Rockoboy

I like the shape of the nickel plated buckle, but personally, I prefer to match the polished nickel of the Chicago screws. 'Close but no cigar', can sometimes be worse than two totally different finishes IMHO. Oh yeah ... great looking belts and really nice colour.

Have you tried burnishing the edge with dry canvas to get rid of the dried contact adhesive? I find it grabs the smallest speck from between the layers.

Stitching looks great, edges look great, the textured finish of the leather looks great ... looks like a great job to me!

Very nice tooling. Are the edges burnished? They look a little unfinished, especially on the wider section.

PM sent.

Some of the rare earth neodymium magnets hold pretty well. The main things to remember with these strong magnets, be very careful if you have a pacemaker, and place them carefully by not allowing them to clank together or to a metal surface because they will crack In half very easily

Stunning work there @Tpc, both the place mat and the dragon!

Looks like you have made a very healthy start. Some great looking gear there already. Ohh yeah ... Welcome.

When the handles are fixed to the bag, will that, maybe, hold them straight? Maybe applying some moisture and drying the handles whilst they're held in the correct orientation will help. Good luck, and please don't forget the pics when you get things fitted together ... or before.

I think I will make one of these for my workshop, but I will mount it to a piece of timber with a leg attached below. That way, I can hold it in my vice, rather than cluttering up my workbench with fixed tools or jigs.

When you say repeatable, I am guessing you mean along a line or being able to accurately place the stamp where you want it. All I can think of, is an edge guide of sort for the straight line, and carefully judging the distance between the last impression and the impression you are now making. As for repeatable placement, such as in the same spot on identical items, I would make up a jig, so that you place each item in the exact same spot. A jig might be as simple as a piece of masking tape applied to the press bottom plate, then draw a line on the tape to assist you in placing each item in the same position.

What a beast of a machine! I reckon that one would pull a bogged truck out of a mud-hole!

The cheaper option I have seen is 2 pieces of angle iron mounted in an engineer's vice, one mounted concave and one convex. I saw them a couple of years back, in a local tool/hobbyist store for under $40AUD. There are also several videos on yootoob about making one from scratch. Should take an hour or so, if a person was mildly capable.

I have not heard of Noel Kelly Co. tools. Maybe they were an older Kelly Tool Co. offering. That stamp pictured is a really good looking design.

I never discount an older person. Everybody has a story, some of those stories will blow your mind. Thank you for posting a wonderful tribute to a great person.

Google vice metal bender There's lots of pics. I would add a link if I knew how.

Sometimes I still find, I am a half hole too far or too close to the end of the leather, even when I am using a sewing machine. As @VYO suggested, when you're about 5 or 6 stitches from the end of your stitch-line, judge where you are going to finish up, so you can average out that difference over several stitches, rather than having a 7mm or 2mm stitch at the end of a run of 5mm stitches.

Looks like hobbles for an octopus!

You can resize your pics with apps, or if you can email the pic to yourself and that seems to resize the pic to fit in with the max. pic size. Works for me anyway. I have seen table setups made from copper pipe, galvanised water pipe, RHS (box tube), steel channel or angle iron and many other profiles, plus aluminium or timber. Go with whatever floats your boat.

I have been told by a few people that the different colours of the polishing compound tells you what grit it is, and (so they have told me) for stropping leather tools, I should always use the green. On the other hand, some other people have told me the colours are not the same across all the different manufacturers, so green might not be suitable from each and every supplier. I use the green compound, and I have had no problems with it either way.

I always pre-punch a hole for a snap. Is that not the correct way to set a snap?

I guess that depends on how urgently you need it, and the lead time to resupply. Nothing happens around here without waiting for 2 weeks or more. If I can make adequate repairs, that's what I will do, but I will be more wary if I am buying from them ever again.

Fixing it or not might depend on how it was made. If it has an average to medium quality mild steel shaft, I would put it in a vice and try to straighten it with a piece of tube over it or maybe a cloth wrapped hammer, before sending for a replacement. If its better quality and likely to be harder steel or cast, it might not straighten before the shaft snaps.

Personally, I would be trying contact adhesive in the 1st instance. Apply some to the patch and some to the hat, allow it to tack off for ~10 minutes, then position the patch exactly where you want it. Allow it to set off further with some pressure on the patch for a few minutes, or tap it down with a flat faced hammer. Stitch!

There was a post with this exact fixture at @Springfield Leather Company if my memory serves me correctly. Several people indicated they would be interested if it was available for purchase, and I think it was @RockyAussie who was planning to look at making something like a straight line cutter.