What happened to all the free patterns from Tandy?

[Hilly]

I'm wondering what happened to all the free patterns that Tandy had on their website? I KNEW I should've saved a couple of my favorites, but never did. I figured they'd always be there when I needed them. What WAS I thinking! Now I'd really like the pattern for the catalog cover of the eagle perched on a branch... If anyone has this pattern to share, could you please PM me?

Hilly

[Art]

Hi Hilly,

Raise heck with your local Tandy manager, or corporate, or Jim Linnell, if someone doesn't know, they never will. Right now, POing the customers is not in their best interest.

Art

I'm wondering what happened to all the free patterns that Tandy had on their website? I KNEW I should've saved a couple of my favorites, but never did. I figured they'd always be there when I needed them. What WAS I thinking! Now I'd really like the pattern for the catalog cover of the eagle perched on a branch... If anyone has this pattern to share, could you please PM me?

Hilly

[ShaneTaylor]

Hello

what Pattern you want i have all free pattern from Tandy.

[Hilly]

Hello

what Pattern you want i have all free pattern from Tandy.

Thank you Shane! That was exactly what I was looking for!

Hilly

[wildrose]

You can find many online at their site too.

[CitizenKate]

You can find many online at their site too.

Right there are still some, but a bunch of them that were there, no longer are. I was pretty disappointed when I discovered that, too. I was planning to take it up with my "local" manager the next time I had them on the phone. I should have downloaded them all when I had the chance.

Kate

[99centtaco]

I work at Tandy, they are getting rid of free patterns online.

[gtwister09]

This forum is large enough and represents a LARGE number of leather craft users across a broad range of countries and disciplines that we should be able to apply some casual pressure to The Leather Factory/Tandy to maintain the free patterns. It can't be because the free patterns take up a lot of space.

There are lots of potential customers here and the numbers keep growing.

Just a thought.......

Regards,

Ben

[Jordan]

How about admin. asking tandy and other companies to submit their free patterns to the board for posting in a pattern area?

[99centtaco]

I'll get as many as I can from work and post them up.

[gtwister09]

I have pulled the patterns down over time.

It wasn't my point to have Johanna and this site maintain free patterns, ask permission, maintain those permissions and all the copyright rig-a-ma-roll that goes along with it.

Well I am going to step off into it at this time.......

My point is that The Leather Factory/Tandy should see the maintenance of the "free" patterns as another marketing and selling point to customers. Over the years we as the leather customer have been neglected by many companies (not just The Leather Factory/Tandy - There's plenty of others that likewise follow the same ideas). Many of them think that we should be happy to get what we are getting. Many of us have heard many "excuses" as to why some of these companies can't/won't do something.... They range from :

• That's not our strategy.
• There's no money in it.
  
• The community is older and dying off.
  
• We can't produce new material, use new mediums to deliver information or update older material because it is not cost effective because there aren't enough users/customers to warrant that kind of expenditure.
  
• There's not enough people out there to support it.
  
• If we did that we would loose advertisers and the list goes on.
  

Many of the comments/statements are centered around them making money and doing that cost effectively. I fully understand the need to make money and perform cost/benfit analysis. We don't need them as vendors to loose money. We expect them to make money and hope that they do because if they don't make money then they won't be around to provide us with materials and such.

To continue with my thought this forum has a very large base that is continually growing. It is significantly different from the many smaller guilds and such because they are fairly small and viewed individually whereas this forum gathers all of us in one place (seat makers, mask makers, armor makers, saddlemakers, holster makers and a bunch of others). Many of us also belong to one or more of these guilds as well. We should use this to influence the market and guide and direct these companies. Rather than overlooking us as a dying market, they should view this forum as (1)a growing market and (2)defining a new market niche that needs to be serviced. We have new needs that are not being met by the methods of the 1960s-1970s. They also need to invest in their markets and not just sit back and rest on laurels that were created decades ago.

Sorry for the rant ... I am off my soap-box.

Regards,

Ben

[elktracks]

I work at Tandy, they are getting rid of free patterns online.

Tandy is NOT getting rid of the free patterns online.

As was noted on this board, Tandy Leather Factory recently did a major overhaul of their web site. The comments we have gotten from making our web site more user friendly have been overwhelmingly positive. In the course of making that transition, the free patterns did not migrate over. This is being addressed and all of those patterns will eventually be available on the web site again for free.

Please have patience and please don't jump to conclusions.

Jim Linnell

[gtwister09]

Tandy is NOT getting rid of the free patterns online.

As was noted on this board, Tandy Leather Factory recently did a major overhaul of their web site. The comments we have gotten from making our web site more user friendly have been overwhelmingly positive. In the course of making that transition, the free patterns did not migrate over. This is being addressed and all of those patterns will eventually be available on the web site again for free.

Please have patience and please don't jump to conclusions.

Jim Linnell

Thank you for the response Jim.

However the absence of information or absence of free patterns without any direction after a major overhaul coupled with a statement of they are getting rid of free patterns allows for the jumping of conclusions. Just a friendly best practices web site suggestion would be to add "an Under Construction or In Progress" link when things are being modified or updated. Most web sites and builders do this as a placeholder to make it known that things are in progress or that they adding something to the site especially previously available information.

Here's some ideas for under construction. Free Under Construction Web Ideas

Regards,

Ben

[99centtaco]

When and if IT can get around to it...right??

[Bree]

Tandy is NOT getting rid of the free patterns online.

As was noted on this board, Tandy Leather Factory recently did a major overhaul of their web site. The comments we have gotten from making our web site more user friendly have been overwhelmingly positive. In the course of making that transition, the free patterns did not migrate over. This is being addressed and all of those patterns will eventually be available on the web site again for free.

Please have patience and please don't jump to conclusions.

Jim Linnell

Thanks Jim!

I seriously doubted that Tandy would do something so foolish over something that costs them little or nothing yet draws many customers to their site.

I look forward to seeing the return of the free patterns though I too have most of them saved JUST IN CASE!! LOL!