TonyRV2

As a former engineer and electronics professor, this is not a straightforward question to answer without having access to the manual and wiring instructions. I did look online for something but to no avail. In my experience when a machine can be wired for either 440 or 220 3 phase, the manufacturer is referring to the mains voltage. I also assume by static converter you're referring to a single phase to 3 phase converter that's delivering the 220 (roughly) 3 phase that you need for the machine. All of that said, I believe that your breaker should therefore be set up for 220V operation since that's what your delivering to the motors. I am concerned though about the phases being unbalanced, 250, 225 and 205 respectively. I would think that this at the very least is going to cause some unwanted vibration in your motor, but first things first.

Bag stiffener...Its cheap and easy to cut. Its also large enough for bigger patterns. With care you can cut around it but I normally trace it on to the leather.

OH!! ... you mean a 'several sixteenths' wrench.

I just did pretty much this exact same thing, and on the exact table that the OP has posted a picture of. My Juki1541 sits atop it. Only difference is that I had a few 1X4's sitting around so I just used them instead of cutting up some plywood.

Obviously the OP understands both systems as everyone should. Its an easy matter to measure directly in both systems given the tools. This is not rocket surgery.

Gee....thanks for point that out to all of us. Now we all care. lmao

Thanks for posting. I do already follow many of these and will likely add a few more after looking through some of the others. And from what I've seen...most are NOT advertisements for anything but a good lesson in leathercraft.

I would offer only this advice for someone casually looking to by a used sewing machine for what is currently their hobby: Never buy a machine unless you can sew some leather on it first. It looks to me from the picture that this machine is offered as 'head' only. No motor, no controls, no table. At the very least you'd have to sink another 300/400 in to this to make it usable, and even then, as Ferg said, there's no guarantee that the head doesn't have critically worn parts. This is why Ferg wants 1K for his. It's all set up and ready to go. Save some money and get yourself something you know is going to work for you. There's an old saying that has served me well.... "Buy once, cry once."

Early morning is the best time...around 6 or 7am, practically no lag. Apparently a lot of leather craftsmen like to sleep in.

I'm with others that say they'd rather have a real book as opposed to a digital copy. But hey, it's hard to turn down 'free'.

Yep...downloaded this book for free like BillyBopp says, so it is available along with all the 100's upon 100's of other things Tandy is offering for free. I just checked a few minutes ago and its still going on.

If you go to the Fiebings website there's a page there that recommends mixing the alcohol based dyes with 100% Neatsfoot at a ratio of 94% Neatsfoot oil to 6% dye and no...that is not a misprint. Apparently the chemists at Fiebings found this to be the optimum mix for dying leather. I have not tried this myself yet, but will in the not too distant future. Up to now I have found that a light coat of oil prior to dying did improve the process. Some use just plain water, perhaps that is just as well. ymmv Here's a link to the Fiebings page: https://www.fiebing.com/tips/mixing-fiebings-leather-dye-and-prime-neatsfoot-oil-compound/

You may as well be asking Horween its tanning process for creating their famous pullup leathers. It's akin to asking a BBQ champion the recipe for their BBQ sauce. It just aint gonna happen. Most tanning and finishing processes are well guarded company secrets. That said, at least you have a starting point knowing that Nubuck is made by sanding and buffing the grain side of the leather. I doubt that doing it without machinery is going to yield a very uniform result, but if your hell bent on doing it then its going to take experimentation on your part. The main caveat is this...by the time you pick up a hide or three of veg tanned leather and start experimenting with it, you may as well have just bought the Nubuck hide to begin with.

This clip looks simple enough. Why not get yourself a piece of sheet metal and take a stab at making your own?

I agree with everything you've said 100%. And yes, most of what I've ordered from them has been good.

NO..my comment was not out of frustration, I've had over a month to get over it. My comment was sincere. Anyone that would ship a hide that looked like the one that I'd received should be reprimanded...not fired of course...simply instructed as to what is acceptable and what is not. But I do understand your frustration at seeing a negative comment in a forum. I did call after receiving that shipment, which included other hides that were just fine, and was told by the gal that I'd have to pay return shipping. Not "let me look into it and we'll see what we can do"...but straight to "Sorry...pay to return it and we'll send you another one. Now that's stellar customer service right there. No hard feelings TonySFL, but quite naturally we all take our experiences into consideration when making future decisions.

I bought a piece of 8/9oz economy grade from SLC about a month ago or so. For $135 I figured what the heck, I'm sure I'll be able to use it for something. It was the ugliest looking piece of leather I'd ever purchased in my life. It was stained and filthy. I unrolled it and immediately just rolled it back up....there wasn't even one square foot of clean leather on that hide. I've dealt with SLC many times in the past without too many problems, but I'm not a happy camper. Whoever packed that hide up for shipment should be reprimanded for not throwing it on the scrap heap. SLC is now the last place I look for leather. I also blame myself for thinking that I'd get a decent hide on the cheap. And SLC, if you're reading, I STILL get redirected to the sign in page every darn time I go to the site. Very frustrating.

Dang...I didn't hear about the Elvis auction...could've made 15 or 20 bag liners with those.

Well JL...if you cater to the 'ebay and walmart' crowd' then you are absolutely correct. Then you need to compete with the with the prices offered at ebay and walmart. In my opinion, that is also a losing proposition. Part of being in business is knowing your target audience. There's a reason companies like Hermes and Louis Vuitton can sell handbags for literally thousands of dollars apiece. They have created a reputation and a demand and they know how to and to whom they should market it. Of course, I'm not going to compete with either one of those guys either. But I'll say this, when the right customer sees that they can have a hand crafted quality 100% leather handbag for under 500 bucks (some charge more, but this is my 'formula' price) they are happy to get such a deal. Again, the key is to target the right customers, which for a small timer like myself can take many years to cultivate.

I just keep raising my prices until somebody faints, and then lower them by 10%. Seriously though, many people use a simple formula of doubling the cost of materials and then add in your hourly rate. Your hourly rate is not just for your time, but for your shops time as well, to include your overhead. The average wage in the U.S. across all occupations is approximately $25/hour. So in my opinion, as an experienced craftsperson, there's no way you should be charging less than that. You might then tack on more to your hourly rate depending on your shops expenses...lighting, heating and cooling, insurance, rent, and so on. Just add up all your monthly shop bills, and divide by 200 (or whatever number of hours you spend in your shop per month). So maybe your shop costs are $2000...then based on 200 hours tack on another $10. Some might argue that your shop should also show a profit, just like materials, so you might even double that to $20/hour. Add in $5/hr for miscellaneous expenses and we're at $50/hour total...at a minimum. So that wallet that you spent 2 solid hours making using $10 in materials (cost) should sell for no less than $120.

Again, an A.C. motors r.p.m is determined by frequency, not voltage. I would not have written the above had I not been an automation engineer and taught electrical engineering for 32 years. If you witnessed that a motor had slowed down under the OP's posted conditions, then it was loaded. However, this would increase the motors slip which then increases the back EMF to the windings which increases the torque which brings the motor back up to speed. However, if the motor is overloaded it cannot recover. This may describe the situation you'd witnessed.

Nah....A.C. motors run at an rpm which is determined by the line frequency, not the voltage. More specifically at the line frequency minus the motor's "slip". Now it is possible that the slip is different between running at 380V or 220V, but this would be a minimal difference as slip is usually less than 10%.

Update 2!! 3 hours ago I thought I had the problem solved by clearing history, cache and cookies, but NOOOOOOooooooOOO. Just went back to the SLC site and if did the same damned thing...redirected me to the loggin page. Obviously this has something to do with the cookie that SLC is dropping and/or in conjuntion with the browser, which in my case is Chrome on a Windows 10 PC...Very frustrating.

Thanks for trying to chase this problem down. I'm using Chrome on a Windows 10 PC. Update: I deleted the computers cookies, history and cache and the problem seems fixed. I logged into SLC and after login was directed to my personal account page and from there I went to home page. I then logged out. I went back to the SLC site a short time later and landed on the home page and it stayed there without the troublesome redirection to login. So far so good.

As a former tech geek turned leathercrafter in retirement, this idea appeals to me.