Arturomex

I'm going to echo Bill. He's dead on the money. This is one place you don't want to cut corners. Precision counts in the stamp and the way it's applied. I've read advice directed at novices that "basket weave stamping is a great place to start leather crafting." And it might well be but it's also probably driven people using cheap stamps away from leather work out of sheer frustration. It damn near did me. This is not one of those, "any tool in the hands of a master craftsman will make it look good" situations. Poorly made stamps are mushy don't line up. And then nothing lines up. There are some great tool makers out there but my choice, like Bill's, is Barry King. I think it's good value for the money. If you ever get a chance, take a quality stamp and compare it to a cheap stamp of similar size. That'll tell the whole story with a couple of mallet taps. Regards, Arturo

When you say "pricking irons" are you talking about marking your lines and then using an awl or are you going to use something that will punch your holes all the way through? There wouldn't be any issues either way but Dwight makes a good case for what he does and why he does it. Of course, leather people being contrarian, there is another school of thought that holds that keeping the integrity of the grain maintains more strength in the leather. How I approach things is pretty much determined by what the project is. If I'm sewing a lighter weight veg tan I try for the best of both worlds. I usually hand stitch with 0.6~ 0.8mm thread and I lay a deep, heavy crease in on my stitch lines when the leather is coming back to color before tooling. The stitches usually sit down in the crease very nicely without actually cutting through the grain. Thicker veg tan and 1.0mm + thread usually gets a stitching groove for the reasons Dwight listed. Regards, Arturo

Nice, tidy piece of work there. Regards, Arturo

Yeah, I've no love for the brokerage side of importing. But I've purchased a few things out of the US recently and never had to fool around with brokers. It was a straight up declaration of the item and its cost and pay the driver the taxes and duties on the doorstep or, depending on how it shipped, pay at the post office. Several packages shipped USPS and a couple came UPS. No muss, no fuss. I just reviewed the invoices; no brokerage fees. It seems a lot more streamlined than it used to be. You hardly feel their hand in your pocket. The price hasn't gone down, really. They're just getting better at fleecing the sheep. I really like some of the leather this Hidehouse is showing on their site. I'm going to see if I can get some at a reasonable price. Regards, Arturo

Oye Amigo. That's (I think) a great recommendation. Left me drooling. LOL Did some rough math and it works into prices comparable to what I've been paying in Canada. Investigating if there are any special tariffs on leather because if there aren't and shipping is affordable I'm going to give these people some money. You're lucky you can visit in person. Thanks for that. Arturo

Nice find. LOL Unless you're stamping with a jack hammer, I think those are going to hold up just fine. Depending on where you put them, you might find those smaller pieces are a little bouncy. I did the same as you. Went to a granite counter top place, asked to buy cut outs and was gifted with a really nice piece of 1 1/2" granite. In one of my, ah, darker moments I thought about buying my headstone, having one side engraved with everything but my departure date and using the other side for tooling and stamping. LOL Regards, Arturo

Thanks again, John. Again, I am appreciative of your time and knowledge. The 4800 it is. Regards, Arturo

Hey, thanks for taking the time to get back to me. Especially when you're busy putting that Juki 563 together. Outstanding find! Yeah, I think the claim of sewing with #277 thread is a little optimistic. I think #138 thread is about as high I'm interested in using. Unfortunately, I'm in a fairly remote location on an island (seriously) and the dealer is a few thousand miles away so asking for a demo is a non starter. I'm looking to sew bags, wallets, chaps, that kind of thing. At the most I'd like to be able to sew about 5/16 inch of veg tan. I think the 4800 should be able to handle that but you've probably got a much better idea about that than I do. This is my first machine and I think I'd probably be happier with the 4800 than the 2750 and so I'm going to fall that way. Again, thanks. Arturo

Yeah,, I jumped on that too here in Canada. Received a confirmation of the order and all. Was doing some banking yesterday and noticed it hadn't been charged to my credit card. Did a little more investigating and found Tandy had cancelled my order. No notice. No explanation. Just cancelled. I've put up with erratic leather quality and a lot of other shenanigans over the years with Tandy but this is the straw that broke the camel's back. I'm pretty much done with them now. They have one hardware item I like that I'll keep purchasing but if/when I find it somewhere else I'll switch and be done with them completely. There are a lot of online vendors that I think deserve my business and money more than Tandy does. Regards, Arturo

Thought I was going to buy a Techsew 2750 this morning and the Techsew 4800 popped up on the front page of the Techsew site. I have a couple of questions I'd like to ask here about the 4800 before I start asking questions at Techsew: What is this machine cloned from? The website says it will sew up to 1/2" of leather and that it will sew down to 1-2 oz of leather. Will it really sew leather that thin? Any other observations/advice would be welcomed with the exception of "look for a good used machine." Used machines are scarce as hens teeth here. I've been looking for over a year and it's not gonna happen. I'm now resigned to purchasing a new machine. Appreciate anyone taking the time to answer this. Regards, Arturo

That's a nice piece of work. Well designed and well executed. The shark and smooth leathers work well together/off each other. And that's some nice photo work. Really well done and presented. Regards, Arturo

Thanks indeed, Fred. Regards, Arturo

Yeah, I had a similar experience but I actually talked to a young lady in El Paso who told me almost word for word what you read in "Jeff's" email. Problem is, with all the pandemic shutdowns it's hard to know why stores are closed. Shutting down or just dealing with the Covid 19 protocols? And it's not like I can call my closest store and ask. LOL I wonder what the situation will be like for "unbranded" Tandy stores. You know the kind I mean. Operating under a different name than Tandy but still stocking Tandy tools, stamps etc. Are they supplied by TLF or do they deal with the manufacturers directly? And what of Sailrite? Will they keep selling the now discontinued Stitchmaster machine? At least people who bought that will have a source for parts and whatnot. I think Alexander summed it up well. I remember going to the Tandy store over 50 years ago and I'd hate to see them disappear. I suspect his prediction is pretty accurate. Regards, Arturo

Thanks, Gary. Appreciate that. Regards, Arturo

Just received that order from Tandy. The postal return was my closest store. Everything I ordered was in there. And their website is back up and running.

I looked at the Lonsdale Leather dye offerings but I haven't tried them. Italian made, I think. They didn't have the color I was looking for but I hope to give them a test before the summer ends. The Giardini edge finishing system looks interesting. I did some more investigation on their web site and received an email from them this morning touting some new colors. My understanding is that it goes: base coat, paint, top coat. Again, I'd like to test drive it before summer ends. Have you tried Zelikovitz here: https://www.zelistore.com/ I'm actually waiting right now for a UPS delivery from them. Dye and finish. Had a difficult time finding Fiebings black and wound up having to buy four 4oz bottles for a project I'd like to get finished. Of course, why stop at that? LOL It's a little early to start stocking up but I figured I might as well start while they still had some product. Hope you can do the same. Regards, Arturo

Yeah, their website was down for a long time yesterday, came back up and then shut down again. I hear you about Fiebings. I think I spend almost as much time tracking supplies down as I do using them. I try to buy a year's supply of dye and finish in the summertime. Don't know if you've run into it but I learned that some outfits don't want to/won't ship liquids in the winter. Alcohol based or not. Regards, Arturo

Nice! Very nice indeed. Well done. Regards, Arturo

And there's always this from Tandy: https://tandyleather.ca/collections/tools/products/craftool-hand-border-tool Wouldn't load a photo but the link will show you a border tool much like an adjustable stitching groover except this holds a swivel knife blade. Cuts nice, straight lines. Handles curves quite well. Regards, Arturo

Perhaps that's a corporate decision. I'm in Canada right now and if I want to order anything it seems to go through the US (Fort Worth or El Paso - can't remember which) before it gets back to (I think) my closest store. I'm waiting on a small order from them right now and have no idea who filled it or where it will come from. While I understand what Tandy is doing and why they're doing it, I don't like it much. When my orders were being routed directly to my closest store and there was a problem (out of stock - that kind of thing) they'd call me. This time I received an email telling me that my aforementioned order shipped without 12 of the items I ordered. Had I known this before it shipped I would have cancelled it and saved the hassle of returning it. Regards, Arturo

This is written for fabric but it might be a starting point to consider: Stiches Per Inch.pdf Regards, Arturo

Thanks! I appreciate you taking the time. Yeah, the image I uploaded was from Aliexpress. As I say, I'm not interested in the whole assembly, I was hoping to get just the snap. But at the price they're asking in the link Art provided it might be worthwhile to buy 'em and just knock the rivets off. Again, my thanks, Arturo

I don't seem to have the Google voodoo to find these hook snaps. I'm not interested in the leather, only the snap itself. Anyone know where to get 'em? Thanks, Arturo

"Liberal government gun ban is craven wedge politics that does nothing to advance public safety" Interesting op/ed from CBC here well worth reading: https://www.cbc.ca/news/opinion/opinion-gun-control-politics-1.5556541 Pretty much lays it all out. For those who are not Canadian or familiar with Canadian politics and media, the CBC is Canada's national broadcaster and, to my thinking, a little on the "left" side of things. I was surprised to see this on their site. Regards, Arturo

Yeah, I like King Tools. An article about Barry King: https://shoptalk-magazine.com/2018/02/20/barry-king/ Regards, Arturo