RockyAussie

A roller guide is great for doing stiffer leathers and getting around rounded shape products but a flat edged guide is better if you want to do say belts. If the flat is a smidgeon wider at the start and closer to the needle at the back you can just about let it pull itself through with out even holding it. This pic below shows where I replaced a roller guide with a flat and you can just see the angle a bit. The plastic end cap is just a smaller one I printed up to replace the steel one in the other picture.

Yes I use it fairly often and I never need to do any wetting which would damage the glazed skins either. Pics below. That is not to say that you cant make a jig to do it with wet moulding/forming techniques but that normally would slow the process down as you really want every thing dry before the gluing and stitching stages. Are you going to have a bottom like this on a briefcase?

For most things like that that I have turn right side out after being stitched I use a shoe repair last stand with a heavy wooden broom stick handle inserted inserted instead of a last. Basically if you took a car tyre rim and welded a pipe into the centre about 36" or so then fitted a large wooden dowel into the top you would have something similar. You start off by putting the bag over the dowel and pushing into one the corners and working your way around while pulling the bag downward. Let me know if you need any pictures.

I just realised that I should have shown the motor cycle tool bag before I stuck the end in it. After thinking about it further I think you may be going for something along this sort of gusset below perhaps. Whether it is folded edge or not does not matter. If this is the shape then the gussets I do start off cut out like the pieces above the bag in this picture. The bottom V is then stitched like this and trimmed close then tapped down to set the open shape.

Don't join the 2 centre pockets until you have built each side. Build each side by laying your card down over the centre piece and keeping it flat whilst attaching the next pocket and then same with another card before the next pocket. Make it form the shape and not lift the bottom piece as you go. It would be easier to leave your tabs a little long and trim them on the run after you stick down each pocket. Put a couple of cards in the centre before attaching them together.

So you are wanting to put a round base on the bottom like in this motorcycle tool bag? Or more like the base of this briefcase? Do you have a skiving machine?

I have not found ANY yet except that perhaps the sellers hope to be able to sell other machines that this one has trouble doing in its (present)standard form. I look forward to seeing any improvements you come up with.

With this form of construction there is no need for any wetting or stretching. This helps a lot when you want pieces to go where you want consistently. If for some reason you are hell bent on wetting and gluing you can do it somewhat by gluing first then wetting and waiting for it to get nearly dry then warming the glue area up with a heat gun and then attaching together. Only reason I ever did this was when I wanted to stitch soles on shoes and with the hard leather you get in this situation it helps a lot. Are you using a sewing machine to stitch this? It would help a lot if you could show a picture of what it is you are trying to do first.

Another thing that may be causing the problem is if you are hitting different layers while sewing close to the edge in which case have a read in this post I did awhile ago. They sold in Australia here some time back some Q stitch machines (Colt and Stallion if my memory is correct) and they came with only the slotted needle plate with no actively working dog foot. I recently did put on a servo motor on one of these for a saddler friend and noticed that they still had a dog foot under the slotted plate and that,that served to act as a sort of needle guide. If you had a spare dog foot you could grind it down to suit. I did find that it was quite reliable in the stitching and the only reason I mention this is the slotted needle plate gives a better support under the feet than when using the standard dog foot needle plate as shown in my post above. Other than that if you can track down the same feed dog and needle plate I did, I think you will be more than happy.

@beltbuckles I think a picture of the type of construction would help a lot. Are you wanting to take the gusset all the way around in one piece with the edges facing out to be later burnished or edged? Although I have done it this way at times it is a lot easier and without a lot of skiving and twisting if done in the 3 piece method as used in these bags below. These following pictures a just some from a prototype one I was working on which later turned into the black one above instead. They may help to give you a better idea of the assembly and construction. This one shows the edges of the gusset and front and back glued and ready to attach. Shown here before any edge coat was done. Hope that is of some help Brian

For the screw tightness check this Solar Leather link

Bloody hell ......You've done this tooling stuff before haven't you Tim I hope to see the finished dopp kit one day

The knife thickness is 2.5mm and when you have that on the 2 sides to cut the tip that becomes 5mm that has to be pushed somewhere in order to get through the leather. It is more noticeable on the 30 mm pla printed one because the knife is made to go out to a 38mm wide belt. Notice though that the leather belt piece still fits in tight once past the arrow head cut out in order to get both sides cutting equally. An advantage with the 3D printed jig is that it is the same drawing for each different belt strip except for the cut out section. Being able to use the one knife for several different width belt strips also saves the $$$$. Another advantage also with the printed version is that my first print was .6mm too tight and by taking another .3mm off of each side in the drawing it was printed again without all off my usual #%*^<> etc. I had forgot to allow for the edge coat thickness. The latter one has done now over a hundred belts and still looks like new.

A fair bit of info got covered on this in this post that you could find of help -

Another thing may be worth a check is that the 2 screws with springs that hold the shuttle race body are not screwed in all the way or too far. The springs should be just showing visible and the shuttle can be pulled in and out a little by hand. Also check that the bobbin is unwinding smoothly and not catching intermittently.

Now for those that have a 3D printer or access to one this can be a whole lot easier. In this I had to do a new version of a 30mm belt with a double snap connected buckle. I already have a knife for doing this in 35 and 38mm belts and determined that the same shape could be used here as well. A similar construction was done as the jig above except the 3mm Masonite was done in pla but without the need for any cutting out as shown below This continues up now with a 30% fill and the wall thickness I went with is 1.6mm Under view and notice the recess for the belt end cut off This shows my old 35mm jig alongside the new 30mm one The 35mm one with knife view in place Here I am showing both jigs about to be used Both now cut using the same knife A better view And that I think is it. Feel free to ask any questions and I will do my best to answer. Remember to keep a watch out for my upcoming dress belt manufacturing tutorial. I do not pretend this is how everyone else in the trade does this sort of thing as I don't know ......This is just how I worked out to do it for me and if something could be better then please say so. I go with this method because each cut takes about 30 seconds and is reliably the same and the cutting is not limited to the one cutting spot which tends to wear out after repeated use. Thank you for reading and your comments are all appreciated.

For many years I used this type of machine for doing shoe and bag repairs and eventually became quite proficient in how to use one. For stitching on badges it is invaluable but for most manufacturing they don't do that good a job. What I would say that will be of help is to set aside a couple of full days and cut out a large heap of square bits of leather of some various thicknesses and stitch around the outsides WITHOUT turning the leather. The purpose of this is to learn the importance of keeping the thread positioned on the same side of the needle with each and every stitch. Play around with the thread tensions until it all becomes automatic and this includes the thread lift lever which most operators have not a clue how to set. In my opinion the only time to use them is when no other machine can do the job for some reason and with good designing that is almost never. Some jobs if designed like this phone pouch below may tempt you to try it out, but a lot of practice must happen first. Products that can be turned inside out meaning the stitching is not visible would be fine as well.

Thanks Matt, I thought that it might be of some interest at least to us that try and earn a living from it. Thank you

Absolutely beautiful and that has to be some of the best stitching I have seen. I think the pink touch in the flower centre is a master touch. I hope that you do manage to get some pics with LuLu wearing it.

After that the tip end needs to be cut out wider to allow for the knife thickness and a dry check done to be sure the end allows enough of the leather to go up in under the end stop pine board. Once done the end stop strip can be glued and nailed in. Now from past experience I have found that with out a support strip up the other end the jig will stress enough with the cutting that it will splay and become useless so I worked out to use a thin strip of aluminium as shown. I then sand away the Masonite enough for the strip to fit in and then nail it into place as shown below This shows the top view now Ready for testing ....... And Yippie she works This one shows other jigs for this width belt that were done similarly. How the buckle retainer piece is made is shown in another earlier post here - and Note: there is an attached pdf file in that post that shows how to do it with descriptions... I will go over how I do this cutting jig with the new 3D printing process tomorrow morning if I can. Brian

This is a method of cutting out the belt holes and tips together and perfectly every time. In the following I will show how I go about making a jig/alignment tool the old way as well as the new 3d printed way. Because I do mostly production manufacturing, time and quality are always important factors to be considered. As I am working on a tutorial on how I make combination dress belts shortly I thought best to do this one in order to cut down some of the explanations in that later one. I will start this with a couple of pictures of the type of belts I make to show off how the tongue holes and buckle holes and tips are done. This first one is one of the styles of the dress belts I commonly make. It is the 30mm version with a removable buckle retainer. I like this style mostly because the buckle retainer can be taken of the belt easily shortened which means if a customer is buying a gift for someone else they can safely get a long one and get it shortened. This hornback version also has a removable buckle retainer and is for a 45mm (1 3/4") buckle. This version is what I am going to show how I make up a jig for doing the holes etc. I use a clicker press and knives for doing this job but some workable inexpensive presses can do this work as well. Some of these can be found in this earlier post I did awhile ago and note that they are also useful for wet moulding, stamping and other things. After I have done my cad drawings and sent the patterns to the knife/die maker, he sends back a pretty good knife that will cut out the shape. One with the tongue tip and holes like this below should set you back about $150 AU or a little over $100 US dollars. This is done on 19mm or 3/4" steel rule die and will last for many years and many thousands of cuts. Once I get the knife back and in hand I grind away the edges so that only the tip and holes will be cut. Care must be taken not to touch the hole punches when doing this grinding process. After this step I construct a jig using 3mm (1/8") painted Masonite board for the base and normally some skirting pine that is typically used in internal door surrounds. That is normally around 30 to 40mm by 12mm (1 1/4" to 11/2" by 3/8"). I cut 2 pieces of the pine to the same length as the knife and with the knife held in between these I scribe a mark to cut the Masonite width and similarly the end stop smaller piece of pine. I then with a sharp knife carve out a recess for the belt tip leather to go in under for the tongue line up cut. Around 3 or 4mm normally will work OK. following this I cut the Masonite to width and glue and attach with small nails the 2 side strips of pine. Before attaching the end stop pine piece I tap down the knife enough to mark the Masonite well in order to get centre marking for cutting out. Once a clear centre line is drawn in and the width of the belt to be held is marked in place I proceed to do cut lines with a band saw or handsaw. (Back shortly)

@Bluzoom thanks Dwight, I am working on some belt making stuff you may find useful for you so keep checking or follow me.

I am not sure what you mean by stamp press and die size. Are you trying to emboss a logo that size or cut something that size? If it is for embossing does it have to be heated as well? 6" x 1 1/8" is pretty big and I would normally resort to using a clicker press for that sort of tonnage depending on how much detail in the stamp there is, but there are some other ways as well. A picture could help if that is possible.

That is some real nice looking stamping the Bob. If I may say it when using a sewing machine and you can feel an extra thickness coming up you will notice that it starts lifting and that is where the needle will go close to coming off the edge. As soon as you feel that rise, force it down and in to stay level and you will overcome that problem generally. I reckon they will love it for many years to come.

I would think that if a piece of thin foam with a slice half way through could be placed just before the first stand eye the thread could then have any backward movement stopped thereby not allowing the thread to ever drop to the underside of the cone. For some cones it would be easy to print out a reverse cone that had a springy centre to fit within the the thread cone hole but some only have small holes and some large. The large holes would be easy to fit up but the smaller ones would be a little more complicated. I do think stopping the thread from falling back would be the main issue and that may need something shaped like this >.