LetterT

You might want to try a paint like this (see photos). It is acrylic paint that after drying leaves a 3D effect - it should fill in any cracks between leather and form that bump on painted edge. It has that kind of rubbery feeling and after drying is completely flexible. I have tried it on paper and I can not unglue, I have tried bending and crumpling and the paint holds perfect. I picked it up in local craft shop. P.S. I have tried it an a small piece of chrome leather but I am still waiting for it to dry.

In my experience the phones would often leave the quality of the picture very high (compression low) resulting in large size of the photos. What you need is a separate app for photo editing that can resize the images (and re-compress them). Once you resize the photos to approximately 720p they should still be large enough to fill the screen and small enough to attach them anywhere. For example my phone photos are about 5-6MB each (size limit here is 1.5MB). When I resize them to 960x720 they come down to 0.5MB.

To add the Chinese part to above: Galaces waxed thread 0.55mm/113meters waxed polyester of ebay $4 + free shipping $0.035/m Galaces waxed thread 0.6mm/95meters waxed polyester of ebay $5 + free shipping $0.05/m Galaces waxed thread 0.8mm/78meters waxed polyester of ebay $2 + free shipping $0.025/m* *Galaces as it seems to be the only reference to a brand on the spool **Wuta should be a Chinese brand with solid quality for a few bucks more per roll, although I am having trouble finding any review

Recently I spotted these leather knife made of ceramic and I was wondering if anyone has tried them or had any experience with it (or maybe with ceramic kitchen knives). I never had any and I am thinking if I use them only to cut leather (which is not the toughest material in the world) they should last a long time without the need to sharpen.

A quick search on the internet gives me one decent link where they actually show how to make your own pattern, drawing up dimensions, parts and all. You can ignore the fabric part in the middle and just use leather all round. It may be a bit more work but you can adjust the pattern as you see fit. https://howdidyoumakethis.com/patterning-a-camera-strap/

Out of topic- Hahaha... and what do we in the rest of the work have to think if we looked up to Hollywood - apparently everyone in US either a cop or a bad guy, a few lawyers here and there. Come to think of it, I do not remember I have ever seen a single movie where someone worked with leather. If we ask Hollywood leatherwork is a magical real where all the fancy bags and shoes come from.

I can not claim to know the market but if I see how many people are making wallets and bags compared to how many people are making saddles - you need smaller sizes for majority of people.

It is hard to judge by the photos only but from what I can see - looks good. The photos a bit low resolution, I can not zoom them in very much. You might consider getting a highres photos. If it is not possible to posting them here consider external place like flickr or other image hosting. When you get the brand name and colors and all that settled consider a stitching run of different thread thickness next to each other on a nice piece of vegtan (maybe darker colored for light color threads). I am always surprised by the fact the thread brands/companies never seem to post any photos how the thread look on a piece of leather. There are plenty of photos of threads and spools but on an actual piece of leather - nothing. Luckily we have a place like leatherworker for that but still... And you can also make a nice thread sample book, something like this: (shamelessly taken of MeiSi thread Instagram account - meisi108, you should check it out, there are some good photos and even short videos of the factory production process)

I am no expert but take a look at his own photos of the orange goat leather wallet: http://purelyhandwork.ayh688.com/product/alran-sully-goatskin-vertical-wallet/ If you scroll down you can see the turned edge and the back side of the stitching.

In addition Nigel Armitage has a channel at Vimeo for subscribers where he goes into some detail about different techniques, shares tips and in general provides good instruction. Very well worth it. Considering his subscription is just 3 pounds per month of access for just one video of what you saw you can have 10 months of subscription with Nigel. You can take a look at what he covers on the following link: https://vimeo.com/ondemand/armitageleather

I do no have a sawing machine so... It is my understanding that for hand sawing the preferred twist is S (right hand as most people are right handed) and for the sawing machine the preferred twist is Z (opposite of hand sawing). I remember that simply by S twist for right hand sawing and "the other" twist is for the machines.

It speaks volumes when minimal wage in my country is 230$, average around 400$ (most people never see that much). Speaking of differences, I have a tannery in my own town from which I can not buy leather. The have been bought by Italians and everything they make now goes to Italy, to become "made in Italy" leather I guess. End even in this economy I know of one guy who specialize in car upholstery. When someone brings in a BMW to completely re-cover the driver seat for sure he can charge a good price, BMW owner can afford it. And I even know of two sisters who make ladies bags, often half leather half plastic leather (PU), in very small series to make them unique and they sell for around 50-60$. They have now expanded to employ 5 people. None of them are millionaires but it shows that even in bad economies there are people finding something in leathercraft to make a decent living.

Here is a short video on working with printed PDF templates, maybe that can help. I am not related to the maker, just an admirer to some of his work. How to: Print & Make Durable, Reusable Leathercraft Patterns.

Seeing a few new players in the field from China (Amy Roke for linen, polyester and linen/cotton blend, MeiSi for linen, fluorescent and color changing, Wuta as a decent quality at low price option) it looks like there is room for anyone willing to bring in something new to the filed. Good luck, I will be keeping an eye on this thread (pun unintended).

I know the contrast stitching makes the whole strap "pop" visually but I think a black thread would be more appropriate for the black strap part as it is sure to get dirty - I am presuming EMS stands for Emergency Medical Service. Otherwise very nice work, I especially like how the paint fades to dark at the top and bottom of the brown section with the stamped name. That i s a nice detail.

Well, one advantage of the electric one is that is should hold a constant temperature and if you ever work with the same type of leather in the future you will know how hot you need to run it. I am planing to put together an electric creaser on the cheap with some spare parts, some ebay parts and some from a local electric shop. Hopefully I will write up a tutorial by the end of month, going on a small vacation this Friday so when I come back.

Thanks. Before I try to make one in paper just a quick question: Dimensions are in inches I presume?

Some tough questions there :-) As far as where to go I can not recommend any special place, the best I can say is go where people are satisfied and you can communicate with ease. I know a few makers in China but it might be hard to explain if you want something extra. As far as sizes, try to print all different sizes on paper and cut them out. Then put the paper stamps on the item you have made and you can get an idea what would look good. Image or business name? You say you are into archery, dog collars and (...) . I would suggest image only, think what would it look like if you would put a dog collar with your business name on it, it would look like that is the name of the dog. I know I would pause if I would read Raging Stallion on the outside of a dog collar. Unless you are planing to place the logo on the inside, but that would make it visible only once, after wearing it would remain out of sight.

This reminds me of a time I broke the company A3 size laminator (I swear unintentional) and then a year later the company had a sale of all items from the storage. I bought some 17" computer monitors for 15$, older computers (still perfectly fine as office machines) for 10$ and - broken laminator for 5$. It stayed at my home storage for another year and I finally had it repaired for cheap, t turned out the heat protection fuse burned out, nobody bothered to service it.

I was recently offered in my local shop a whole range of Fenice edge paints straight from Italy for cheap, 10$ for a 1 kilogram bottle in a clearly industrial packaging. The thing is - the exp. date on the bottles is a few years in the past. Does anyone have any experience in trying out an expired edge pain? Not for the best of work but for trying out different colors and misc items, could it still work?

Lightly tapping the stitching line with a hammer or using an overstich wheel should help flattening the thread and filling up the holes. Maybe you could post a picture so we can see the size of the problem. One thing to notice is that with the size of the stitching irons the size of the hole they make goes larger, it that makes any sense.

If Youtube is to be trusted a slicker on a Dremel or a drill seems to be fairly fast. There is a nice intro and review by Ian at https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=R8KhcB1QGWM

Subscribed :-) I know YT can be a nice way to showcase your work but if I can make a small suggestion here: try to focus on crucial steps in your work, show the details and please, please, slow down. Speeding video can show more of work in less time but after watching for 2 minutes I started feeling dizzy from all the super fasts motion.

For the same price you can get Wuta edgers on Aliexpress. Granted, we are talking about Chinese edgers on a Chinese version of ebay but Wuta comes much more regarded and there is a bunch on youtube reviews of their tools you can see in action. Tool: https://www.aliexpress.com/store/product/WUTA-Sharp-Leather-Edge-Beveler-Edge-Skiving-Polishing-Tool-Belt-Makers-High-Carbon-Steel-Leathercraft-DIY/3257009_32839949802.html?spm=2114.12010612.8148356.10.7b4d2f88Jvz8BO

Love the colors, after a time you wish for something else but brown. I would keep the edges black, it would be a nice contrast and make the yellow and orange and blue even more "visual" for lack of better word.