8thsinner

The long pineapple by the looks of it when your pulling through seems to be stretching the roo. I say that because it seems ovular by comparison to the parallels of the lace, if you know what i mean. Close to the under pass it's not as wide... If it is stretching I suggest stretching it through your hands or soaking and stretching over a bottle overnight or tie a tight turkshead, about 5 or 7 parts over a dowel then work the lace back and forth through under the whole thing or just increase the sequence of the pineapple, it might help to straigten out the appearance. How do you actually stretch yours normally? The sofa stuff is lovely but Theres a lot of prep to Get there. Cut to 5mm, stretched over night, shrinks to about 2mm, split to about .8 or so, then stretched again, worked well through the hands with saddle soap homemade then finally put to use. But it's very strong at those sizes. Never worked goat before, pig at 1.5mm glazed is very nice easy to lace from small circles, often doesn't need worked on the back and doesn't need a lot of stretching... And it's cheap. As for roo, I know how nice it is to work with. Love the stuff, I have done one whip with it but its a bitch to get in the UK. I need to Get some sort of import licence i think...can't Get reliable info. By the look of your work. And mine, i think we could do awesome work instead of very good work with a few more opportunities and tools. And or money and time...

It probably depends more on the type of finish actually used, try a sample a few inches long. In short exposures then in longer to see what happens. If it has been sealed in anyway, I suspect the dye won't soak in too well or may come out blotchy.

There is sort of a rule of thumb to work with. one and a half times the length especially for a mere four strand. as you move up to thicker braids like 10,12,16 etc it gets a little more tricky. For the button, I would practice with some cordage first and find out how much you need to work with personally. I can probably do a simple turks head closure now with an inch and ahalf or so extra if pushed, if your beginning, I would recommend at least 4-5 inches. Good luck, and post pics when your done.

Now I bet that took a few hours. It looks great. And the pattern is a good one. Is that roo? Now you know one of the things I noticed when drying some more of my red stuff last night, Mainly I stretch dry over a bottle or something, and given that the flesh side is always weaker, it compresses more, that compression, when dried leaves a few hairs out the sides of itself. SO, after it's dried like that and I run it through the splitter all the wider bits will be chopped off essentially sort of skiving it naturally. When it's braided tightly nothing flesh side will be left to spill out. Thats at least the way I figure it. Do you mind if I critique that piece of yours?

Well, I will be in league with a website designer friend to clean things up and do a few things, but I want to be able to go to them with a working prototype first, that at least looks the way I want it to. Thanks though, I will have a look around to see what else I might like.

Is anyone here skilled with website development. I have started trying to work on removing what I don't want from the template but really, it's gonna take me weeks to try and catch up. If someone has a bit of skill, theres only a few things I want done different, and taken out. Please help Heres my main goal Increase number of tabs along the top, CHange the log in section to a logo section, Get rid of the logo bit completely and move everything else up, Thats mainly it, I can copy pages from that and should be able to add links and stuff from there. It doesn't seem like much but as was pointed out some people are much better at certain things...

Well it's gonna be a ME site really, with lots of content for sale too, whole thing will be very random

Indeed, and no not rawhide, mainly cow, pig and goat every now and again. I doubt too that I would need to soak roo, but if it stretches, I would soak it and prestretch to get as tight a lace as possible. The smallest lace I have done, would be 1mm waxed nubuck about .5mm thick, and yes it was still strong enough for a mini whip at the time. Heres a bracelet that was done withabout 2.5mm lace, treated my way. You can see it turns out very smooth. Sorry about the pic, it was a camera phone image to begin with...

I found this free template and I would like peoples opinion of the general look and layout. I really like the buttons and layout myself but would change the colours to green instead of blue Heres the link http://www.zeroweb.org/vd/3394

Wellit might be a while yet anyhow, I am just trying to plan things out, I have so much to do these days it will be january before I get to clean up the rust...But I will share indeed.

Just checked the links there....Very very cool bolo stuff, and much other. Thanks for sharing

I would like to experiment with bevelling myself but haven't made myself a suitable jig for it yet. But once I cut a string, I stretch it, usually one or twice, then soak it in home made saddle soap running through the hands a few times to spread it out, Let it sit for a day to soak in, then run over it again about twice through the hands then finally one or two times through a cloth to give it a slight buffing, it really helps the back and I find the constant running through the hands kinda rounds out the back nicely enough. I would like to see pictures of the button finished to see how it turned out though. One thing I will say, For years I really relied on getting leather the thickness I wanted my string, until a few weeks ago I made my own splitter, and It's so so so much better to use string you have cut to your perfect size. If the same ideals hold true for bevelling I really should endever to do something about it, I just haven't yet...

I think I might try that one, I should have plenty of old scraps right now, Question though Would it matter about the saddle soap content left on the back of stuff? Should I rinse and drain it through some washing liquid first?

Thats a good tip spence. I used to to something similar in a way, on the bus, The straps of my back pack I used to tie about two foot of string, and just mess around with regular knots and bends on the bus...

Try asking them about interlibrary loans, most places still do that. but they may charge you for it.

Another vote for experience. ALthough it can help to use mainly one size of lace. If you keep using 1/8" inch lace, you kinda learn to see how many bights will cover something just nicely. Same thing works for gaucho's and pineapples for me. ALthough that helps too, for using smaller stuff. Say I have a braid of 1/4", and I usually use 1/8th, a turks head covering of 6 bights will encircle quite nicely, but take the 1/8" (3mm approx) to 2mm, and it's fairly easy to see that going upto 8-10 bights will work well...

Stunning work.

Yeah I would agree, Keep your very best for display, cut up anything that gets damaged and find a way to reuse it of possible. If it's all tooled and stuff, you might be able to cut it in a random pattern and use it as a wall hanging display or something though. Good luck in the second piece, and don't lose passion in it.

Another bump for subcontracting...Kind of. Just stole a local craft shops interest in lace production.

LOL @ Butch Your interwoven bit, is the most realistic I have ever seen in this place. VERY VERY well done. Your friends should appreciate that bible cover very much.

Awesome

Thank you for the instructions in such detail bex. I still wouldn't feel confident doing that myself, but I think i'm still going to give it a shot. I'll have to google the tools I have just to find out what your talking about though, but I do remember a pear and cam tool...the knife is about 1/2 blade... I should be starting this next week, after I make sure I have enough leather when other note books are done. I might be using this thread as a running question. But seriously thank you.

ACtually, I am have no idea what I have, It was one of those sets for starters. And I didn't see any pictures I thought I could copy when I was hitting up on google images.

I did say very basic, but I think that may be too basic. I would like to try and get something that requires a few tools. So it might end up with a 3d effect Although that is a very simple and effective design. How exactly did you get the colours done. Was that cut in tan then dyed black around it? If so, how did you keep the lines tan colour? I did say very basic, but I think that may be too basic. I would like to try and get something that requires a few tools. So it might end up with a 3d effect Although that is a very simple and effective design. How exactly did you get the colours done. Was that cut in tan then dyed black around it? If so, how did you keep the lines tan colour? Hopefully I canceled that in time... If it's any help the pattern would need to be about 4 inches high and maybe three wide.