RockyAussie

Thank you all. To try and explain better ....I have the stamp set already that I want to use as in the below picture. As they come in the box each letter is not able to be placed up against the next letter without having too wide a spacing on most. As Mike says it more correctly the kerning needs to be done. Now what I want to do is print out the letters to size from a font that is the same as the set and then shave the stamps down in order be able to put them up against each other and stamp a few letters in my clicker press at the same time. This I wanted to do by 3D printing a jig to hold the stamps in the correct place over the belt strips. At the moment I'm thinking my best option is to stamp out the letters right through a piece of 1mm leather thickness and use it as a guide line up on all the belts again held in a jig perhaps.. This at least would only require getting the kerning right the one time. I will check out the Circus fonts you mentioned Mike and let you know if I have any luck. Thanks for the tips on the colouring as well. As the colours are red white and blue on black I think I will need to surround the letters with white or silver more likely as the white would look strange otherwise. Sure did but I'll get em educated right somehow ....... Can you believe in the middle of a hundred acres I have to turn the TV up to drown out the music sometimes. A few shots normally quietens em down a little or the cops show up to save em or something. . Thanks again ...I will post some pics as I work it out.

BUMP BUMP anyone ............Am I gotta do all this by hand on every belt? There are 5 words with 22 letters on each belt and I have to paint the words in different colours as well. This is why I moved outer town I remember now. 10 years ago it was about 1/2 hour out ....now they have crept up and are starting to surround me. HELP.

I cant say anything about fiebings acrylic paint as I haven't used it myself. I have used a lot of others in the past and can only advise my thoughts from that. Being a dog collar I would been tempted to use a spirit dye first as the paint generally break down in time with this sort of use. I notice that the edges are fairly square except around the buckle area and I think the metal keeper has a sharp edge on the inside of it that is scraping the paint off each time it is done up perhaps. Whenever I do coloured edges I start by rounding of of the edges by sanding and not making it too smooth as some others seem to do. The reason is that you want the paint to get down in the fibres and really hang on. This is normally followed by a couple of coats of paint until it is not looking too rough any more. I then iron this in with a temperature controlled soldering iron but it can be sanded back to smooth if that is easier for you. I prefer the iron in method on most paints as it tends to have a more durable finish in the longer term. After that I normally apply a couple of more coats to really make it look good but probably not needed on a dog collar really. I normally do this for crocodile products as in picture below.To finish I just polish with a clear wax.

Major failure on the recognition. Had some fun pulling all the broken up letter pieces to make them into full letters and the results were ..........not even close. I would have thought that somebody would have done one of these sets by now but there you go.

Thanks Mike I will give it a try. Been awhile.... good to see you back again.

Could you describe what type of leather you used to start with? Some pictures may help.

That is some pretty good looking work there Hanys , thank you for sharing your talent with us.

I am wanting to know if anyone has a downloadable font for the Ivan alphabet stamping sets in either 8132-00 or the 8131-00 or the 8100-00. Has anyone made one perhaps or know where I can get one? I am wanting to shave the stamps down in order that I can lay out the stamps in a line and have them correctly spaced. This page shows the stamp sets I refer too. http://www.ivan.tw/index.php?route=product/product&cid=12

That is correct and the first thing I do in a design is check the measurements of the possible and work my design to that. I have a 335 as well and the 331 allows me a lot wider range of possibles as to how I want the finished product to look. Some here may argue and I hope they do as I would love to learn something new always.

Yes that is correct. No it is a walking foot but does come with extra punching power/thread thickness etc. I would have them both if I could but as to which is more suitable would depend on the type of products that you mostly make and what sort of weight/thickness those are. I have been trying to find a similar machine without walking foot and this Consew model 223R may be of interest- And another link - http://www.consew.com/View/Consew-Model-223R-2 They do look a little large at 65mm dia on the end but still a lot smaller than many others as well.Keep in mind that the foot can be a lot narrower for fine jobs as well.The one in the picture of mine above is one that I made to suit much of my work finer work jobs.The dog foot was smoothed as well.

The possibilities are endless. I make ring boxes from pla which I cover in leather and printed the tools to help me assemble them as well. There is room for a lot of different shape boxes and such, bangles to cover, pouch covers to mould and endless tool improvements.Just need imagination........ My latest tool improvement is to give one of my edging machines a way of adjusting the edging thickness in a more incremental way. 1st pic shows how the thickness adjustment was done previously.This is done by pulling in and out from the knurled roller by hand. Note that the silly brush wiper it came with is now an aluminium piece now. That was an earlier improvement. This second pic shows what I printed to allow me to adjust the thickness now by even a mm fraction. After drawing the parts(about 20 minutes after some measurements) I decided to print it in 2 parts but so that it could all be done at the same time. Nut gets inserted into the part with the help of a little heat. A bit of super glue ...it works great on pla. Presto she is now as one Bolt fitted I can only say that I wish I had one of these 20 years ago as the amount of molds and jigs and so on would have saved me a fortune in time. Where I once spent hours making moulds out of wood on my bandsaw and sander for say my lipstick cases I can now print as many as I want whenever I need more and still keep working. That is the same now for many of my products as shown in a couple below . This week if time allows a local MC club want a stack of belts with 1" letters stamped in a long string of words so.... A block will need to be printed to saddle a 1+1/2" belt with spacings for the letter set and I will bet a few here would like something like that. I repeat..." The possibilities are endless"

What @immiketoo said is true but on the other hand many tools and machines I use every day I have been told would or could not work. That is what I love to hear caus it often means if I can make it work I am one step ahead of the rest, until I share it here of course. That is the question of course. I would start by making the lines higher than normal and allow that the lines may need to be smoothed out. You can smooth pla with a warm iron and it can be painted to smooth as well. Also consider the raised shapes possible that can be done in the moulding as well from the back side. Do you have a 3D printer yet?

Well done. Thanks for sharing.

That does it ....I am definitely not showing off pics in my shop now. Where is the drool emotion?????.

I believe so. I don't think that will be any problem ...You can see one in this video on a Juki but not in use unfortunately - This video is also worth a look - They are nearly impossible to find but what I use A LOT is a Pfaff 331-33/1B L. This is a needle and dog feed setup and means I don't have the problem with the back walking foot holding the bag gussets further out amongst other advantages. I have seen another brand similar machine recently but cant seem to find it at the moment. If I do I will get back and let you know.

The website is good as are the pictures. The products for the price is mostly good sometimes a little high and sometimes quite low. I do suspect that you do not have a good cylinder machine as the wallet and the bag with the brass ring through the front have the bobbin side thread showing on the top. It is obvious and looks terrible. I am curious in your about you section where it says "The more we researched about how everyday products (we) made the more we thought "We have to change this!" Where you say (we) made, did you mean (are) made or perhaps (other makers made)? As to the marketing I go with what Alexander from Solar Leather Machines said so well above. Think I will have to try a bit more of that advise myself, trouble is I cant model and be such a great maker as well.. Seriously though if you are offering custom work (which I avoid and even moved 20 minutes out of town to escape from) how can you give good service without an address/phone number? Unlike Lobo I can talk way faster than I can type and follow up with an email if I need to. I do have a phone plan that allows me to phone anywhere in Australia for the same cost every month and if I am busy I just call them back when I am not so. That is in no way any disrespect for Lobo I must say either, it just depends on how the differences in the marketing is set up I think. Best of luck and hope you find some good answers. Brian

Very nice work you should be proud, I know I would be.

For someone who shows they could learn a lot from this site you sure have a weird way of doing it if that is why you come here. I have thought to answer some of your questions here at times and have concluded after seeing your responses to others offering advise, that my time would just be wasted but......this time you've got me. The article above is mostly used in the top pocket and sometimes the back but if you'd care to go to an engineering shop or any sort of machinist type business you will see that they among other things carry a small steel ruler about 6" long for quick referencing. They would certainly wreck pockets quickly with out such protection. The finishing of these pocket protectors for the purpose they are used is excellent.

In case it is of help the bearing is a B623ZZ axial ball bearing ( normally about 1$ cost) and the outer pla printed piece is for the X as well as Y axis pullys that the bearing sits between 2 pieces normally. This is the stl file if you want to print it - belt-guide.stl

Here is a link to a video I just finished showing one method by my very talented wife using the zipper guide for making up care bags for crocodile bags I just completed. For those that have been patiently waiting for some of these ...I have finally got them done to a reasonable quality and have have checked with the postage costs. I will endeavour to get them out this week. The postage to UK and USA is around $25AU and should take about 10 business days although inter country postage may take a bit longer. Forgot to mention within Australia cost is about $11 express and they will go as well.

A clicker press, a good skiver with suction, and some machines and methods for applying contact cement. A clicker press and a good knife/dye maker are just about the first importance other than sewing machinery.

Thanks Jimi ,I did think about making some for attaching to my thumb and fingers initially but a this was the quicker solution and as you say my shovel size hands shore do make it a challenge at times. The plastic discs attach to the bearings tightly and they normally face each other over a bearing to give a track for the belt to roll in. My printer was designed to have many of the parts replaced or replicated by printing and I will have to dig out the relevant stl file and load here when I find it. I've had a new computer since I bought it and finding my old files takes some doing at times The fence would be easy to make but I pinched it off of my other brand skiver which is a FAV. Some jobs I need the other pointy one but mostly this one gets used. Glad you like em Gary ...I quite like making them when I can get the time. Rule of thumb is if I can make it in the time that it will save me the next time I should do it now. That is why they are normally a bit rough and from parts laying around. Nowdays when I hack up a pair of pliers she gets me a new pair of cheapies the following week.

Now that looks like a good idea @dikman and thanks for sharing. Could be good in the sewing machine section

This is just another tool I've made to help make skiving easier. I have another order for the ring boxes I make and I needed to do a large number of skives on the circular leather parts of the job and this is what I came up with. The end result is I can now do the job about 5 times quicker and a whole lot less painfully. For any of you interested to see more of how these ring boxes are made (if you have not already) you can see that from this earlier post I've done here - I hope to load some videos showing many of the steps involved in making these ring boxes sometime soon.

There are tricks in some cases depending on the construction of the bag design. If you would show us a picture of the design I or others could try and answer.