Duke Report post Posted November 10, 2007 hello everyone! my name is Aaron. I am a fellow crafter like yourselves, who happened to stumble upon this website about 3 weeks ago. at this very moment that I am sitting here typing this,I am sitting here in my hotel room in pendleton Oregon, at the leather craft trade show, which is being put on by ferdco machines. a brief note about myself, and I hope this doesnt scare any of you, I work for tandy leather factory, in the portland oregon store. we have a booth here at the trade show, and I hope I get a chance to meet a few of you face to face here this weekend. one reason that I am writing this intro here,is that I would like to pass a bit of news to all of you. im sure you all are familiar with barry king. anyways, I got a chance to have a couple of drinks with barry this evening, and he informed me that as of the first of the year, he is going to try to roll out a few new items.(this is where everyones ears perk up). he told me that hes going to be doing a few craftaid-like things with his sheridan style patterns. wow! I can hardly wait! also, he informed me that he has new geometric designs that he is working on,and hopes to have them out by the first.very cool. also he says he is working on doing more sizes on his various geometrics that he has out now. needless to say, I picked up a few of his tools, and will be getting more tomorrow. I read somewhere on this site that people had questions as to the best way to use his lifters. I asked him about this, and he told me that you dont have to pry on the tool at all, that you just have to drive it down and it slides. which is why it is smooth faced and not checkered. checkered would just grab the leather and hinder the tool from sliding. no prying needed. needless to say, im glad I came to pendleton. ive had a great time so far, and have met alot of customers face to face, after only talking to them on the phone for months. I am putting the word out about this website, and barry also informed me that he would be very interested in doing a "live chat" on this site, and would love to answer all of your questions. I gave him the web address and he promised me that he would at least check it out.(btw, he is younger than I would have thought he was.) as for tandy leather factory carrying his tools, keep waiting. I am told by a very authoritive figure of tandy that it "could" happen, but not for at least a few years. darn it! ok,im done with my novel, all ya'll feel free to boo me,or hiss at me, or whatever. im just a fellow leather crafter who is interested in bettering the craft. thank you.btw,s orry if I seem to ramble, like I said,I had a few drinks tonight.:D Quote Share this post Link to post Share on other sites
BruceGibson Report post Posted November 10, 2007 Welcome, Aaron! Quote Share this post Link to post Share on other sites
Guest Report post Posted November 10, 2007 Welcome Aaron, I think you'll find that your aren't the only Tandy person here. Dave Theobald Quote Share this post Link to post Share on other sites
Mike Phelps Report post Posted November 10, 2007 Welcome to the forum Aaron. You'll definitely find a lot of diversity here. Mike Quote Share this post Link to post Share on other sites
Regis Report post Posted November 10, 2007 Aaron, Glad you found us. Is there ever a leather trade show in the south east? Guess we're too far from beautiful elk country : Welcome. Regis Quote Share this post Link to post Share on other sites
Don101 Report post Posted November 10, 2007 Hi Aaron welcome to the site, Don Quote Share this post Link to post Share on other sites
Beaverslayer Report post Posted November 10, 2007 Welcome to this great forum Aaron, you will find everyone here very friendly and helpful. Hope you don't wake up with a hangover, wondering what exactly you did last night. Ken Quote Share this post Link to post Share on other sites
bustedlifter Report post Posted November 10, 2007 Welcome, I buy a lot of my supplies from Tandy except leather. Can you give some insight into what happened to the quality , other than it's imported? The leather I got there even 3-4 years ago was great but that doesn't seem to be the case anymore.Thanks. Quote Share this post Link to post Share on other sites
Duke Report post Posted November 10, 2007 Welcome, I buy a lot of my supplies from Tandy except leather. Can you give some insight into what happened to the quality , other than it's imported? The leather I got there even 3-4 years ago was great but that doesn't seem to be the case anymore.Thanks. thanks everyone! good to feel welcome. as for a trade show in the SE, I know that there was one in texas a while back. as for any more, id have to ask around. no hangover this morning thank god, but its gonna be a long day. . as for the quality of the leather, I can tell you that since tandy is more geared towards the newby, and has to go by popular demand, that when the new guy looks at leather that costs 140.00 to 200.00 bucks a side(which we do still carry) they kind of choke. so in order to be cost effective, and still be able to have a stock on hand, tandys buyer has had to look around and find more suppliers that arent as expensive. unfortunately, there is a loss of a degree of quality. this is why we dont carry hermann oak. noone wants to spring for it. im sure some would, but when youre trying to buy for 100 stores, and only 3 or 4 have a market for it, it doesnt make it a cost effective thing. hope I answered your questions. these were the same Questions I had for the corperate guy thats here with me. and thats what he told me. Quote Share this post Link to post Share on other sites
bustedlifter Report post Posted November 10, 2007 Thanks for the quick response. I thought it would have something to do with corporate trying to keep costs down, nothing wrong with that. It would be nice if they would broker a deal to get some HO leather to sell to people willing to pay the price. The Tandy nearest to me is 90 miles away so to go there and hope they have some good leather isn't very practical, so I order the HO and get top quality everytime, although I have to wait for it. Other than that I think Tandy does an outstanding job! Quote Share this post Link to post Share on other sites
abn Report post Posted November 11, 2007 Welcome, Aaron. Doesn't scare me at all that you're working for Tandy. I'm a customer at the Richmond, Va. store, and the staff there really treats me like a VIP. That's not the case everywhere. Lots of suppliers don't want to deal with the hobbyist, have high minimum orders, and still treat you like a second-class citizen when you're spending your hard-earned money with them. Not so with Tandy. Great group of folks, in my opinion. Good to have you here! -Alex Quote Share this post Link to post Share on other sites
Srigs Report post Posted November 11, 2007 Welcome from another newby! Quote Share this post Link to post Share on other sites
Duke Report post Posted November 11, 2007 I asked my boss about a trade show in the east and I was told there are a few here and there, but not on a steady basis.I appreciate the comments made about how we take care of our customers.we really have an accellent customer base here at the portland store and we darn near bend over backwards trying to take care of our customers.what most people dont understand about buying the leather is that cost has everything to do with how we purchase. if we cant get it at a price thats going to be good enough to pass the savings on to our customers, it makes it really hard to keep that item in stock.sure,we can special order something for just about anyone. the question is,are they going to be ordering enough of that item that we can merit sinking the cost into having that tool made, or that buckle stamped, or that leather tanned.I had the good fortune of spending the weekend with a very authorative person on this subject. the head of our retail department,jim koerber.good guy.and he flat out told me, it doesnt matter what it is, we have enough resources that if someone wanted us to have pink or white erasers made, or the door handle for a semi truck....as long as they were going to purchase enough of that item that we could cost effectively justify manufacturing that batch, we will do it.just like alot of people ask me why we dont carry hermann oak leather. well, we would, but most people dont want to pay what we have to buy it at.let alone us try to make even a small profit on it. its just not cost effective.now if dont care, and want to order 250 ft of it, we can get it,no problem.keep this in mind next time you look at your leather supplier, and you will gain a new respect for what goes on behind the scenes.oh yea,I want to say thanks to anyone an everyone that showed up at the pendleton trade show, we had a blast.im going to talk to barry king more about that live chat kind of thing, and maybe see what I can do to set that up.I think that would be very helpful to people.him and his dad are very informative on things. Quote Share this post Link to post Share on other sites
ClayB Report post Posted November 11, 2007 Hi Aaron, Welcome to Leatherworker.net. We are glad to have you here. Thanks for helping to spread the word about the forum, the updates from Barry King, and for explaining some of the things people wonder about dealing with TLF. It would be great if Barry decided to join us here and a live chat with him would sure be fun. Quote Share this post Link to post Share on other sites
Johanna Report post Posted November 11, 2007 Yep, tell Barry King that if he wants to talk to leatherworkers, I'll arrange VIP status and a full house. Aaron, I used to work for Tandy, too, before TLF. I've often thought it was the sweetest job I ever had. How many places are willing to pay someone to spread the joys of leatherwork? Glad to have you here, tell your friends. Johanna Quote Share this post Link to post Share on other sites
Duke Report post Posted November 11, 2007 ok, so im home now, and boy did we have a great show.what a blast.looks like we'll be doing it agian next year.I must have told at least 20 different people about this site over the last 2 days. now that things seem to be winding down agian,looks like I'll be able to get on with my project. oh wait,I havent mentioned that project yet,sorry. I am building a replica of the stohlman workbench.I have the plans that Al stohlman made which was published in the leatherworkers and saddle makers journal a while back. at the moment, I have a cheap harbor freight toolbench that I am working off of, and it is definitely lacking. I also over the weekend puchased the 3 book series that tandy carries in our stores, about saddle making.I am blown away by the amount of detail to which they go into in those books.its a shame they never got to put out the 4th or 5th books like they had hoped to. or did they? I dont know.more research is required on this. johanna, I will definitely let barry know and see what he has to say. who knows, I may even try talking to bob, the owner of ferdco machines about doing some kind of discount or something.he and his wife are a few of the nicest people I have ever met. worth a try,the least they can say is no. as for a machine, at this moment I am working a deal with my boss's boss to pick up a "boss" tippman for 500 bucks. it was our store demo model for 8 years,and saw light use, but needs to be readjusted.shouldnt be too much of a big deal. also I am in the planning stages of turning a shop press into a 10- 15 ton clicker. anyone know where to get decent yet reasonably priced dies? wow,it seems that a am a bit long winded when it comes to leather.sorry. will work on keeping it short and sweet. also, if anyone wants it, I can try to digitalize the stohlman prints for the workbench and upload it to here. just let me know and I will see what I can do. I will also see about finding my digital pictures of the severe brothers saddles that I took when in pendleton a few years ago. Quote Share this post Link to post Share on other sites
Johanna Report post Posted November 12, 2007 Pics of that famous workbench start here. Sounds great! Ask away, maybe we'll get lucky and they will say, "Yes!" Johanna Quote Share this post Link to post Share on other sites
Duke Report post Posted November 12, 2007 thanks johanna, those pics will definitely help when I go to paint the scenes on the bench. not a good enough woodworker to carve them out of veneer like al did.but it will still look good,im sure.if I can find your email, I will try to email you a copy of the prints that I have for it and you can decide whether or not to post them. Quote Share this post Link to post Share on other sites
Johanna Report post Posted November 12, 2007 johanna@leatherworker.net (Don't anyone else post your email address out here on the forum! It will draw tons of spam. I have heavy duty spam protection that you probably do not. Consideration for your privacy and risk of spam is the reason we "hide" the contact addresses inside the forum. Click any member's name to send an email or Private Message.) I appreciate you spreading the word about the site. Word of mouth works well for us, and we always welcome new folks. If anyone else wants to share something on the Internet, whether it is pictures, patterns, tutorials, video, whatever- let me know, and we'll be glad to feature your contribution. This site gets over a thousand unique visitors a day, and we're always working to make it better. Johanna Quote Share this post Link to post Share on other sites
Duke Report post Posted December 3, 2007 ok, well ive been extremely busy, and havent had a chance to update everyone but I talked to barry king about coming into the forum and he said he checked it out, and is looking forward to doing it but is extremely busy right now increasing his inventory for the las vegas trade show in a few weeks. he said after the trade show he will contact me and then I can contact johanna about a " live " forum. ok, so now onto the cool part. im about 95% done with my al stohlman replica workbench.I love it! it is very functional, and big enough to store all my tools and such. the other 5 % is to put the cupboard doors and drawers in and paint them. a buddy I work with at TLF told me he would have no problem coming over and drawing the scenes onto the doors and drawers for me.hes an accomplished artist.all I have to do is buy him a six pack. :beer: I will include pics very soon. any ways,enough rambling. I'll do what I can to keep ya updated. Quote Share this post Link to post Share on other sites
skipj Report post Posted December 4, 2007 What Vegas show is that. SASS show perhaps? SkipJ Quote Share this post Link to post Share on other sites
Duke Report post Posted December 4, 2007 not quite sure. I could try to find out, but barry is the only one I heard talking about it. anyways,here are some pics: Quote Share this post Link to post Share on other sites
Duke Report post Posted December 5, 2007 ok well I found out that the show that barry king is getting ready for is the NFR. hope that helps. Quote Share this post Link to post Share on other sites
skipj Report post Posted December 5, 2007 Thanks, SkipJ Quote Share this post Link to post Share on other sites
