gtwister09

I have had success with clear shelf, 3M and Office Depot carton tape. The ones that I have not had success with are all brands of label tape (tried 3M and others - way too sticky). I have not had a lot of success with masking or painter's tape. In fact I would steer clear of any label tape, duct tape, masking or painter's tape. They either don't limit the stretch all that way or they are way too sticky. As far as curl up on edges, I have not had that problem. I layout the tape overlapping a small amount with each piece of tape in one direction. I make sure that the first layer of tape is slicked down with a glass slicker. Next I usually layout another layer of tape at about 90 degrees to the first layer of tape. I have not had any issues with the edges curling even with basketweaves. Bruce hit upon the fact that the basket weave and geometric stamping will definitely have much more stretch that a floral carving. This is so true! There's a lot more of the the leather being worked than with the floral. A couple of the older saddle makers told me if you had a choice for a working saddle to always choose a basket stamped saddle over a larger floral carved saddle because the leather would be compressed more on the basket stamped. Their thought was that the compression of leather fibers extended the life of the leather. Regards, Ben

I have FIOS at home and have the 15MB down/2 MB up package (FAST). However I also have the Sprint USB Broadband card for my consulting work out of town. I have had this service on and off since 2001 (We did some of the initial beta tests for Sprint). With 5 bars it does quite well and does give you low-end DSL speeds. Youtube and streaming video isn't an issue. When we were in New Mexico during Christmas, I was roaming. I was still able to download web pages and check mail faster than my Dad who had a 48K modem connection. I had about 115K connection with roaming. Hope that helps. Regards, Ben

Kani, He has already posted the post under "Preventing leather stretch while tooling". Regards. Ben

No to the duct tape. It is very sticky as are some of the others. I have had the best results from carton tape (label tape and others have more adhesive than carton and leaves it sticky). Bruce said that he was going to give a lesson on it. I generally overlap tape in two directions and then case my leather. Look for Bruce's post. Regards, Ben

Yes they were bought out. The name is the same as is the website. Having talked to Ron a week or so ago he said that a new catalog would be available at the end of February or first part of March. He also said that they were dropping items from around 4200 to 2200 items. They are also in the process of updating the web site so that we can purchase directly from the web site. The catalog will follow after that. Regards, Ben

Bruce, Ask them for the MSDS of the product. They should have that available for all products. That may help answer the question but not always. Regards, Ben

Welcome Aboard Wolf! What little company in Austin are you working for? Regards, Ben

Bruce, Familiar discussion... :biggrin: Speaking of the barbed wire matting.... One of my friends is not much into carving at all but we have been working with him on a simple geometric design where he didn't have to do any "carving". He liked the barbed wire and so we started doing that but he didn't like the "flatness" of the stamping. So we tried the matting around it with some of the pebble tools from the Pro-Series and wham. He was off and running. He does that on almost every piece of leather that he touches now. Regards, Ben P.S. Will be interested in seeing what your new tutorial brings.

Chuck, Welcome to the forum! An 8 inch saddle is by what measurement (overall, seat)? Are you making your own trees? If so how are you making your trees (duplicator, individual individually cut out and then shaped)? How are you handling the different fork/cantle combinations with refeence to your trees? Are you also doing the rawhiding etc? How far are tou carrying the actual miniaturization? Regards, Ben

Darc, Both saddles are great. The brown....what can you say. The tree and whole package came out great. I really like the seat design. Lots of detail with the "O", the double border, the open background (I like the open background) and last but not least is the swept yoke in the center. Did you use a creaser or a beading blade on the border? I like how the "O" was carried over to the cantle and the horn. Nice design touch. The rough-out is really nice. Nice detail on the dye job. Thanks for the tutorial! Regards, Ben

Don, I like the work in the roughout seat! I saw some work that Bob Dellis did one time on a roughout purse that was all swivel knife work. I thought that it was quite unique but never really considered it in a seat. I got to see the series with you in it but now that I am reading these posts in the forum I guess that I should have paid a lot closer attention. Regards, Ben

Ryan, The combination really grew on me quickly! If someone would have mentioned it in discusssions I would have thought that the design might be "too busy" but you have pulled it off quite well. Definitely some Visalia influence but well executed updates and intermixed design as mentioned earlier. I'm with Bruce on the flow of the floral and meander on the billets. That makes a great design! The carving is very nice. I would certainly like to hear how the seat turns out with some time in the saddle. Would have been nice to see one picture from the back of the saddle as well... On another note... I was wondering about the rope strap. It appears to create a hump. Very nice! Can't wait to hear how the seat turned out. Regards, Ben

Greg, WOW! I have just been getting around to admiring the saddles on the Saddle Section of the forum. The WHOLE geometric/floral execution is top notch...all the way through horn-fork, jockeys, fenders, seat, cheyenne roll and even the flank cinch. Carved details are all the way down to the twist on the stirrup leather.... The alligator is over the top. Whew! The silver work is great as well and just enough to complement the saddle in an almost understated way. The rawhide rings and stitching on the fork cover looks great as well. Yes please share some details, pictures, measurements and such on the stand if you wouldn't mind. Regards, Ben

Don, Really like the look of the butterfly on the floral carved It caught my attention as well but for another reason. I was just looking at the TCAA site and looking at Cary's saddle that had butterflies on it as well. I have to agree with Darc about the ears cuts, fork covers, rolls and such. In fact I just watched Harwood's DVD and he made similar comments as well. It is a great addition to the saddle to give it just a little something extra to set it apart. They should both be quite happy with results. What little I could see of the geometric/floral pattern it looked fairly nice. Regards, Ben

Steve, I finally have some time to start looking through the Saddle section of the forum. As others have said this is a great clean saddle and yes the lines flow extremely well. A great look for such a clean saddle. Look forward to seeing other work. Regards, Ben

Welcome to the group! Pictures look great. Regards, Ben

Ken, You should almost feel ashamed for stealing those. :biggrin: Great buy! Regards, Ben

Jim, Try this. There are also others like Barry King, Bob Beard and others if you are interested. Gomph-Hackbarth Tools 10754 Martineau Rd N Elfrida, AZ 85610 Phone: 520-642-3891 Regards, Ben

Interesting article in Western Horseman "On the Wild Side" that features wild rags. One of our own members, Ryan Cope and Lisa of Cope Saddlery are featured in the Wild Rag article. Congratulations! As my kids used to say, "Pretty neat. HUH!" Regards, Ben

Ron also has another book that is quite good. [DRAWING & UNDERSTANDING SCROLL DESIGNS]. There are other books that I have looked at like The Art of Engraving by James B. Meek (not as good for designing scrolls but has some ones that show bad and good comparisons). Another one I have looked at is Firearms Engraving, Theory and Design by George Sherwood. It gives some European, English and American designs. It shows many actual engraved guns, student practice plates, outline and line drawings of popular guns that may be copied. Hope that helps. Regards, Ben

Clay, Thanks for the close-ups. The attention to detail is great. It is always the little things that add up to make it great. Regards, Ben

Thanks Randy. Was just getting ready to ask. Here's the web address to the leather (footwear) section Glue Site Regards, Ben

As I was reading through many of the older posts, I came across discussions concerning lighting in the workspace discussions. One of the things that I miss about not doing industrial engineering is ergonomics and all the things that go along with it like workstation design, tooling, motion studies, plant/workstation design and various other aspects like lighting. However I have kept up with the field for many reasons including doing things at home as well as some consulting here and there outside of information technology. I have included a couple of pictures of what the garage looks like with standard fluorescent bulbs and with the T8 (full spectrum bulbs). No... I haven't cleaned it up either but the garage hasn't been used for about 8-9 months either. As you can see it is fairly significant from the standard to the full spectrum. The two standards are up front and the two full spectrum are at the back. We rarely use the two regular ones and will be replacing them. I have also included a paper from 2003 that describes full spectrum lighting, some of the benefits, some methods of measurement and so forth. There's a lot of technical information contained in it but the basics are there as well as what to consider and look for in full spectrum lighting. Full_Spectrum_Basics_and_Resources.pdf There are places where you can get these lights from such as www.fullspectrumsolutions.com. You can even get replacements for regular light bulbs as well but they are a little pricey as always. Regards, Ben Full_Spectrum_Basics_and_Resources.pdf

One of the things I would add about sharpening a round knife is to put either some drafting or blue painter's tape on the bolster and a portion of the handle. Don't use masking tape or duct tape because they have a lot more adhesive to them....Another trick is to use gauze as a prewrap to these to protect the bolster and handle. Regards, Ben

We were given one of these Grizzly mauls as a present because someone knew that we did "some leatherwork". Long story short is that we concur with Billy P. that these do bounce quite a bit and are made out of a softer material rather than high density poly thereby creating lots of small dents as you tool. Regards, Ben