TomE

Ha Ha! The only thing I don't like about the original is the price, but that's a small fraction of supply costs so I keep using it.

My favorite conditioners are Fiebings Aussie and Effax Leder Balsam, which are both balm type conditioners that don't darken the leather. The Aussie conditioner is a bit more waxy than Leder Balsam, which soaks in faster. Bick 4 and Blackrock Leather N' Rich are also good but I see some change in color.

Haven’t worked with goat leather but I do most of my skiving on a scrap of heavy leather with flesh side up. Glass or marble is too slick and the bridle leather I’m skiving slides around. More friction might keep the goat leather from stretching?

@AndrewWR, makes sense. I’ll be interested to know how the Tokenole holds up. Did not know about the kangaroos in CA. Chrome tanned cow hide seems perfectly adequate for liners although I did plan to use kangaroo lace for laced reins.

That's a handsome bag! I do a lot of strapwork with bridle leather. My favorite edge treatment is burnishing with canvas and sealing with beeswax using a heated edge iron. Adding a crease line will also dress up a strap. Thinking about trying kangaroo for padded liners on halters and bridles. I like the design of your bag.

Good looking bags! I especially like the tulips. Is it correct that chrome tan is stronger than veg tan with respect to tearing and seams ripping out?

Good advice when working with a piece of leather that can be picked up. I typically buy sides and cut full length straps of various widths, leaving the belly for other projects. The draw guage and plough gauge work well for wider straps. I can cut narrow straps from scraps of wider straps using the wooden cutter and pushing the leather through.

Sorry my earlier reply didn’t get posted - operator error. Thanks for your reply, @sbrownn. I am typically cutting straps from sides of 9-10 oz leather so I am drawing the tool along the edge. For sure it’s operator error and I’ll take all the help I can get. The above modifications seem to have improved the consistency of my narrow straps.

Thanks, @tsunkasapa and @Gezzer. I added a few center punch craters and put a dab of anti seize compound on the threads. This Craftool cutter had thread locker on the threads holding the disk on the screw. Now it locks very nicely at the set width and stays there when I cut heavy straps. I used 3oz chrome tan instead of cardboard to make a shim to cant the blade. I have better luck with the shim on the side next to the blade instead of the opposite. At any rate, I’m happy with the modifications and cranking out 3/8” loop stock for fixed and running loops. Thanks for your suggestions.

Thanks for the suggestion. If I can break the disk free from the screw then I'll add a few craters. Curved channel lock pliers might reach around the wooden housing to grip the disk. My idea of a fun Friday night.

I see what you're saying. I am thinking the slightly angled blade puts pressure on the strap passing between the blade and body of the strap cutter. This counters the tendency for a gap to open up between the edge of the strap and the body of the tool and keeps the strap feeding through at full width. I can test it by placing the shim on either side of the tool and comparing results. The other thing I don't like about my wooden strap cutter is that the metal disk that fixes the wooden bar in place turns together with the adjustment screw. I think the clamping mechanism would work better if I could tighten the screw without the disk spinning around. The screw is firmly seated in the disk. Maybe if I can back the screw out a half turn then the disk will stop turning once it contacts the bar. Not sure how this is supposed to work.

Yes, that's true. I thought the idea is to pinch the cut strap against the body of the strap cutter to stabilize it. I'm thinking it's akin to the single bevel on the inside edge of a plough gauge knife. Did you see an improvement with the shim on the other side of the strap cutter?

I see a wandering cut when cutting 3/8" from a side of 9-10 oz leather. For sure it's something about how I'm using the tool. I think it's awkward to hold it steady on the edge of a hide. A work around is to cut my narrow straps from a shorter piece of 1" strap since I don't need the length for narrow straps. I cut the wider straps from sides using a draw gauge or plough gauge. I'll try this strap cutter modification and report back. Thought someone might have already tried it.

OK, I'm all about straps. I like the wooden strap cutter particularly for narrow straps (3/8") but it has a tendency to wander on long cuts. The author of this blog recommended the following modification to slightly tilt the blade and maintain a consistent feed. https://www.leatherlearn.com/2011/12/strap-cutter.html I'm guessing others have tried something like this or have other ideas. I'd welcome your advice and ideas.

Work of art! Thanks for sharing.

Beautiful work! I want to see the chaps when finished.

Really pretty! The bag with the Celtic/Horse design would sell quickly at horse shows. My wife wants one.

@PastorBob, that's a really thoughtful overview. I haven't sold any leatherwork so my advice is based on selling a different product, baby horses. I would set up a free Google Business page and use it as a feeder to a website or commercial sales site that displays your merchandise. The info on a Google business page will show up in search results and provides a summary of your business and your contact info. Word of mouth is definitely an important means of marketing but the word spreads faster and people remember your business if it appears in other places. I would say in 15 years that we've never sold anything directly off Facebook (actually, selling live animals is against FB policy) but it is a big audience that I think has helped us build our brand so we continue to post there. Most of our clients found us through our ads on a commercial horse sales site or our website.

That's a pretty scene worth repeating. Reminds me of a lunch at a crowded lakeside cafe where we saw several ducklings disappear. The bass were having lunch too.

You reminded me that the only expensive awl I own is a piece of junk sitting in a drawer. It came from a reputable vendor and has their logo on the brass ferrule. It is a small awl with a lovely haft that the awl wiggles around in and feels like it's going to break off. I can't get it sharp and think the awl is crap. Some day I'll get motivated to swap it for an Osborne harness awl.

That's a handy looking (and handsome) knife! Red Green would approve. I can see how it would easily become a favorite.

A braided leather project, like a lanyard, would be easy to complete with few tools. This can be simple or rather fancy with multiple colors of lace, more strands, etc. You could also make a simple leather pendant for the lanyard decorated by carving or branding/burning a design in the leather. This name tag was my Dad's from a dude ranch vacation in the 1960s. The symbols correspond to activities that he participated in at the ranch. I think the "$" was the important one. I recall they used a soldering iron to make the designs, but a branding iron or other heated tool could be used to decorate leather. The leather pendants could be a precut shape purchased from a vendor.

Just got this Abbey round knife today and already showing it off. It is very sharp so I only stropped it. Fits my hand and I think will be handy for cutting tapers/waists on straps and other small curves, as well as skiving small parts that are hard to hold onto. I don't yet know how well the blade holds an edge but so far so good.

I'm gonna take a WAG that it's the tannins or saponins in Salicornia that are useful for a leather dye, as a vehicle to improve solubility and penetration of pigments. Short answer: I dunno. "Salicornia plants have been screened for phytochemical profile and presence of a range of carbohydrates, proteins, oils, phenolic compounds, flavonoids, sterols, saponins, alkaloids, and tannins have been reported. Water and alcohol extraction followed by component profiling has indexed many potentially bioactive compounds. Studies have reported the presence of dietary fibers, bioactive polysaccharides, proteins, lipids, sterols, flavonoids, and minerals (Mg, Ca, Fe, K) in S. herbacea (Essaidi et al. 2013)." https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC4835422/

I enjoy using all types of knives for different tasks. My latest addition is this baby round knife (68 mm) that is handy for cutting and skiving in tight spots.