CFDBattChief

Thank you for the reply, Handstitched. Yes, in mm, a sole bend is roughly 6.3 mm (1/4") thick, however it is the most stiff, dense, and hard leather that we use. It is mostly used I believe for making the soles of shoes, hence the name sole. We are making a little progress after having tried many different things. The dry leather actually seems to do better than if we try it while damp. I tried a spear point needle size of 28 using 277 bonded nylon thread, and even if I take it nice and slow, you can see the needle start to bow as it is forced through the leather. It would seem that a smaller needle may penetrate the leather easier, if it doesn't break, so I will try that next. And maybe even drop down to a 207 size thread. I appreciate you taking the time to respond to my post. CFDBattChief

Thank you, kgg. Yes, the "in" was literally the word "in", and not supposed to be an abbreviation of inch. I just left out the "oz" in my description. I have called them, and have been working with Dave. We have tried all that I mentioned in the post which were suggestions from him. They have other customers doing what we are doing with the leather shields for helmets, but none of them are using the sole leather. We use the sole leather because it withstands the abuse of being on a helmet and lasts much longer than leather that isn't as thick. I wanted to post the question out there to see if anyone else has any experience in doing what we would like to do. Here's an example of what we would like to be able to do in-house.

Greetings fellow leathercrafters, Newbie to the group here, first post in hopes of getting some advice. I work at a leather shop where one of the items we make are the shields that go on the front of a firefighter's helmet. We use the very dense, thick sole leather, and on one of the types of shields we make we have to stitch a black leather backing to the sole leather. The leather backing is probably a 5-6 in thickness. We have a Cobra 4 machine, and I simply cannot get the machine to successfully stitch through the leather, even without the backing on it. We have the largest spear point needle that Leathermachine Company offers, a size 28 I believe, using 277 thread, casing the leather, and even applying some silicone oil to the needle, and still cannot keep the material from flagging, and in some cases pulling the needle from the machine. The top thread also frequently breaks. We would like to be able to do this in-house now with the acquisition of this nice machine instead of having to farm out the stitching on this particular shield. Would anyone have any experience in doing something similar to this and could offer any suggestions?