Search the Community

Hi! I'm new here.. I've was wondering if you guys could give me some advise. I've been making leatherwork for 6 years, and I've only shopped in store at my local Tandy leather. I'm realizing that I would like to lower my cost of materials and actually make some money... ( : How are you buying your materials to lower the cost? What store do you like the best? Any help is appreciated!! Lauren

So I've been getting the hang of card holders and wallets. I'm trying to move up to long wallets with zippers and multiple rows of card pockets and I'm running into some trouble. What I normally do is attach my t pockets onto a larger piece of leather that will in itself become a pocket as well. So when I make my patterns, I give the edges of my t pockets an extra 1/8" on either side. Then, after I've sewn on each pocket, I can trim off the excess and then finish the edges. That's the idea, anyway. The issue is the bulk. Even when I skive as much as possible in the appropriate areas, I can just barely get the pockets to sit down on the main piece of leather by the time I get to the third or fourth one. This this leads to poor glue adhesion along the edges because the pockets are hardly even touching the base, which then also leads to sloppy stitch lines, and therefor uneven stitches. I've included some pictures to try and make what I'm talking about more clear. What bothers me is I see folks on youtube go through this process with no bulk issues what so ever. Look at this video for example: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-UEauYrGzAE&t=346s Skip to 4:40. This guy doesn't even give himself any extra trim allowance, and he even pre-punches every piece of leather so they have to line up PERFECTLY. And he just goes along and slaps them right on with no alignment issues, no trimming, no bulk, nothing. Does he maybe make each pocket slightly wider than the last so they all just line up? Do any of you do that? Seems like that would be really hard to get right. Any advice on this topic would be much appreciated. Thank you. This link will take you to the pictures of what I'm talking about. I had to use a link because the file sizes were too big to upload them directly. https://docs.google.com/document/d/1Z3bio0Yub_EJYTLHcxcJELhUux8t0nYlbgrhRQqTwPQ/edit?usp=sharing

Hello, I am just starting to look into buying leather in bulk, rather than just a couple of sides at a time. I have been buying 3-4 oz sides top grade tooling from springfield for $4.49 sq ft. I need something of similar quality but a bunch of sides at once - probably around 250 sq ft. More or less depending on price. - Where and how do I begin this process? - What are typical minimums? - In general will I save a lot? - Any other advice? Thanks in advance for the help!