chuck123wapati

now your talking those are "wunnerful, wunnerful, wunnerful" as Lawrence Welk used to say.

There are some interesting threads here on the forum about the difference of handcrafted or hand made lol. Worth looking at them if you have the time. Personally ( my opinion only) a clicker press and sewing machine make it handcrafted if you want something hand made that is a bit different. Spyros is right. The short story is You can only get what others are willing to pay. the consumer sets the price in reality and they also determine if its hand made or hand crafted before they lay down the bucks.

the leather crafters lament!!!! You cant compete its just that simple. They use machines you dont. You can compete with others who hand sew and you can make a better product but you cant duplicate machine work by hand and come out on top. A little story, the other day i took a couple holsters to a customer, while talking he showed me a pancake holster he had purchased previous to finding me. It was two pieces of 4oz pre dyed chrome tan leather , cut with a clicker press, sewn on a machine in a very basic stitch pattern that was conceived to cover about a hundred different gun shapes, edges unfinished not even beveled. Probably not 30 minutes of work to put it together including a coffee break. Whomever could make a box full of these crappy holsters in the time i make one. Big old stamp right on the front Stamped HANDCRAFTED by! Less than two minutes and the fellow understood the difference in quality plainly. He would have bought from me if he knew i made holsters at the time but I have all his leather work now as well as everyone he tells. And yes i can make more than just holsters for my customers. Quality will sell your work if you want to sell handmade items! but your only going to get people who want handmade quality and most of those folks know what handmade looks like to some degree. His wife went over my stitching like a detective lol. I impressed her on the stitching quality and i impressed him on the speed of the order and quality fit of the holster. If you feel you need to compete then by all means buy the machines and put the quality out there that they are selling. THERE is a learning curve to that also! I will say now there are people who can make clicker cut machine sewn stuff every bit as good or better than most hand makers can. They are truly your competition! I will also say if you cant sew as fast, cut as fast, dye as fast, as other hand makers you cant charge for all that time (other responsibilities and breaks and stuff). In the beginning your going to make substandard wages, reality is sick days don't make you money, vacations don't make you money. You now have only yourself to blame for your success.

that looks good to me !

i never ordered from China on purpose but i have received stuff I've ordered from China if that makes sense. seems most of the crap on ebay is directly shipped now a days usually free shipping and three times as cheap as the same exact product sold from a US address.

Thank you Fred i will print these off as well. Yes I've found a lot of confusing stuff on the net lol. I'm still learning to pronounce it. I appreciate you taking the time!

you get the first game with him right? Do you use the fetlar rules? If so when you take an opponents piece do you move one of the two pieces that surrounded it onto that square ( like chess) or do you just take it off leaving that square empty?

really nice!!!

You gotta love what you build! That is a beautiful set and it shows not only the love of the game, and family but of the work that went into it.! I may have to download the instructions, that game intrigues me.

i've been in the field with tons of leather products, water proofing is a misnomer of sorts. I spend hours water proofing my boots for two weeks of wilderness, hiking , hunting and such, but i also realize i have to maintain that water proofing for it to last and also cant use my boots without taking that protection into consideration. I don't just wade through any water holes i see i walk around them. Any of them will water proof your leather for a while but not for ever. Think about leather boots for a bit. Any of the water proofing s for boots will work on any of your veg tan products just the same as it will on your boots. You do know that if you walk in water all day your boots will be wet completely through. You also know if you step in one little puddle on the way to work your waterproof boots will stay dry. At some point in between the puddle and the lake the proofing will fail right. What ever you apply to your leather will take a certain amount of abuse before it needs re applied. As for veg tan leather it softens naturally as it gets used also and as the liquors used to soften it equalize. If these liquors/fats gets washed out your leather will harden back out then fail you as the fibers will start to fray, the dry cracks in your boots, and separate! Many of the leather conditioners have waxes of various kinds and can be used , remember the oils under the finish are what are keeping your leather soft and supple. I guess if you are thinking you can make a leather collar maintenance free for you customers it aint gonna happen. lol. Offer care and cleaning instructions as well as what you recommend or have used on them. I know alot of folks don't expect to have to maintain their leather but they do have to maintain the finishes that protect the leather.

Almost to nice for a game bag lol those are fantastic. How am i going to fit an Elk into that lil thang?

it would look better if the ties were covered IMO. If they get torn off it will be harder to repair but a guitar strap isn't meant for abuse so shouldn't matter a lot and if you do have to replace one then it will be uncovered. Actually if you break a tie you can still fish it through the existing slots if you don't glue them in.

good luck I also use an old wine cork on the back side to push my awl against, it saves fingers and gives the leather some back pressure so it doesn't move.

darn right it is, will work fine that way.

what are you sewing it on/in ? i use a wooden form when sewing small boxes or cups. Are you pre punching your stitch holes through the soft stuff? do you mean The Art of making leather cases volume 2?

i love it when a good plan comes together! Pretty much just a matter of muscle memory now it should work as well as any mallet or hammer.

embossing wheel

i let mine dry/cure for a long while and there are no problems with glue up.

Good luck to you and have a great Christmas!! Hope your thumb heals quickly. The city here switched us up. Changed from our spring water to well artesian well water which has more sodium which softens the water which makes it slick so we are suffering the dropsies also two plates so far this week lol.

stunning work, Merry Christmas and welcome!!!!

Beautiful work Indeed !! Feliz Navidad!!!

Merry Christmas !!!! Those are awesome.

If you search you can find at the least two recent threads. That may be the reason no one is responding, or it could be a holiday. I think the overall impression is, at least what i got out of them, that they take some work to get to sew well if at all. they have small bobbins and there is a Fakebook page about them somewhere that can help you get them running. At least two people on this forum have made them work. Search for Chinese shoe patcher or shoe patcher the threads aren't to old. Good Luck and Merry Christmas!!

i found early on that i was using to much downward pressure, trying to cut the mat too, so my knife felt dull. On big pieces especially i pick the leather up off the mat a bit and it cuts much easier. Is you knife really dull or......?

couple threads at least in the last month lol.