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Hi everyone, I'm planning to make some leather stuff soon and the material I'll be using is un-dyed vegtan leather. Since supply is tricky for me and since I have to be very careful about dye safety as I make horse equipment and it is in contact with skin, I thought to ask this community for any recipes and methods for making natural dyes or stains for leather. Does not matter if they are super strong like commercial ones are, I just want something that can give leather a different color (even if it only darkens it) and something that I can make with relatively accessible materials. Any suggestions welcome, I am very new to the chemical department

"Russian LeatherCrafting" journal begins to make its english e-version! We begin subscription now! It will be 6 numbered issues and 1 special issue. Every 2 month and special issue in July. First issue will publish about Feb,14. We'll write announces of articles here. Cost of annual subscription - 12 USD or 11 Euro. If you interest to subscription e-mail me to scala@list.ru. I'll give a little form and payment properties. All annual issues will send to your e-mail after publishing. You can subscribe during whole year. This is our #1 cover of this year. We work 1 year. But our last issue are Russian only. In 2015 was published 4 numbered and 1 special (Weapon and Leather) issues. In the journal you'll find a wide range of article - about art history, interest leather events in a world, any How-to, patterns, the painting lessons, stories about any leather crafters. We publish photos of your products if you want to show them to other masters. In Russian-speaking world we have about 500 subscribers. If you interest russian 2015 journals too you can write me to scala@list.ru. Our #0 pilot issue is free. I'll glad to send it to your for sample. Journal published in 2 version. "Light" - has monitor resolution (72 dpi) for pictures and photo and size about 10 Mb. "Heavy" - has print resolution (300 dpi) for pics and photos, size about 50 Mb and it can't be printed. All pattern are vector and have same quality in both versions. My own English is not good, but translation will be make by professional translator We hope you'll get much interest things from our magazine! Chief Editor Eugene Solomin (Scala)

This video shows how to adjust a Juki LU-563 class machine. I'm using my Tacsew T1563 in the demo video. The adjustments shown cover most things except hook timing (The Consew 225 Hook Timing video already covers that in great detail.) This video has been a while in the making. It took some time to wrap my brain around that confounding reverse stitch length adjustment and to come up with a set of repeatable steps to dial in equal forward and reverse stitch length. There were no instructions to be found anywhere on how to balance the forward/reverse stitch length, so made up my own by analyzing the design and a fair amount of trial and error. I'm using a little stitch length gauge in the video. You can make your own if you like using this PDF template: http://docs.uwe.net/SLG.pdf Just print it on some label stock and attach it to cardboard. Hopefully this video will take some of the mystery out of adjustments for that particular machine design.

Does anyone have any tips for getting really tight/ uniform flower centers using a very small seeder? I've had OK luck with it but I see some other craftsman absolutely killing it on this. Is this an actual one hit style of stamp or is it a series of multiple hits on a "one seed" style seeder. How do you get the layout so uniform especially in such a small space as a flower center? Start in the center and work your way out or vice versa? Any tips or tricks are much appreciated.

I don't actually have a 29 class patcher..yet. There is a guy near me that is selling one, however. This leads me to my question. I had heard talk somewhere (here, maybe?) that a 29K-something machine made it possible to sew motorcycle club patches on jackets with the stitches on the back of the peice going in between the lining and the back side of the leather. I am having a hard time visualizing the process. What I'm thinking is that the lining has to have a stitch line unpicked then the patch applied, then the lining of the garment re-stitched to the garment proper. Surely I am overthinking / overcomplicating this. Would someone walk me through the process of how one puts a patch on a leather jacket without sewing through the lining, please? Thank you!

Yikes. I just noticed a 45 minute long video on making a 3-slot card wallet. The video 'craze' has been out of control for a while now, actually, but does anybody REALLY need to watch a video to cut out 4 pieces (2 pairs) of veg tan (about 3" x 4"), stack em together, and stitch em? I'll re-write this with pics of the actual leather (soon) but for now these make legitimate and painless father's day gifts. still time! card_hor03.pdf

Hi, everybody! I'm about to embark in my second large project. I don't know whether that's the right term, but it's how I saw it referred to in a Youtube tutorial (by Leodis Leather). It basically refers to a bag with the stitches on the inside... saddle stitching, that is. I'm planning to make a bag somewhat similar to a Brixton by Ona Bags: esentially, a messenger bag with two pockets on the front side and one pocket on each side of the bag. Although I won't be selling this bag since it's for myself, I plan to make some modifications to the design as to keep it original, such as measures, form, handles, straps, thickness of leather to be used, no lining, fastening with double rings instead of buckles, burnished instead of folded over edges, attachment points in the corners to extra stuff (tripods, blankets, whatnot...), etc. In the end, it would be a bag of about 15"W x 12"H x 5-6"D As I said before, the bag won't be lined, since I intend to use a heavy full grain leather. In the range of heavy leathers, I currently have access only to a 8-10 oz that seems to be chrome tanned (when you cut it it has a white/blueish color in the middle) with some color applied to both sides of the leather. I know it's a thick leather for a bag and I have some questions about it. First of all, the leather used in Ona seems to be about 3-4 oz (only a guess from what I see in the photos and some basic scale math I've been doing). Actually, I intend to make my bag from a leather in the 5-6 oz range, either by searching for a different leather source or by thinning down on what I have at hand. and here is where my first question lies: how do I thin down from 8-10 to 5-6 oz without a splitter? I would need to thin down the entire piece of leather before cutting to achieve a uniform look and feel for the bag. I thought of using a circular sander on the suede-like side, but I've made some tests and it would be an obscene amount of work to do. On the other hand, I've noticed that sanding really ends up softenning the leather up really nice, no matter how thick it ends up being. My second question: If you look at the picture, you'll see that on the corners of the fron side of the bag, there would be as many as four layers of leather to be sewn together. If I manage to reduce the thickness of the leather to my target 5-6 oz, we're still talking of a seam that would around 8-10 mm thick... and that's only on a straight line. Wouldn't this put too much stress on the joints when I try to flip the bag inside out? how about the corners? By the way, I'm using (or planning to use) Tandy's Tejas poly waxed thread... it fades a bit with extensive use, but that's actually something I've come to like in my backpack and a couple wallets I've made so far. If the stress is too much on the joints, what are my choices? skive the places where the seams will be? or change the design altogether to an outside stitch one? One possibility I've been contemplating (although I would really like to make it this way) is to get rid of the side pockets and instead put some attachment straps to do some sort of modular system. This would add the benefit of loosing some wanted weight depending on the situation. I hope I made any sense and I'm really looking for your advice on this one.

Hi. I know that vegetable-tanned leather is recommended for saddles since, from what I read, it is best for tooling. In my area, there isn't any vegetable-tanned leather but there is a lot of chrome-tanned leather. A tannery can make vegetable-tanned leather for me on custom order but it may be expensive. Since I am only going to try making my first saddle and since I do not plan to do any tooling on it, can I use chrome-tanned leather? Are there any special do's and don't's for this type of leather. Your advice would be most appreciated. Thanks.

I have been looking at other leatherwork for inspiration, and I found this collar. I'm curious as to how both the black lining on the inside and the pink edging are attached. The first picture is of the front of the collar. It looks to me like a normal hem; the leathers were put facing each other, a stitch was run, and then the pink was folded back over. But then, how was the black lining piece in the back attached? If it was sewn, wouldn't it punch through to the front of the collar?

I am making a duffle bag and would like to have the ends done completely in SHeridan style. the bag is going to be 12" tall X 14" wide X 23" long...... HOwever, I have not quite figured out the technique to laying out my own patters. And, yes, I do have the Sheridan Style Carving book, which is a lot of help with some really great information. SO, if you'd like to help me out, let me know. Thanks ahead of time!

Hello Everyone, Jus thought I would share this simple video I made on threading a leather sewing machine. I know when I got the machine - the directions had me searching youtube to find a quick answer. Only after watching several videos did I finally understand how to do it. Now this video makes it short and sweet and easy to see. Check it out... http://www.mrlentz.com/2013/03/how-to-thread-a-leather-sewing-machine/ Cheers! Mr. Lentz