Retswerb

Kinda misses the point of trying out a new product to see whether or not I like it. I was just a little taken aback.

Oof, $8.55 shipping for a $4.99 roll of thread. I’ll pass, must be nice to be close enough to visit in person.

I’m curious where you (and @LumpenDoodle2) found these. I just searched various terms I thought would bring them up and while I did get some, errr, interesting results (https://www.hammacher.com/product/barber-eliminator ), I didn’t find these.

Looks great. I like the texture, I’m curious how it ages.

I bought a leather covered journal probably 15 years ago at a farmers’ market, before I was into leatherwork myself. As the seller handed it to me he said, “don’t let it be precious - use it!” Those words have stuck with me in so many ways. Even when $$ is tight I remind myself that I need to not let my things, my supplies, my valuables, become precious. They’re burdens if I’m not willing to put them to use. Except for that journal. I’ve barely written 5 pages in it.

Interesting, I see them all the same now as well. When I first looked they were mostly 10-15% cheaper on Etsy, with a couple of items like the folder more like 50% cheaper. I’ve got a small Tandy about 20 minutes from me and while I don’t love the selection, I try to buy there regularly because it’s valuable to me to have a local place where I can pick up things in person at the drop of a hat. If they go out of business there’s no way they’d be replaced by another leather store, of course. I sure appreciate being able to see and touch actual samples of dyes and finishes and I can fish through the leather stacks to find ok pieces - for which I pay no shipping and can take home and start on immediately. I have no doubt my opinion of the company would be far lower if my experience with them was purely by mail.

Huh. Yes, most of those look fairly nice, and I’d like to see them in person. In this economy Tandy only gets one shot at this though, if they market these as nice tools and they turn out to be trash it won’t go well. The pictures are nice but the descriptions are generic. The manufacturer appears to sell all the same tools, for less, on Etsy: https://www.etsy.com/shop/SinceLeather?ref=simple-shop-header-name&listing_id=607347714 Of course there’s an advantage to getting them in person at a Tandy instead of waiting for shipping from China, but... something about this feels like grasping at straws on Tandy’s part. Would love to hear if anyone sees them or has prior experience with Since.

Stamping the back must have taken a minute or two or three! Looks good, nice work.

Pics?

Nice work, you’ve been busy!

Those will look great! I’ve never worked with kangaroo, maybe one of these days.

I don’t profess to know saddles but that looks about as nice as they come.

Looks great to me, Yin! Thanks for sharing.

Yeah, it’s all in the comparison I suppose. Next to a shop full of power tools, leather is cheap. Next to a desk full of scrapbooking supplies it can look like quite a financial outlay. My personal leather working budget is pretty tight, I’ve collected slowly over several years (including asking for some Christmas gifts, etc) and I doubt I have $500 in tools and equipment. There’s plenty more I’d like to have but rarely do I feel that my toolset rather than my skillset is what’s holding me back.

Wow! Attention getters for sure. What’s the sole?

With Scooter on the case I’m sure the criminals don’t stand a chance!

Well said @Ailinea! If I was marketing for Tandy I’d be going hard after partnerships with some of the better YouTube leather workers out there.

Really nice stuff, looking forward to seeing more!

Looks great! That’s a whole lot of stitching.

As battlemunky said, you’ve got nothing to worry about! You’re doing great and it’s clear you have an improvement mindset. You’ll take what you learned over these past few days on this project and I expect you’ll put it all to good use surpassing many of us. I read somewhere, "All things are difficult before they are easy." One thing though: we all like to see the knife as well as the sheath - pull it out of there and let’s see it as well!

Leave it to you Brits to use a French word when there’s a perfectly good Italian ‘zucchini‘ available Apologies to @dduk for hijacking your thread to drag through linguistic mud

How much leather is going to be left for you? $10/hr on its own isn’t worth your time - your work is skilled, not entry-level. Of course it’s easy for me to say, but I never follow through and charge what my time is worth either.

That was entertaining. At least I already knew that an eggplant isn’t an eggplant on your side of the pond before watching that video!

Welcome aboard! Glad to have you here.