RockyAussie

Those nicks should sharpen out alright.Just off the top of my head the bell starts at about 2" wide and I normally replace mine when they get down to about 1" or a bit more. I would like to see a few more pictures all the same of the sharpening stone, where you have your foot set to in relation to the blade and the angle of the stone in relation to the bell blade and so on.

The answer to Duns question is in my question. Sorry to be so obscure but out of respect to Niwa I am hesitant to elaborate any further. There are more than one way to achieve this effect and if someone wants to do something similar, I can only say that burnishing and the leather types are not necessarily the only way to come at it.

Clear yet???

Man ...we got a lot in common sept I just turned sixty. I wonder if they think I'm 13 yet??

There is a lot of theory in coming up with that relief line, and some advantages are as follows. 1 - to reduce the waste when pushing down the top mould it helps create a little drag and keep things tight. 2- As the leather is trying to compress everywhere and on particular the corners, the relief gives the leather somewhere else to go beside just sideways and thereby reduces the wrinkles. 3 - It gives a very nice and reliably accurate cut off point to cut and sand to. I did sand the mould pieces a bit but mostly just rubbed the edges very hard with a rounded steel rod in order to achieve maximum smoothness. On large scale pieces a printer may not be the best answer always as the time to print can be very long but can allow a lot of fancy details to be embedded if that is desired. CNC routing/milling can be a better alternative at times. The big advantage with using the cad design start is being able to come back and easily make minuscule changes and corrections in a very quick way. At least the printer can print it again while I am getting other work done. For anyone interested in wet forming leather I recommend looking at a couple of this mans videos. To me it is amazing and I am sure you will be inspired by them. Brian

Check out this post I did awhile back, I think it will give you the answer. I had the same problem.

It does help if when you attach it you set the angle at around 90 degrees. I would generally bring my stitching just over the edges of my pockets to stop them from dog earing. This counts a lot when you get around to burnishing or edge coating. I think that is a fine looking effort all the same. Brian

I think that is very good @Webicons and I think you reduce a lot of your waste than you are at present. You may some of the info in this post I did awhile back of interest. I found I got my waste on these handcuff pouches down to less than 1/4" and if anything I would say the results were better. Also on the top mould having a relief groove just past the cut off point helps the forming. Brian

It may be true but I don't want a hat with this on the back of it

Congratulations Charles, I look forward to seeing how you go with it and swapping notes etc. Brian

I just checked the 794 needles here and the shank is 2.5mm I think. Have you tried turning the LR needles a little. I have found when the all the tensions etc are right that the result can be very similar to the hand saddler's stitch. I could be wrong there so see this picture below. This is without any twist given to the needle. Brian

Ha Ha ...thats 40 drops of blood . What the hell ....Key tags are are not going to be any fun. I'll check out the local blood bank first ....

A blood spot to show hand made???? I guess that will slow down the mass production items a bit or the craftspersons.

Nah...Its easy cos I know it'll be the wrong way up to what I first think so I just flip it over. Just a thought, what if it had a bit of thin suede glued onto the pattern on the side that has to be ........ No ..I was right the first time.

This is true and I can only say that I have found many Wives tales continue and I can be thankful that I have many times checked out the tale and found it to be false. Just because a person holds themselves up be knowledgeable in this area may only mean they want recognition.Many I have seen would learn a lot more if they stop teaching and start looking and listening more. BTW there are a lot more different methods of tanning than Veg or Chrome and the variety of further processes on even just these 2 methods can make any claims with regards to tooling or moulding and many other assumed good uses quite wrong. And I have to say most leathers can hold oil well as well.

This is true and I think the term "hand made" is not the bigger issue. I do a lot of work that many would call hand made, including myself, but I have never bothered to brand it that way, or even make such a claim. Making a product that looks and performs better than another, and if the cost is acceptable is more important in my world. The base product leather we work with could could rarely be called "Hand made". The tools whatever they are we use, are rarely "Hand made". You could forever argue what machine is acceptable to use and still call it "Hand made" but what a person wants and how well I can help them with that, is what keeps me and my business going.

Well put.

That video shows a fairly good procedure Gigi.Thanks for posting it.

I hate zipper installation and I wish there was a magic tool to do what you say but as yet I haven't heard of it. AS a rule I make the under side a little closer to the middle of the zip as it is easy to end up too close to the edge when you are stitching and cant see it. Here in some pictures following I show some jigs that I use for making up the bag in the first picture. This next pic shows a drawing printed out with some bits of firm veg stuck to it. The aim is to get the lining and all of the following bit including the zip in exactly the right location. I didn't have handy a fully prepared lining but I think you will get the idea alright. After all of the padding and croc etc is glued down and in place the zipper is glued on the top side and attached to the centre stip shown below in cardboard. This then gets glued into place over the lining. In order to glue up the zip I make up a stick with a groove and hollow in it for the slide and with the clamps holding it in place I am able to neatly glue up the zip. The stick below is not the right length for the zip shown but again I think the idea is clear enough. This pic below is a prototype and not stitched correctly but may help to understand the process somewhat. A tool like i have made below or a variation of can sometimes be of use when locating a zip into place. I hope that is of some help and I wish for you patience and luck. Brian

Nice looking pick up there. Appears the dog is working on it and has already got the belt off for you. Nice and clean looking workshop there BTW.

Here are a few pictures that might be of help. I suggested to someone awhile back about doing just this but I don't know if anyone has tried it yet. I suggested a bit of work with a poly elbow and a heat gun to reshape it. Note that you would want to have a space for the dressing stick to get in and I would suggest that the waste go into a sealed bin first then the vacuum attached near to the top and with a mesh to stop larger pieces from getting into the vacuum bag. The reasons for this are to stop any sparks from getting to the bag when sharpening and to have a more convenient method of empting the scrap. Although you are using a FAV and these pics are a Fortuna they will be the same measurements. I have a FAV AV2 as well with an extractor/aspirator.Brian

Thanks for the compliment. I would love to see one of these lace together styles made up even if only a single side. I reckon you would make a hell of a nice one and I would be happy to draft it up if you want to change the sizes a bit. .

Looks good and aren't those little crew punch holes fun to stitch.. It might be worth doing a pre coat with your edging up the sides before attaching the gussets. As for the fencing yeah it sucks....... but its raining again so here I am.

Not quite the same corners but I use this method 3 in the video quite a lot and I reckon it works alright. Here some pics that show as I use it in leather. The base has a drop in stiffener and they can fold up to reduce space when travelling etc. Check my website to see more. Brian

Wow that is so amazing and similar and functional as well. I had not seen that post and am glad to see you are getting the stitching sorted out and some good lessons learnt as well. Thank you.... I've had a bit of practice. A divorce out of the question? . The attaching together of the 2 sides could be done with stitching instead of the rivets of course and could be done nicely with pockets sewn in as well if you can line them up on either side and get that awl to go straight. Getting gussets the right length as you now know is not all that easy with leather and with this design you don't have that worry. At any rate I will do up a zipper top version as well. Now your starting to worry me....yes, but 1 strap could be dived into 2 if you prefer. The intricacies such as adjustment buckles and lid shapes and so on are all things that I would expect you to adjust and do to your own liking. I don't like the lid shape myself and would prefer a squarer style flap. The strap width in the drawing is 1" (25mm) wide. This allows for common bag buckles for adjustment if desired. I will check back tomorrow. Brian