Warhauk

I have recently gotten into leather working. I'm hesitant to commit to saying I want to try to make a business out of it, but I am definitely trying to make it a self sustaining hobby at the very least. Question 1: Does anybody know if the military and business discounts stack? and question 2: For anybody that has a business account, specifically for a smaller home business style, is the paperwork and extra stuff involved with having a registered business worth the hassle of the discount? (As opposed to just selling on ebay/Etsy/etc where, at least as far as I know, you can sell as an individual and not need a business)

I used some fiebings leather balm on some 4oz vegtan for the outside piece of a wallet, originally intending to just make a plain wallet. It's only a practice piece as I'm still getting the hang of leatherworking. Later I decided I actually wanted to tool the piece (completely forgetting I had used the balm the day before) and went to wet it and it beaded up of course. Is there a way to tool the leather with the balm still on it or do I need to remove the balm first? If the latter, is the process even worth doing or should I build the plain wallet and just tool something else?

This is actually a bondage wrist cuff, but the rivet concern could still be valid. I was using a template from github to make it and this is how they secured it. I think I larger D-ring might mess with the aesthetics of it but I will definitely have to consider a way to make it stronger.

As far as I would guess, I'm not making anything that requires particularly strong rivets but my current interests are leather armor and bdsm style gear such as collar and cuffs. I was mostly just asking because the articles I was reading were pretty vague as to wha they meant by requiring strong rivets and I would hate for a rivet to pop on someone I sell something to or give as a gift because I just used the wrong rivet. I do a lot of my shopping on amazon, and the double caps are a lot cheaper than the single caps that I could find. Are the single cap rapids better or will double cap work for all the same applications?

Critiques, criticism, and advice are all welcome. I already know the cuts are pretty rough and I did a pretty poor job with the sanding and burnishing. It is also a crooked strip but I think that is because I set my strip cutter down negligently and slightly bent the blade before making the strips but it was a practice piece so I decided to use it anyways. The leather is just some 7-8oz (maybe 8-9oz) from a scrap pack I bought and the liner was also some scrap.

I've read a bit on the various common types of rivets and it says that double capped/rapid rivets aren't usually used for strength purposes. How far does that actually extend though? Like having a dog leash for an 80lb dog or a belt? Where would be a good rule of thumb where you need to upgrade to higher strength rivets? Also, I just ordered a large pack of double capped rivets (not paying attention o the fact they were double capped). I have just started to work with leather and the ones I started with were the single cap rapid rivets. After doing a little research, it doesn't seem like there are very many advantages to single cap over double cap. Are there any areas that single cap rapid would be better to use? Such as an item where the back end would be against the wearer like a belt or collar or would double rivet still not be noticeable over the flat back of a single?

I saw a video on youtube from weaver leather talking about .023 plastic sheeting that they use to make their patterns and it seems really useful. While the price seems pretty good, I dont want to either wait 3 weeks for it to come in or spebd and extra $20 to get it faster, making the price look not so good. Im having difficulty finding something similar on like amazon and was wondering if anybody could recommend a good material or at least point me to what im actually looking for to find this type of sheeting. I know paper card stock and stuff ate an option but i would like a material that wont wear down. My wife has a cricut maker and suggested using that for cutting my pattern. The cricut brand stencil roll seems extremely thin though. Ive found some 80 micron (i think thats roughly 32mil) rolls that work with it but they are vinyl and im not sure if that would work well.

Thanks for the inputs. I honestly was already assuming the same things that y'all told me because the machine does look pretty...frail may be the right word. Maybe dainty. But wanted to make sure before I outright dismissed it, or worse, decided to test it and break my wife's machine.

I've recently gotten into leatherworking and I'm considering learning to sew leather with a machine. I've seen that there are industrial leather sewing machines for several thousand bucks but I got my wife a decent sewing machine a while back. It's a husqvarna viking designer topaz 50. In theory, it says you can use leather with it but doesn't really have any specifics that I've seen in the manual. I've posted on some sewing machine forums about it, but haven't gotten much feedback. Does anybody have any experience with this machine or something similar to know if it actually does well with leather, max thickness it can work with, etc?

I happen to have a decent sewing machine (with that being said, it supposedly works with leather but it isnt specifically for it and im not necessarily convinced without doing the research first). My wife wanted one of the fancy ones for both sewing and embroidery a couple years back. Thank you all for your input. Hopefully I will end up finding the hand stitching rewarding, whether that is the route I go or not. Still waiting on my stuff to come in so i can start to get a few for it.

Great advice everybody. It has definitely helped me out.

Thanks for all the advice. I was honestly leaning toward machine stitching because I don't think I would get much enjoyment from my projects while doing them, just knowing I was going to hunker down after to hand stitch for hours to finish the project. My biggest concern was for the projects that already take a lot of time and work. Just an example with completely made up numbers (because I don't know currently know pricing or the market or how long things take) Say I made a really nice saddle and it took me 60 hours with all the carving and detailing involved, not including any stitching. If I value my time at say $10/hr, using some formula that is supposedly a good starting point for prices, (material cost + labor cost) x4 for retail work, I would be charging roughly $2400 at that point. That is ignoring material cost. Now if I took an additional 10 hours to hand stitch it, that would put the cost about $3200. If I machine stitched it in 1 hour, the price in theory would be $2440. I'm sure there are a lot of other variables, but in general, would this be the case, $2440 vs $3200 or is it not actually proportional. Like would you actually be charging a lower rate for your time for the hand stitching, or maybe the machine sewing would make the saddle worth even less bc people want their high end artisan pieces to be hand sewn. As chrisash said, I'm probably just overthinking it, but it's those nuances that interest me sometimes.

Thanks for all the advice. I am definitely interested in learning proper tooling. As far as the stuff I am currently looking to learn, things like armor, detailed leather books, and general renfaire stuff. I also can see myself making wallets, belts, dog collars, leashes, maybe even watch straps. Stuff that you can personalize well with proper tooling and really make it stand out. I am just a little hesitant to make larger purchases such as sides if it turns out I can only use those leather types for things like upholstery or clothing that I'm not particularly interested in (which seems to be a common recommendation for chrome tanned leather). I have made a few purchases and are waiting for them to come in, but it is only about 12 sq ft pre cut squares of various vegtan leathers I saw on clearance from tandy. My main question about cheap learning leather was more revolved around what can be learned from cheaper leather such as chrome tanned that is widely applicable. I know for tooling, vegtan is necessary, but as far as learning the cuts, stitching, and various techniques, will the 2 leathers be about the same for learning or are they vastly different?

I'm trying to determine what cheap kind of leather I can start using. There seems to be a big difference between vegtan and chrome tan, at least from the descriptions ive read. So am I correct in assuming that learning to tool, I would pretty much have to spend the money on the vegtan? For non tooling practice, is chrome tan acceptable? Im not completely sure what direction I want to take my work in. Most likely renfaire style pieces and stylized belts, wallets, etc

I'm new to the entire concept of leatherworking and am looking into buying the basic equipment I need to get started. I intend for it to be a hobby to start with but hopefully one that can either pay for itself or preferrably net me a profit. While I haven't gotten my feet wet quite yet to know what aspects I do and don't like, I think I would be interested in doing more artisan style work with a lot of hand carving and detail work. I also understand that learning the basics is important and fully intend to become proficient at hand stitching but it seems very time consuming and potentially tedious. So my real question would be the pros and cons of machine sewing vs hand stitching when it comes to artisan stuff (and also for quicker tasks) for quality and profit. For example, I would imagine that for a relatively simple wallet that doesn't take too long to make, machine sewing might be perfectly acceptable, even if i would have to sell it for less, but that balance seems like it would be easy to determine. But if i spent a long time on a nicely detailed piece(not sure what type of piece yet), would using a machine just tank the quality of the piece to the extent it isnt even worth saving the time? Or maybe it would just balance toward the sewing took less time and is also not hand done, so the value of the piece drops proportional to the time saved? Maybe I am oversimplifying the situation because I am sure there are other factors involved, but it was just a question that started nagging at me a bit.