gtwister09

I know that there are some previous threads and here's one of the first ones that I found. It will give you some idea how to proceed concerning directions. Sheepskin Directions #1 Regards, Ben

As I have said many times before...this is the reason for your photos to be loaded onto Leatherworker so that shared photos and a good tutorial are not ruined when the pictures are removed.... A PICTURE IS WORTH A THOUSAND WORDS. ALL. Please consider loading pictures onto this forum rather than linking them to a photo site so that this doesn't happen. Regards, Ben

At the end of 2009/beginning of 2010 Noel sent out emails and also hit up forums and guilds concerning his return to making tools after close to 40 years. Somewhere on this forum there is already a link concerning this as well from more than a year ago. However it is good for people to see reiteration of information that may have come in before they joined the forum. Of course reading through the forum categories and performing searches can and should be used to locate a wide range of information (if you want to spend lots of hours reading) . Thanks. Regards, Ben

Terry/Kevin, Asymmetric shaped head knives are generally classified as a French head knife but all the old catalogs that I have seen show a more pronounced asymmetric difference. However I have never seen it listed in a Henckel catalog either. What a find in a junk shop! I have only seen two other head knives from them. This makes the third one. Extremely rare and as Terry said some good steel. In fact the two I have seen were shown to me by a saddlemaker who I was talking with who is in his mid 80's. He pulled out some things to show me from under his bench and he said I bet you have NEVER seen one of these babies much less two of them. Well he was correct. I also said WOW!!! I hadn't seen a head knife from Henckels ever. Only things that I had seen with the twin logo were some straight razors and a set of kitchen knives that my great grandparents had. I was wondering if leather workers overseas in Europe may have seen more of them over there. I am just curious if any of them may weigh in on seeing any of them. Regards, Ben

Art has given many gotchas of the small slack belt system. However all of his tips and so forth are covered in detail in the link that Bruce provided. They cover all the things including removal of the cork and leather belts since they will stretch. It made over a 40 page PDF file when it was captured to give you an idea of the length of the read. Some of it's redundant but there are tips, tricks, gotchas (like burning the metal up), diagrams, angle usage, equipment selection and explanations. Consider reading it before you start using the system. It likewise tells you to try it out on less than ideal knives. It's pretty comprehensive in it's discussion. Regards, Ben

Deadeye, Here you go... Ranch2Arena Bucking Roll Info Regards, Ben

Ed, Tell him that it turned out well. Thanks for the well wishes for Father's Day. Regards, Ben

Bob, Ideally you want something slow but you can compensate for the "fixed" speed when you use a 1X30 belt sander (which is a WHOLE lot cheaper than a KMG or clone - these allow slower speeds). The grit also depends upon how much material you need to remove or if the edge of the blade needs to be reprofiled. After the initial profile with the slack belt you don't have to progress through all the grits before you polish it with the rogue and leather belt. Likewise there are individuals who use a mousepad or doubled Scotchbrite pads to aid them in hand sharpening a Moran edge. The cork belt is another belt than can be used to sharpen with and loaded with compounds (your choice). I have sent you something offline. Regards, Ben

Amen to what Art said about sintering technology, Moran profile, confidence in the maker and so forth. The maker has to do their homework and have accuracy and repeatability. The only knives that I haven't tested or have are Paul's and Terry's. There is TONS of engineering information and comparisons to determine the ideal material for you. As Art stated you are depending upon the maker to know his/her material "intimately" to make the best decision in design that will yield the best knife for a particular purpose. However in order to do that we have to educate ourselves or depend upon others to guide us in our decision. Sharpening cheap kitchen knifes is a great way to learn the skill of sharpening on a slack belt system. As I said earlier, after the initial profile it is relatively quick to resharpen and polish your knives. As with anything the time practicing is well worth it. Art gave an excellent tip with the marker and magnification because then you can explicitly see what is going on with the edge. Regards, Ben

I can personally attest to the heat treatment or the lack thereof in ATS-34. I received a set of 3 knives from a major maker as a gift/trade several years ago. Two of the knives (both the head and half round knives) would only last 10-12 inches of cutting before I could start to feel a marked decrease in ability to cut. At first I thought that I had screwed up in sharpening but quickly ruled that out when comparing it to my other knifes as well as the third knife. In comparison, the other knife from this maker could last 10-20 times longer easily before sharpening. The Rose's and others lasted even longer. I had the benefit of doing some major testing with cutting tools, materials and process for a defense contractor 15+ years ago with cryogenics and heat treat so I figured it was a lack of heat treat. Since then I have talked with the maker and we tried another one w/o heat treat and shazam my thoughts were confirmed. We could only cut 10-12 inches and feel the decreased ability to cut. Heat treated to 59-60 RC hardness and it lasted many times longer. As Terry said a nice shiny tool that wasn't much good as a tool until heat treated properly. Regards, Ben

You have received a lot of great information here on the makers, types, sharpening and so forth. I have used the slack belt system for a long time. I have a platen attachment for the 4" wide belt sander that makes it a little easier than what Bruce is talking about. Like Bruce I have used the 1X30 belt sander for quite some time on all my knives, axes and other things. I started using it many many years ago due to the availability and cost of them rather than making the step up to some major knife making grinders or sander. They also are very quick to setup, profile and sharpen with. After the initial profiling of a new knife it doesn't require you to progress through the lower grits unless you chip it like Bruce says. Of course like any non knife making sander they can burn up a knife quickly if you hold it there too long. The link Bruce gave you has a bunch of guidelines, gotchas, how-tos and equipment. I like this system because it creates a Moran grind/edge rather than a single flat grind. I haven't tried Nick's or Terry's round knifes but I have many of the others and like Bob and Bruce I like the Rose's. I have also had Marlins and others that haven't been listed as well. One thing I might add to Bob's head/round knife comparison is that head knifes generally have less material from the bolster to the tip of the knife than round knifes. The round knives tend to be deeper and more round versus the flatter head knives. Likewise there are additional differences in the pattern knife styles as well. Regards, Ben

Here's a thread detailing one of the issues of this design. Troy details the issue quite well. Needed Stohlman Corrections One of the issues that I ran across when designing weight lifting equipment was uneven floors and utilizing an H design or a double I design for your base. Anything other than a perfectly flat surface will make the item rock somewhat. A better design is to have 4 distinct smaller points for the legs of the item (rather than having two large platforms - an I design in your case). Furniture and workbench design likewise utilizes this principle of 4 smaller contact points rather than one large contact point (H design) or two large ones (double I design). Likewise a small adjuster in the base can accommodate even greater differences in the levelness of a floor. Just some things to consider when designing racks and drawdown stands. Regards, Ben

Boma, As others have said ...great job. Great depth with your tooling as well as extremely nice overall appearance with the flow, color and construction. Regards, Ben

Several have given hand sewing information. When using a sewing machine you can use an LL point to cut the leather to the left at a 45 degree angle in the sewing direction. See example below for the angle and direction of sewing travel. Likewise using an LR needle point cuts the leather to the right at a 45 degree angle in the sewing direction. See example below. Regards, Ben

Spinner, You will soon have to change your name away from "woodspinning" to something with leather. Very nice looking job... Regards, Ben

John, Nice looking design and lid. Regards, Ben

Salvi, Here's a flyer with prices and order form below. PurchaseOrder.pdf SalesFlierpdf.pdf There is another email address on this website as well for information BackinTime Leatherworks The website is as follows: Eric Myall Videos Hope that helps. Regards, Ben

FYI... A search for Kingsmere here on the forum yielded the following threads. It is a good link that people have referenced several times. =1"]Search for Kingsmere Regards, Ben

Jared, You are so right about photo editing software (I like to use Photoshop as well). In fact one of the things mentioned is the use of combination or composite shots which you just about have to use software to do that unless you perform the physical layout with the photos and airbrush them after you glue up the mockup (old school layout work). Jeremiah has several examples of that type of photo editing work. I certainly did not go into actual photography techniques or photo editing techniques because that would have required volumes to cover the subject and there are LOTS of informaiton, books, CBTs, etc out there on both subjects. This has actually garnered little interest except that there has been quite a few views. Joel, To answer your questions about the pictures and PDF. The PDF was never put on here because an organization didn't want the use of their members pictures used (actually they stated that they would prefer that they not be used) even in a document that fits into their generic vision of furthering the craft of saddlemaking even though credit was given by stating the following. "All pictures are the property of their respective owners. These are unedited photos from their respective sites and forums and are only intended to convey the intent of the proposal." Of course they did want to know if money was exchanged for this endeavor. All I did was laugh...because very few people even requested the PDF proposal or provided any additional feedback. Thanks to those who did! Now as to the pictures..... Here's one of my issues about not including photos with threads (Unfortunately in this instance they were NOT my photos to use.. I was only compiling from sources to show intent for the proposal). When you use external sources you are at the mercy of the other websites including Photobucket and so forth. I don't know how many of the other forums that I am on (engraving, woodworking, bits, spurs, ranching, etc) that have no photos left because they have been removed or changed. Even forum members remove or rearrange files from time to time and then you have NO information to draw from on photos. In fact this is actually a pet peeve of mine on sites that state some sort of learning in their vision, mission or purpose and don't include photos unless they link to other web sites for ideas and consideration - copyright law is a wicked taskmaster. Bottom line is that if they are our photos then we need to include them in the thread so that they are there for future reference. For instance....Just as an example... Try to find Steve Mecum's work on the TCAA site today. Gone! Likewise any time someone makes changes to their sites then those links are gone. Here's the original reasons as stated above for not including the photos in the thread (only links - which it appears that some still work) or the PDF. However I did not want to get the site in trouble with having others' pictures embedded in the forum. Therefore I took the time to create one that only had links and not the actual photos in the post to the forum. The PDF is obviously more impacting with the pictures included. The intent is to benchmark others examples and incorporate them into your own marketing and photo gallery strategy. I was only trying to establish a framework from which to work with. I can continue to forward the PDF as others request it so that it keeps the site out of hot water. Likewise sending it upon request gauges the actual interest as well. I then can use these interested parties to continue to refine the process/proposal going forward. I personally capture a lot of information from this site and various others just due to the fact that information is lost (sites change, links are broken, photos are deleted or moved to a gallery even on sites like photobucket and God forbid computers/forums crash). So I archive information as I can into PDFs. On forums I create scripts that reformat the html files, clean them up and then generate PDFs for archival purposes. I make sure in the copyright notice that this is only for archival purposes and that all information and photos are the property of their respective owners. I like to have tickler files for inspiration and also to capture techniques. Off my soapbox...:zzz:Sorry. Regards, Ben

John, Nice job on the rope bag. Send some pictures of the interior if you have any since Bob let the cat out of the bag. I'm actually a little surprised that Bob didn't comment on stamped letters. I would agree with Pete that carved letters would have been nicer than the stamped ones. It still is a very nice job. Regards, Ben

Tina, That is certainly neat. Didn't notice any swirls.... Regards, Ben

Tina, Somehow I missed this one. Great work as always. As Kate said whoever gets this is going in high fashion. Swirls ---yes they are getting to be a trademark style of yours. Regards, Ben

Elton, Sorry for the other two jobs getting in the way of your tools. Not to mention your other gear getting in the way... Too many things to do and not enough time. As you get them made you shouldn't have any trouble getting someone to relieve you of them. Good luck. Regards, Ben

Bob, Deep breaths... Johanne...PM sent. Regards, Ben

Nick, Ditto to what Bruce says. He is one of the strongest supporters of the No More Tears Formula that there is. I have used water, water with alcohol and very warm water with alcohol for molding as well. I know the saddlemaker/carver who shared the formula many many years ago had used it for almost 3 decades at the time he told me about it. He swore by it for lots of various reasons. Your mileage may vary. Regards, Ben