustable I would give it a try right up lightly touching myself. Hopefully others here hopefully may have experience with this arrangement. The other thing is that if you bring the dish ejector forward you will need to bring back as well that other metal scraper as well and that should work to eject the strips better. You probably have already seen this post but in case you want to see it again this is it - You know if I were making that style of ejector wiper thingy I would have used a shaped out bristle brush to really scrape that fluff out of the grit.

Yea I know ...quite often the left overs make the profits worth it... wrist bands and such.

After the edges are all sanded the tips and ends must also have a little bevel sand and to do this I have a finishing machine that can sand and polish and a few other things. This can be tricky to not sand too much and does need to be done carefully as to not over sand. An angle as shown is generally best. This is about what it should look like when done sanding Note that close up it is now looking all a bit furry/rough before any edging is applied I carefully singe the fibres in with the aid of a heat gun. This must be kept moving fairly quickly and not allowed to get overly too hot or the glue will also soften and start to release. Quick and close is best. NOTE: I do not go for getting extra smooth before the edge coats are applied as I want the paint to grip as well as possible and I have found that if it is overly smooth the paint can be peeled off in long strips. After that I apply some edging through my belt edging machine (another purpose made machine of mine for the job) Normally I apply 2 or 3 coats at this stage. Here is a link that shows this machine in action - As can be seen below it is necessary to lay the belts with the profile facing down in order to stop any edging from touching the tray on which they lay. This does not mean on these skinny buggers that I won't wipe edging on with my huge fat fingers. I will show you this later. After this step the ends need to be done and that I do on another single edge machine as shown below. This is also done with 2 or 3 coats. At this stage once the edging has dried well, normally overnight I go onto the ironing in stage which is done with a temperature controlled soldering iron with a purpose shaped tip. With this thickness belt I just use a long piece of hardwood with a saw cut about 1/4" deep used to hold the belt steady. I press the iron to the back side and wipe it down the length first and then the front side and finish with one wipe down the middle normally. A grey Scotchbrite pad is then used to give a extra smooth finish and a little grip for the finish edge coating. On some jobs this could go to the polishing stage and still look better than most other makers edging. In this case it goes on to have the extra finish coats. Be back with more later.

They look good and sturdy. I bet you had some fun adding the leather over the first 2 crown bones and then stitching through them as well. Did they not have a couple of inches past the crown bones? normally there should be 2 to 3 inches past them bones. Let me know if you want some more. No the skins come already coloured the only colouring I have to worry about is mixing the edge coat colours. I will touch on some of that later. As for workers and numbers that is mostly my wife and I and a couple of part time assistants. I could use a lot more, but the training times and labour costs make that difficult. I sort of hope that by sharing the knowledge here that some others will pick it up before my time is gone. Some more competition here would be nice as well. Thanks Gary. To be honest I like designing and making the equipment more than making the products most times. Although I do croc mostly, many of the steps and the equipment used are usefully applied in other applications. I hope that some parts at least can be of help to you and other lookers as well. I will be back......

Thanks @toxo kind words like that, are more than enough and people like you that bother to say so make the sharing all that much nicer to do.

Boring as hell for many I'm sure but for any interested in working with croc I reckon they will like it some. I am starting to make waaaaay to many typos so until tomorrow ...goodnight to you all.

After they are together I press down around the edges with my cow horn slicker very firmly as this particular belt style is not stitched and it is very important that the adhesion and edging methods used are done well. they are now ready to go through the combining machine that will take about 1.5mm off each edge as it goes through. note that the roller on the front helps to press in the profile a little as well as it runs through. Here at the back you can see the edge strips being removed. After they are all combined they go up to the clicker press to have their tongue and buckle holes done. Purpose made jig holders keep the knife in place as they get press cut into shape. How these jig holders are made can be seen in this link - After the holes are done the edges all need to have a bevel sanding and that is done on another one of my purpose built machines made for this purpose. Basically it is 2 bench grinders set in a table that allows me to move them closer and further apart as well as adjust up and down and angle in and out and back as well. That's it all for tonight I will add more tomorrow. See this link of the edge sanding machine in action if you wish - and say you like it (even if you don't) The back is set and sanded first Then the top checked and set how much removal is wanted as well.

Thanks for the kind words @paloma. I expect that one day it will be well within your capabilities.

The tips on the fillers could be done on the clicker press but in this case I've decided that cutting them could be just as quicker by hammer and punch After this they get split to 1.4mm thickness (yes.... I know I should have done this before cutting into strips) After that they get their edges skived. A strong magnet helps to make this easy and quick. I do this one side at a time as I like to get the tip done along with the edge skive. Now the fillers are ready to attach to the backings. They get sprayed all together on a purpose built spray table that I can tilt toward the operator for better application. They now can be lifted off and placed for another operator to peel apart and attach as shown below. Next the croc pieces are glued up along with the combined filler and backs. This takes some practice to not have the croc flip up while spraying. These are then carefully placed together as shown. If it were not croc and only leather tops, they could be fed together straight into the combining machine all together. Normally my hand that is holding the camera here would be walking along holding one side down whilst the other is pressing down the croc into place. I think that is about the picture limit now again so I'll be back later.

I should have pointed out that the first cuts of the croc and the backings starts at 22mm wide and is later cut down to the 19mm width. Here shown joined up there is over 200 pieces for a couple of customer orders As many of these colours have to have matching edging I will separate the black edged ones with black backings first and go onto the skiving stage of the tops next. This is done on my Fortuna skiving machine with the aid of a roller foot that helps to prevent craze cracking in the glazed crocodile skins. The skins are supplied at around 1mm thick and therefore do not need to be split any thinner in this case. The thickness at the skived edges is taken down to about .5mm in order to make 1. Cleaner and better for gluing. 2. allow the croc to flex over the filler more easily and improve the profile. 3. thinner edges make for better edge coating results. Next the backings are cut and split down to around the 1 to 1.1mm range And then moved on to the embossing of the sizes and customer branding. The sizes are done quite quickly by making the size stamps onto blocks that I can lift out on the run from the holder and put in a new size that gets preheated on the top of the embossing machine. The metal box holding the size stamp is held in with a strong magnet and a pair of pliers is used to get them in and out. The next step is making up the fillers that give a high profile to the finished appearance. For this I have used some splits from earlier larger width belt job. I used my belt combiner machine with 3 knives for this job but a strap cutting machine would also work fine. Following this I have then taken them to all of the belt lengths of the orders. Will be back later......Cows need to be fed.

This is the process where I make our 19mm (3/4") crocodile skin belts. I must first say that this is more of a manufacturing style of post and I will try to give small scale alternative methods where and if I can. The first step in making these belts is the cutting up into strips the crocodile as this sometimes affects the numbers of backing and fillers that need to be made to go with them. As a general rule I keep back the tails of the skins after other products are made for the purpose of making the belts. My strap cutter is not wide enough for the full width of a tail normally and this must be done in one or sometimes 2 runs through. Note that there is now a wide sweep after the cutting and this makes it difficult to manage running the next part through the belt cutter. To overcome this we take a bit out to straighten up a little better This time we can use the fence guide on the strap cutter As you can see it still has a fair amount of curve but this is overcome latter on in the processing. After this we need to join them up into lengths long enough for the belts. We now end for end the pieces to find comparable size scale size and angle to hide the joins as much as possible. He3re a very sharp knife and and experience is a must. There should be at least a 1/2" of overlap at the join. Contact glue is then applied and given some time to tack off. Normally several are done at a time. This is then carefully lined up and pressed and tapped into place making sure that no excess glue is left behind. This process is repeated until all the sizes are made up for the order. That is the upload limit for now so I will be back with more later. There will be a link to a little video on the belt sanding as well.

In case you don't have one the scrap ejector @jimi is refering to is a brass bell that fits snugly inside of the bell and helps to prevent some of the leather from staying in there. Do you have it in there? Other than that I think the sharpening on your blade looks like it is to aggressive and should not be showing quite that amount of scratching. If I have taken out some sizeable nicks it would have that appearance but I come back again with a lighter touch pressure on the sharpening stone for a bit than proceed to do the stropping step. What you have there looks like a little saw and it would be easy to get a deflection on the blade particularly upward. There is way too much leather scrap sticking to your feed stone as well and that will need to be brushed off. Another thing I notice is that the guide stop looks very pointed at the front and I would suggest grinding it a bit flatter at the front in order that the leather might not be pulled into it too much and cause a possible bunching that may create bad skiving. Those pointy ones are mostly for shoe upper work and the like where you need top get around extreme curves and such. The fence/guide I mostly use has a flat about 2 1/2" long and if doing long straps you can box it in with a flat magnet as well.Then you can just hold it and let it go. Lastly and after giving it all a clean check, back your bell back a 1/2mm or so and see if it goes any smoother. I do that when doing thicker leathers normally though. Another thing when starting a skive take a little slice off the corner first by holding it 1/2 way in the go around the job in an anticlockwise action so that each new start is not on the thick. That will help not get chop out holes if you are careful when you start the feed each time.

So long as the needles are correct then it is possible over the years that the metal thread that holds the screw for tightening the needle has stretched and extended. I Back the needle screw out and put the blunt side of a smaller size drill bit up in where the needle goes and feel for any lips/protrusions where the screw goes in. If it catches there then I would try and clean it out possibly by using a drill bit that fits in the hole without being overally tight and carefully spinning it with your fingers until any obstructions are removed. Do be careful not to break the drill bit in there as getting that out may be very difficult and involve a lot more work.

Nice and very strong looking work there @koreric75 The emblem detail is very nice.

I am a little afraid to give much advise without seeing some close ups of your settings and ideally a video of how it performs. Sometimes it is the operator sometimes the settings and sometimes its just a pig of a leather. Your original pics number 3 on the leather, show some coloured marking going through and that may be a sign that it not a well tanned leather. Some leathers will blunt your knife incredibly quickly and are almost like they have sand in them and some are like butter and you can go for hours without any need to sharpen the blade. IF all the settings are correct.....the best tip I have is after you have given a good sharpen and dressing and light sharpen again, cut a few strips of leather that skives nicely and run it through VERY slowly a few times. This acts to remove the slightly rough edge on the blade in the same way as stropping a knife. After a couple of feet have been run through it should be smooth as and will help to stop the edge deflecting up or down. Hard to see but if it deflects up even slightly it will take a deeper bite and if it deflects down then the opposite will happen. Notice in your photo 3 the top skive has gone rough and shows that the blade now has very small nicks in it. That is what you need to not have happen. If that leather continuously does this then it probably is not suitable. I would like to finish by adding that I don't like skiving machines without extraction suckers much and for any of you in the USA I would recommend you consider this one I found recently http://www.techsew.com/machinery/techsew-sk-4-leather-skiving-machine-with-vacuum-suction-device.html Having had a skiver once without an extractor I can assure you that the amount of times that the leather gets stuck to the feed wheel and ruins your work will be cut down to almost never. Once I went to the extractor versions I vowed to never ever have another one without extraction. I wont use them without a roller foot either. I'm not clever enough to make them other things work reliably any good. This is one of a few videos I did on skiving if you haven't seen it yet. Pretty sure I could not do it without a roller foot.

Gary I have to ask was this test done without any cardboard support under? If so I guess the plate was not sitting down as it should making the leather tilt as the needle went through and then occasionally divert it away from the hook. If cardboard was under it then it may disguise that the dog foot hole has become extra wide with wear and that as well can lead to missing stitches because the leather goes down in and stops the thread loop from forming fully. Going through the cardboard would be like having a tighter hole in the feed dog if you get what I mean.

The hook timing looks alright so the next things I would normally check is if there is a small burr on the needle end or if it is bent a little. Sometimes changing the needle will confirm this. This is not uncommon. After that is there anything along the top thread path going back to the thread cone that could be causing any elasticity of the thread? In particular in the area of the movement of the thread return spring.

Stall video at 12 seconds in. There is no way that scarf of the needle should be facing forward. Spin the needle scarf to face the bobbin hook.

Mine does as well but only slightly and mostly at the widest open stitch length. My zero position also moves back and forward slightly but maybe not quite as much as yours.

Your welcome. I have to go get my dinner now so will check how your going tomorrow. Its 8.30 pm here at the moment. Check @Uwe he may be of help here.