MarshalWill

In today's world, most people don't want to have any kind of meaningful relationship and that extends to online. On FB, they only want to look without contributing or only contribute meaningless stuff like the hamburger they had for lunch at Culvers. No risk of starting a relationship, there. I'd bet the actual contributing percentage on FB is about the same as on forums. At least we have a core membership that keeps things going with actual content.

I've seen a slow-down in several other forums. It doesn't seem to be limited to this one.

I'm on another forum that was inundated with bots. They put a Captcha to verify you're a human at the login and that eliminated just about all bots. I don't know what's involved to do that but it is one solution to the problem. Maybe it would be a good idea here.

Nice tool holder. I like that kind of organizing. I see you have marked them with stamps. Maybe you could rub some antiquing across the top so the numbers show better. I keep many of my drills on a shelf behind my drill press in similar blocks. I also have blocks to organize many of my leather tools in my various tool boxes. They're made mostly of different hardwoods, depending on what was on hand when I made each one.

Those are really interesting. Nice find. No, I don't have any channeling tools. That said, there's nothing like old well-made hand tools. My grandfather was a contractor who worked on the Winchester House from about 1900-1920. I have his tool chest and many of his hand tools. Some are leather tools and others are woodworking tools. I love to use them. Good, old tools just work right. Samalan, those boxes of old tools sound amazing. What a treasure. Even the boxes.

Looks great! Clean and to the point. Yes, the pressure of tooling causes the mirroring.

That's a fine notebook. It lies flat when open. Looks great, too. Nice work.

Thanks. I also love lever guns. When I was a kid and my dad took me down to get my first hunting rifle, I chose a Winchester Model 94. Used, of course, but a great rifle. As to your wrap, I figured something like that might be the case. A bit of up front work sure makes the difference.

The whole trick is to work back and forth along the handle until the desired amount of leather has been molded over. Too much hammering at once will flatten the handles. We used to do that when covering the steel surcingle handles for exhibition/circus riding. Those handles had to be good to take the performers' weight without hurting their hands. I just decided to try it on a hollow tote handle and it worked well.

Looks really good. Your daughter should be very pleased with it.

This is a good design. Thanks for sharing it. It was nice to see the photo with the original, too. Outstanding. I have one suggestion on the handles, though. With bridle leather, you can wet the stitch line and use a smooth face hammer to mold the leather back over the stitching to make a more comfortable handle. Here's a photo of the handles on a tote I made years ago and the handles show very little wear.

That looks great, Chuck. I never did like those commercial lever crap wraps. I like something that doesn't shift around when it's used. I've made all mine by doing a simple double wrap but I like the look of yours better. Very nice job, pard. Here's what mine look like. At least until I need another one, now. Even these had a tendency to slide around the lever until I started with one loop around the trigger guard area.

That's coming along. The design is balanced nicely.

Thumbs-up, Chuck!

I have one of those Burgess wood carvers. You might have a good idea. Anyway, it warrants some thought.