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Hey Folks, Been a very long time since I have posted anything. Years ago I was very interested in making saddles and learning the trade. I ended up getting very busy in the career field I left years ago, and found myself back in. Commercial Photography. I had my business in Maine and just shut my studio down and have since moved to Denton Texas, just nort of Dallas and Fort Worth. My goal is to expand my business to include equine photography for ads and promos. (not a show photographer) But, I still do studio work. SO, if any of you saddle, tack or makers of other fine cowboy trappings need professional images of your products for web or catalog, give me a shout and lets see if we can put something together for you. Feel free to look at some of my various projects at my website wwwDManske.com I am sure there are craftsmen and women in the area that could use some good images for their business. My contact info is on my website. Glad to See Leatherworker is still going strong! Best regards, Dennis Manske

Hello, I guess you can consider me novice, but I do have alot invested into leather crafting and I've done a dozen or so projects over the years. But I seem to hit the same darn brick wall every time I get into the coloring of leather. I get so much feedback on how much better paint is over dyeing and then how much better dyeing if over painting. And the only resources I can find only try to sell you the products you're looking at so I feel like I'm going in circles. I need help in getting taught what is the best solution when it comes to giving color to leather... I have Oil Based Fiebings dyes and they work great for the darker colors. Plus b/c it's oil based it should help keep the leather from drying out. Which it has and gives good deep colors. But I want to give my leather a Yellow color. And the last time I made something yellow, I entered it into a crafting competition and I got aweful scores b/c it wasn't bright enough and people thought I didn't even dye the leather... (attached are the pictures of the project.) After a few months the color gets darker and turns orangish or browner... It needs to remain yellow for years on end and deal with the stresses of being a Belt. Can someone help give real facts about what's best to use. I'm not looking for opinions b/c opinions more or less sale the product or products. I'm looking for cold hard facts on if paint is just better and what type of paint works best for what and then the same for dyes. I want to invest on the correct best products and not get stuck again with a lot of money tied up in dyes that just don't perform professionally when I was told it would. :-(