Spyros

It seems to me for all those things you can find an old drill press and just mount stuff in the chuck. Drill presses have a huge throat opening, you can press a stud right in the middle of a finished bag.

Well I live in Australia now but I grew up in Europe. Over there "average size two car garage" is something that the 1% says LOL

Ιn Australia, at least in my city, there is a business that employs people with disabilities and they have a very nice facility just outside the landfill with an inspection area and a shop. They inspect the hardwaste coming in and salvage and sell at the shop anything that can be sold. Win win in my book and i have bought some nice timber from construction waste.

America, the land of big sheds

My main line of defense against the GIGANTIC RABBIT HOLE of sharpening is to avoid knives at all costs and only use things that take replaceable blades: utilty knife, exacto, safety skiver, rotary cutter, strap cutter etc. If I can't help myself, and I go ahead and buy one of those awesome leatherworking knives (because I'm only human), I then make a nice leather sheath for it and hang it high on my wall to make as difficult as possible to use. If all else fails, I begrudgingly do a few quick passes on a couple of diamond stones (typically 800-1600) while avoiding any thoughts of buying a wet grinder that would consume the last usable space on my bench. And then inevitably I get sucked in and keep dialing in that sucker on the diamond stone, and then the strop, until it can split the wings off a fly into 3 different thicknesses. Τhats my 3-step process

Well, plastic, acrylic, various synthetic fabrics, they are superior materials. Just better in many practical ways: maintenance, weight, expansion/contraction, variety etc In my mind the only reason to use leather, wood, brass in this day and age is because I like how it looks and feels and especially how it ages. Old plastic looks... old. Old leather/wood/brass looks But for jigs, internal parts and the like if I had the opportunity to use hard plastic then **** yeah absolutely. My main problem with 3D printing is making space for it, my shed is already missing a couple of crucial machines and I can barely fit another screwdriver in there.

I was half joking, I just suck at drilling holes for some reason. Even with my drill press. Even when I use a center punch and pilot holes and clamps and everything else, about 1/3 of the time the drill bit finds a way to go in sideways and get out the other side at an angle, or just generally travel outside the pilot hole. That's for wood and especially metal. For holes in leather I have all sorts of other problems: pilot holes are irrelevant, sometimes the material shifts and stretches and slides under me, the punch covers my mark so I can't see what I'm doing etc. At the end of the day maybe it's just my attention to detail, when I get to the hole punching stage it's usually towards the end of the project and I'm getting impatient. Just need to slow down and take my time, and also rethink my method.

I mean you don't need much in terms of tools, just a drill for the holes. Buy the metal bars in the width and thickness you need and cut it to size a hacksaw, sand the edges round (if you can be bothered), pop some rivets in and that's it. The ruler bit is just for show. I'm actually thinking of using aluminium because I'm too lazy to drill through mild steel. Oh I just remembered I made one too for letter stamps It works, kinda. but those stamps are not made to be used like that, they're too spaced out.

I think Ι'll pop out in the shed this weekend and make one of those quickly .....but then the problem is, on that metal piece in the middle, how do I drill those holes straight It's the age old catch 22 of toolmaking: "to make the tool that you want, you need the tool that you're making"

*** do you all live in disneyland or something Where's bambi

Not sure because both of them offer products and services that are not listed on their websites, so it's worth emailing Angela and Samantha to ask the question. They always have kangaroo skins so it's quite possible. sam@austanners.com.au angela@dshorne.com.au

wow

What? Why? Did you try Austanners or DSHorne? I buy roo from those two regularly and it usually arrives in 1-2 days from payment. And last parcel i sent to Europe, just regular mail, was received in 11 days despite COVID.

Man, that is awesome... if that's near where you live I'm jealous

Thats great, for the rest of us who don't want to walk people to our drawer, or upload it to an email every time we want to show a photo, there is always image hosting.

Use them to do what? Photos are for showing to people and the most practical way to do that is to host it somewhere, otherwise you have to upload it every time. Like I said in 15 years I never had a problem, but like everything else you have to be selective who you deal with. Generally you get what you paid for... free is free for a reason.

Good thing he's not obsessed with satellite photos LOL Good job

Tom yeah, look, I get it. I was an admin in a photography forum and I feel your pain. I'm quite confident my specific host is not going away* but i'll do it anyway. *or I'm fkd to be honest

The ones that went out of business, those were free, right?

Yeah I know how to upload a photo. What I don't know is how to find the one i want in 30 years worth of photos on my drives LOL The leatherworking ones are all recent though so I'll give it a try.

It's a paid image host service I've had for 15 years, it's not going anywhere. I have thousands of photos (parallel hobby) and the only place they're somewhat organised is that online host, half the time I don't even know where my photos are on my drive. But I'll try. Might have to download from there and reupload here.

Fred i get what you're saying, but to me at least one of the main attractions of leatherworking is that machines are nice to have, and necessary if you're turning pro, but you don't actually need them. You know how I work? I have this wooden caddy, about the size of a shoebox, and it usually fits everything I need to finish a project. Typically I don't have to go back to my stash until I get to the hardware stage. And by stash I mean another 3 drawers in the kitchen area for hardware, threads and some more specialised tools that rarely see the light of day. That's all I have, and if I'm honest it's already more than I need. When I start a project I take this box to my desk and get to work. In the morning I pack it all up in 2 minutes, open my laptop on the same desk and start my morning job. That's all. There's really no excuses with leatherworking, it's just so easy to start and so rewarding from day 1. To me that's the biggest selling point and how I try to get people interested. You don't have to invest a huge dedicated space, get out of the house, breathe dust, deal with chemicals or dangerous machines, apologise to your neighbour for the noise, buy a crazy number of tools and equipment. Compare this to woodworking, metal working, blacksmithing, machining etc and you'll see what I mean. It really is a superior and elegant craft in so many ways, all it needs is love and time really. I think what puts people off it is that most of us make it sound a lot more complicated than it really is. i mean don't get me wrong it can be as deep and complex as you want it to be, if you get into tooling, shoes, saddles, business adventures, production lines, whatever. But for the stuff that most people want to make? A wallet, a belt and a tote? All you need is that box, a flat surface and an internet connection. The rest is all on youtube.

I know be prepared to lose a couple of nights, it's super addictive

I'm still surprised I can make things in my shed, up to 10-15 years ago I was convinced everything in the house has to come from a big factory in China. Most people around me still believe that, can't get their head around the fact that you don't need a giant machine or a production line to make a bag. Archaeologist wouldn't be too much different... making things is a mystery to the average modern man so of course they are impressed that an ancient guy was not as useless as them LOL average guy today couldn't pluck a chicken or start a fire to save his life

I did say it didn't I I don't know what it is about holes but I really suck at making them, whether it's leather, wood, metal, whatever. Worse thing about it is they usually come at the end of the project... here'a a nice brass hammer I made recently LOL