chuck123wapati

lol if i had an extra 12 k to spend I would be setting in an ice hut drinking hot toddies and jigging for walleyes and buyin my leather goods already made.

you print them out and make sure the 1/2" squares the pattern is drawn on are 1/2" . that will take some resizing I'm sure.

I'll bet you can, cant wait to see it !!

search function is your friend.

funny thing yesterday i went over to a customers house to pick up some work. His wife showed me her quilting sewing machine over $12, 000 bucks she has into it and its just her hobby. doesn't sell just makes and gives away but man its awesome. just program the thing and it sews, it even counts the stitches, all she does is adjust her quilt. Any pic any design. She uses her regular machine for the front piece but this bugger for the quilting of the complete piece. i admire quilters for the amount of sewing they accomplish, my granny made them by hand back in the 70,s and 80s still using only a treadle singer her dad bought her as a young woman. You know when I can afford a machine, if i ever can, better than my Chinese patcher, i will surely get it and use it and love it just like everyone else, heck i love my patcher and my old singer slantomatic. But on one hand it seems kind of anti climatic sometimes i mean a guy spend hours hand making, hand tooling a project then in the end drop the hand sewing and pull out the old machine. In the end there is no right or wrong way only the way each of us wants to do it or in my case can afford to do it lol. On the other hand and honestly I would use one if i had one unless i had a customer who wanted different. I'm not a top shelf guy my tooling work isn't good enough and will never be at my age I'm past having the time to gain the experience.

your work is definitely top notch stuff. I don't mind hand sewing its kind of relaxing. plus i can do it out in the back yard in the summer or just about anywhere.

Bingo. Someone has to make the stuff on the top shelf.

Dang man that is some work there, you got your basket weave down pat. What leather?

If you sold it and got what you wanted for it then yes it was worth your time. If you want to make more faster and charge less then buy a machine.

Nice !! and it only cost 14 cents. Man i love your logic Bro!!

you mean it costs me 160 bucks just to get a good nights sleep? lol. Lets say 1500 for a machine how many belts to pay it off plus the time sewing. Lets say you charge 20 bucks for your shorter amount of time sewing with a machine, what do you charge for the machine itself, lectricity? His 20 bucks an hour is all profit. Plus in some folks opinion yes it is worth more, the question is can you sell your belts for what you want if so then there is no issue.

very cool effect! I like that .

that's some good steel my friend, I would have done the same.

that and some fresh butter mmmm bet its about gone by now lol.

oh yea that looks great man!! Lets see er done up. wow that was quick lol. that is cool as heck.

great job of it !!! A little info for you, the hidden tang type blades are made for that leather handle the typical /historical way to secure it to the handle is to peen the end of the tang down over your pommel which would have had a slot cut in it. The original US army Kabar is probably the best modern example of that attachment method. However many hidden tang knives are made exactly as you have done it with a threaded pommel. i have seen and made both types.

i had a 68 jeep cj5 but sold it last year, to small for my family and the engine needed rebuilt which was way to expensive for me. I have a 91 Chevy suburban i use now 6" lift 35 "tires 10,000 lb winch on the front and chains for all fours, that baby goes everywhere lol the dents attest to that.

When i open a can o worms I go fishin!!! man i wanna go fishin! but the water is still to hard.

and well worth it!! those look great.

your work always impresses me. I'm sure she will love it.

"The art of making leather cases" volume three by Al Stohlman.

Me too, I love a good discussion anytime, especially with such a diverse bunch of folks. There are no wrong answers to the question really just different ways of looking at things. That's what human interaction is all about, expanding yourself through your experiences with different views.

absolutely!!! or this? neither stamped nor tooled, done by hand pyrography, took the pic, edited it to fit, scanned the transfer, is it better or worth more than a lasered picture, copied off the net and programmed in? is it art? would the lasered one be art even though human hands never touched it?

Does it take more skill to hand sew than machine sew? You learned to do both how was it for you? What if you lace instead of either? All variables in the quandary of pricing. Personally i think the learning curve is similar but hand-sewing is more personal. If your just wanting more money faster then you machine sew. If its an added "artistic" feature of your product or a seam that is actually impossible for a machine to sew then you hand sew right? In the business sense stamps, most any modern tools actually, were invented to make a profit , being able to turn out a product faster than by hand with less training of the employee = you can charge less and make more faster with out paying for a predetermined skill set. Embossing wheels came quickly next after stamps. But then the artistic ability of the product maker was lost somewhat to the stamp maker, totally to the embossing wheel maker. at what point do you differentiate in the cost of the products being sold? Is a hand tooled belt = to a stamped belt= to an embossed belt = to a...…. actually better? They all do one thing hold up your britches. Folks that just want a belt to hold up their britches don't buy from us they shop at Walmart. People buy from us for a different reason and that is what we put into our products that Walmart doesn't or cant. Can i sell my hand tooled belts for what Hand stitched could sell his stamped belt for? NO i cant my work simply is not even in the ball park, I couldn't sell my stamped work for the same either even if I did the exact same design. That's a personal ability and skill set thing that is a different discussion i think about selling stuff.