RockyAussie

The stamps look nice and deep and should therefore be good to use.....But the second review there is a worry. 6 letters in the block would not be enough but more the worry of only 1 of each letter for that price. There is many an occasion where you need 2 to sometimes three of the same letter in a name. Have a look in a baby name book. The letter sets I have generally have 3 or more letters of each. I would look for Kingsley letter sets on ebay along the line you would like.There are quite a few. I did see some Kingsley machines pretty cheap as well.https://www.ebay.com/itm/Vintage-Kingsley-Hot-Foil-Stamping-Machine-with-gold-silver-foil/192529296915?_trkparms=aid%3D888007%26algo%3DDISC.MBE%26ao%3D1%26asc%3D50543%26meid%3D5b4415a34463466a90d9b82875b690aa%26pid%3D100009%26rk%3D1%26rkt%3D1%26sd%3D263653689847%26itm%3D192529296915&_trksid=p2047675.c100009.m1982 Match that with this to get any letter holder you could want https://www.ebay.com/itm/Vintage-Kingsley-Hot-Foil-Stamping-Machine-with-gold-silver-foil/192529296915?_trkparms=aid%3D888007%26algo%3DDISC.MBE%26ao%3D1%26asc%3D50543%26meid%3D5b4415a34463466a90d9b82875b690aa%26pid%3D100009%26rk%3D1%26rkt%3D1%26sd%3D263653689847%26itm%3D192529296915&_trksid=p2047675.c100009.m1982 And here for an example is one of the fonts from Kingsley and look down and you will see a few others quite affordable. Note the 3+letters https://www.ebay.com/itm/KINGSLEY-HOT-FOIL-MACHINE-TYPE-FONT-LETTERS-NEWPORT-MONOGRAM-SET-SORTED/253602297923?_trkparms=aid%3D222007%26algo%3DSIM.MBE%26ao%3D2%26asc%3D50543%26meid%3Dd6728ff3da8341eb8ccf5c7332fbd94a%26pid%3D100005%26rk%3D11%26rkt%3D12%26sd%3D352346329350%26itm%3D253602297923&_trksid=p2047675.c100005.m1851 Regards Brian

You mentioned a machine type elsewhere and that company make letter sets in the US as well. I ordered in a set from them last year and they are crap in comparison to the kingsley letter sets. They are very roughly finished and the lead content is so high that just packing them into a container to separate the letters out made my fingers all black. Probably why I am going madder than usual. They are so bad and soft I will not use them.

Why I said be patient

Does the tension work alright on leather? I know I will sound silly for saying it but the thread looks a lot thicker to me than 69 (40 metric) and more like 138 perhaps. Some of these nylon webbings can be very tight and hard and tension problems are not uncommon with the thicker threads.

Do you have letter sets already? The letters in the video by Harry Rogers will not take much, if any heat which is a shame. I am just wondering if a laser might not be a better answer for you at this stage if you don't have a letter set already. Last time I looked you could get a 40 watt laser for just over $500 here in Aus. Maybe try H Leffler and sons in Melbourne as they have a notice board for second hand stuff there or at least they did when I was last there. http://www.lefflerleather.com.au/leffler_contact.htm

I do have a few (5 of different types) but as I am a bit out of the normal market/manufacturing area up here I like to always have some backup and 3 are always on the go. If you care to show me the type of stamping or the variety of uses you need to do I may be able to give you a good solution. For an example the Kingsley machines here pictured are very limited in height and can be useless if you need to emboss anything thicker than about 1 1/2". Lids on boxes for products can be a no go for example. Lack of depth for a product to go back into can also be a problem. How large a stamp do you need to emboss? If you only require a stamp less than 2" then a drill press can give you more room for adjustment than many embossing machines can but a heated block for holding the stamps would need to be sorted. I have previously experimented with this and found my tests promising but haven't really needed to do much more with it do to having other machine alternatives already. If I were to take this a little further I would make a block to hold a 60 or 80 watt soldering iron or just buy the cylinder elements in that wattage and hook it up to a light dimmer switch which I have done at times for some other similar projects as seen in the last picture for ironing in the edging on the croc belts. The heat was not enough for the foil embossing above due to me just using a heat gun to warm the block and guessing incorrectly it was hot enough. Note in the middle of picture in the background a box made to hold the light dimmer switch. Although I have been using these for many years the risks of doing it are all yours if you do. I have every fancy micro cut out switch in the system and although they have never been set off doing this I would still make sure they were in operation in case.

Nice work Gary. WW wow wow

I do agree somewhat but as Morrie always reminded me it is a knife show NOT a sheath show and he always won when he entered them anyway. They both should stand out but the knife should be the centre piece in a Knife show.

@pitersek I think this shows a well matched knife and sheath with potential for more excellent combinations in the future. Sadly it takes me back to a close friend of mine for many years who aside from jewellery enjoyed making knives. In Adelaide here in Australia they have a large once a year knife show and for many years Maurice (Morrie) would travel up the coast to my place, and together we would set about making a knife pouch or two for the next up coming show. I would ask Morrie how did the knife show go and he'd always reply "pretty good" and smile as always. He died back in 2013 and not until I was at his funeral did I find out that he won the award for the "Art knife" prise for many many years in a row. He always chipped me for being too fussy and as the years went by, in 2012 he stopped entering in order for other entrants to win.I understand they now have a Maurice McCarthy award there. He was a true friend and I still miss him. The picture following shows a few of the projects we worked on together. I hope this may inspire you on further.

Be Patient.............................

@OnceFoundCo I have 2 similar machines and the closest looking one says Mk2 (65watt) and the other says M60 and is 60 watt.

Here see a couple of pictures that no way could I use the bigger 441 clone Cowboy machine I have could do.

without seeing your bag models or what sort of weight bags that you make and want to make it is hard to say what machine or machines would be best. A cylinder may be best and whether it has are a short or long arm will rarely matter. If you are wanting to go thicker than 1/4" but still do lighter work I can see a lot of merit in the CB341for handbag use. It can take a large M bobbin and has the advantage of having a small end that when doing tight gussets etc will come in very handy. The price as well looks good to me be that it has not got a walking foot, but I have found that walking feet sometimes restrict sewing when you want to get around tight ends on gussets. To explain a little better , walking feet keep pressure down all through the sewing operation and being able to release the foot pressure with the needle still in helps the leather relax and stop from twisting up and sometimes forcing the 2 parts to separate. Hope that makes some sense to you. Here is a link on that machine-http://www.solar-leather.com/cowboy-cb341/ If you would care to check my website you will see many bags I make and most of these are done on a smaller cylinder than this one but still not with a walking foot.

Nice steampunk theme.

I am not certain but I think the last picture shows a VERY POWERFUL MOTOR mounted on the back of the head like most domestics. Here's a thought....with a light head like that if you get 2 and turn one around and put it in reverse, you could stitch up them bridle straps on both sides at the same time.. Nooo it wont work you cant get the 2 close together enough ...... you'll need 2 cylinder machines instead.

Yeah his tail wore down a little bit (see pic below) but it didn't stop him growing up to have a pig clutch This one could be a love bite .....or maybe a mower clutch??

Noooooo You clutch the croc. see pic below Croc clutches look waaaay different Though tastes can vary.......

Your welcome. I would like to see some pics of your finished bag when you can. Yes that's it. Oh.... if only it were that easy in leather.

@immiketoo " Clay's dog used to lick the icing off of them" and you know what else he licked don't you

Thank you, and my pleasure! Least I can do given what everyone shares in this forum. This is an answer given by another member @motocouture to a similar situation and I thought most apt here as well. Ok, I looked into this a little further and found some information about the Breac Moedoic budget (Satchel) written by John William Waterer. As I stated earlier in this post, the drawing he used showed stitching visible on the inside and a bit more reading confirmed this and showed up some other useful points as well. The first drawing below shows the same as earlier shown in this post. I tried out the method depicted and found that it made stitching from the outside quite easy and quite easy to pull up into place when finished. Once the top is reached with the pulling together it is pretty simple to do a backstitch around inside the top. Some of the measurements given I have used such as hole spacing at 5mm (3/16”) apart and near to ¼” (6mm) in. The thickness of leather was about 1/8” (3mm) but in this case I used 2mm thick. As the author stated – “Such a seam is normally made with the article turned inside out, but the substance and stiffness of the leather employed on these budgets would have effectually precluded turning it right way out after sewing and the seams must have been stitched from the inside”. In a way this is right but is actually stitched from the outside. Toooo tight to fit in there. Another part written by the author in regards to the drawing below –“CC represent the two margins, skived to a bevel and bent round, face to face, so that seam is inside.” Here firstly is the picture showing the technique as drawn by John Waterer- and next is my copy of the technique. Here shows the needle comes across and down in From the outside on same side up and out Then across and back in and up and out etc This shows the back view before pulling together Now pulled tight Inside view from side Inside view from top which if tapped down would help hide the stitches somewhat. And lastly the top view which shows no white thread. Keeping in mind that this would be done on veg (oak) tanned leather and dampened as well it would be quite easy to hide the stitching well with a little tapping /rubbing. Note: if I were doing this method I would pull it up tight every few inches and do a looping back to keep the thread tight. As I stitched this in about 6mm from edge I will not be doing a pull apart test as I am sure that it will take my entire weight, be that I hope the roof would survive anyway. I hope that this is going to be of use to anyone that wants a good and easy technique for stitching up a project with little room inside to work with. Brian

not tooo bad..... pretty good.....ALRIGHT CONGRATULATIONS it IS WOW FANTASTIC. Thank you for posting such a well detailed and helpful post.

OK , I will try and give it a go sometime over the next few days and get back with the results. I could try it on the stove but I don't think I'm allowed in that room.

I have not tried it but I would think if you took the bed temp up high and place the print down on it for a while being weighted down it may be possible to smooth out the lines. It would have to cool off in place of course.

Well done effort.

Well I broke it. As the pics show I did a couple of more stitches to give me 3" to work with and threw in some holes and proceeded to carry out this highly scientific testing procedure. The scales used here are 200 kilo /440lbs. As can be seen the holes in the centre and the pulling pressure applied kept the forces localised over mostly 4 or 5 stitches. It all came apart at close to 40 kilo or 90 pounds if you like. By my reckoning that means close to 1/2 my body weight should be all right over 3" of stitching and therefore you could put 3 of me in that bag no probs except I wouldn't fit to good. Thank you Hope that is of some help if not a bit of a chuckle.