Tequila

Thanks folks I see I’m not alone here. Wishing both better luck than I’m having

A few months ago I bought a new machine from one of the vendors that supports this forum. My frustration and rant is not with the vendor it is with the trucking company. The machine made it from the vendor’s location to the trucking company’s terminal that services my area in 4-5 days, I was tracking it and thought this is good. That’s where the good feeling ends, since it was going to a residence the trucking company sent it to another outfit that handles their residential deliveries, that was over 3 weeks ago. I’ve hit stone wall after stone wall and heard almost every excuse you can imagine, all the usuals (COVID, labor shortage, etc.) to the Final Four basketball game. I offered to pick the machine up, that’s when I found out that it was loaded on a trailer and the company has to figure out which loaded trailer it’s on, so I can’t even pick it up. The vendor has helped by getting their sales agent involved, I’ve called their national customer service number, but no one has been able to crack the code to get this delivered. I don’t know about you but I’m tired of getting excuses and thinking that saying “I’m sorry” is going to make me feel better, sorry don’t feed the dog. Ok rant is over for now.

I wonder how many other Osborne tools are shipped with “something is wrong”? It goes to quality control and pride of workmanship, if I have to fix a new tool or complain to get a tool that is made correctly then I would hesitate before buying another tool from them. I hope Osborne sends you something that is correctly made right out of the box, please let us know how it turns out.

Once I’m done with my current project I’m going to wet mold a cigar case. I like the exotic skin they used in the video but I think I’ll just start out with a plain veg tan and see how it goes.

@toxo, @fredk here you go

Either this was a really stupid question or no one knows the answer. I would’ve thought someone would answer.

Good looking rig, I never would’ve guessed it was your first one. What size thread did you use? I’m working on a 10 gauge shotgun belt, my plan is to sew between the loops, figure I’ll give my new sewing machine a good work out.

I was reading in the Show Off section a thread about making a 4 finger cigar case. In the thread there’s a video and it shows a cigar case being made where the case is assembled, sewn and then formed. From the video it looks like he puts the completed case on a form and then just run a wooden creaser along the edge of the form. Is it really that easy? I thought the case would have to have been wet molded, it looked like he was using veg-tanned under the alligator skin. Has anyone done molding this way and does it work? Any pros or cons?

I keep thinking about this topic. A friend here in town has a cigar shop and he’s a big golfer, he takes 3 cigars with him whenever he plays, so I thought it’d be nice to make him a 3 cigar case. I was surprised when I watched the posted video that the leather was not wet formed, only held in shape and had a creaser run around the edges, unless they cut a step out of the video. Has anyone tried this? Does the leather hold it’s shape? Once I finish my current project I’d like to make one, who knows maybe I’ll find a niche market.

I tried the “drill method” on a knife sheath, I used a 1/16 inch bit in a drill press. I started by using stitching irons to mark the holes then drilled at the marks. Like others said you’re removing leather, what I found that using the regular hand stitching thread I had didn’t fill the holes.

I’ve bought 2 stitch groovers from “big name” suppliers and have been disappointed. I’ve checked on Bruce Johnson’s site, currently he doesn’t have any, so I sent him an email and asked him if he would let me know when he got any in. Besides Barry King where can I get a good quality groover that won’t get dull after a few uses, I’d like one with a good edge guide. Speaking of dull, I’ve got a Stohlman head knife and it’s about as sharp as the back end of a nail. I’ve tried sharpening it a few times, even putting on the bench grinder to re-profile the edge and it won’t keep an edge. Anyone have any recommendations for a better knife? Again, I keep checking on Bruce’s site in the hopes he’ll have one that won’t kill the budget.

@Rubicon04 I was going through a lot of what you talked about, my final decision was to buy from Leather Machine Co. I spoke to David, actually spoke to him a few times, I found him to be helpful and I liked the warranty they have. He also told me there would be a shipping delay and explained why, I hate to wait but understood what the hold up was. @chuck123wapati I wish there was a like button for your post. I too expect something to work when I buy it, and like many others I’ve been disappointed on occasion, most recently on a round knife, but I’m realistic on my expectations. I do expect my new sewing machine to work when I get it, it will have a sample of it’s sewing still in the machine. Now if I change the thread/needle/leather thickness I anticipate that I may have to make some minor adjustment. Here’s an analogy that I thought of: I regularly shoot a model 1873 rifle and it’s accurate at the distance I shoot. If I want to shoot it at a greater distance well then I’m going to have to change the sight’s height, adjust the powder charge and change the bullet weight. Will it work? Sure, but I have to be realistic in my expectations, it will never be accurate out to a mile, it’s just beyond the guns ability. Can I sew a one inch piece of leather on the machine I bought? No, it’s beyond the machine’s capability. Have a sewing machine work out of the box? Yes, but some minor adjustments may be needed and what’s important to me is to be able to make a phone call and get guidance when I don’t know how to make that adjustment.

You’re not the only one, I had the same experience a few weeks ago. When I spoke to him he seemed distracted with awkward silences.

I can see that if I were going to have each shell in an individual loop, but for the sake of speed loading there has to be 2 shell in each loop. The wet molding was just to get the indentation in the leather between the shells in the same loop. I’m probably going to test it without the indent, if it works well that’ll be one less thing to do. Thanks for the advice!

That belt is only 3 years old. I use it often so it looks well worn. The gentleman that built it for me passed away last year but he did excellent work. In the Single Action Shooting Society (SASS) he went by the name Stockyard Johnny Red, he lived up in Ohio.

@Frodo @chuck123wapati the gun is a Winchester model 1906 lever action from 1908. It’s been modified for competition, the barrel was shortened and I can drop 2 shells in at a time. It’s fun to set off car alarms with my Black Powder loads.

I’m not sure it shows up very well in the pictures, between where the shells sit in the loop there is an indentation. Maybe I should do a trial run without the indentation.

I figured out how to get the pictures in a size that I can post so here are a couple of more. The little diamonds on the loops are stamped. So would the order be stamp, then burnish, then wet mold, then stitch?

@Bert03241 thanks

I’m going to try to make a 10ga shotgun belt, the one pictured above (and only picture that I could get to load because of file size limits) is for a 12 ga shot shell. The main belt is 3 ¼ inches, the part that holds the shells is made from 1 inch 4-5 oz leather. As you can see the holder is wet formed to hold 2 shells with a gap between them that is pushed down between the shells. Then the holder is stitched down and the next loop is formed. I’m not sure about the order I should use. My first thought was to take the 1 inch holder by boiling it in water then wet molding around the shells but leaving it loose enough that I could use a nail (or maybe a wooded dowel) placed over the leather and between the shells to make the indent. If I did that then I’d have to clamp the holder down between the loops to leave room for stitching. Another thing that I recently read was not to burnish the edges before molding because it keeps the water from entering the edges of the leather. Am I doing things in the right order? Is there a better way that I haven’t thought about? Belts like this are pretty common in Cowboy Action Shooting so I thought someone might have made one or two.

Oh I forgot to say that I did add one extra, a flip down roller guide. The waiting will now begin.

Thanks for the encouragement. I must say that I’ve been reading a lot of your posts IRT sewing machines, they’ve been very informative, you certainly know your machines

From one newbie to another welcome.

Well folks I finally made a decision and I’m getting the Cobra 26. While both the Cowboy 341 and the Cobra are very similar it was the warranty and customer service that made the choice for me. Both companies had about the same wait time before shipping (2-3 weeks) and the price difference was negligible. So I guess by this time next month I’ll be asking questions again. And thanks to everyone who replied.

I wish my pockets were that deep . Because I usually only work on one piece at a time I don’t think the needle/thread changing will bother me too much (at least I hope not). I was going to buy the flatbed attachment, my thinking was if it’s too small I’d at least have a template to use to make a bigger table.