"Make America Great Again" and the leather trade

[JLSleather]

I think some folks get confused about what they "can't afford" to work for.  I got a guy - used to be my buddy, but now became quite proud of what he owns, which is strange since any money he has was gained by exploiting teh work of these "illegal" people.

Anyway, he was quite proud to show me his brand new king-cab truck, with all teh options.  Had a long pretty story to go with it, about how if you're a contractor, you have to look professional - and driving a 'nice' truck makes you look professional.  

I told him when I see a guy in my drive with a truck that comes with $600/month payments, I don't see "professional" -- I see a guy who likes shiny trucks and wants ME to pay for it .

In fact, I think if he shows up again, I'm gonna ask him what size he wears, so I can order him a new skirt.

POINT IS:  What is it that keeps you from being "able to afford" to work for less?  

After bad-mouthing the immigrant, the government, and the young -- are we ourselves guilty of a bit of "entitlement"?  I mean, everybody loves to point at someone else, but I'm already seeing people who go on about saving money and saving the planet now hanging Christmas lights and decorations.  No doubt they will add the cost of these as "overhead" and add it to the cost of their goods ....

Just an example of cost - a simple 'pancake' style holster.  Pattern available free on my site for a simple Glock 43 holster (download any time you like).  That pattern will require a little over 1/2 of a square foot of leather.  THE BEST leather for teh job is sold at about $10/foot (after shipping charges - delivered).  Some waste is expected even in a good hide -- nowhere near 50%, but lets use that for this example.  So, call it a FULL square foot.  There's $10.  Throw in a dab of glue and a couple feet of thread, and you have a whopping $11.50

Now, don't line up to tell me about all the "legitimate" expenses you can think of to add on.  In case the new guy doesn't know, I have an idea what that requires   The question is rhetorical -- ask YOURSELF if you are doing what you don't think others should do ....

Because I have kids in school, I meet other people with kids (whether I want to or not).  In the last couple of years, I have met several DOZEN people who do not work.. some of them NEVER have, and do not intend to.  I've heard them complaining that the 'welfare check' was late.  One was absolutely livid when finding out that she was going to have to pay a portion of her own rent herself (she's not paying it actually, the check she gets from tax payers will just be reduced a little, but she sees the that as the same thing).  And these people are not immigrants, politicians, or youth.

[TinkerTailor]

11 hours ago, bikermutt07 said:

Now to my real point. You can't compete with "skilled" labor prices of illegal aliens. Why? Because they all live together. They will have 3-5 families living in one rent house splitting bills and all working at the same place. I have measured houses for flooring for landlords before. I was led to each bedroom where a different keyed padlock was removed so I could measure.

An American has his own 4 bedroom house, 2 cars and owns the rental house the immigrants are living in. He bought the house just to rent it to them. He bought it with a mortgage and won't actually own it for 25 more years. He used his other  already financed house as collateral to buy it, along with his boat, and dirtbike. Miss a payment and the cookie crumbles. You cant pay for these toys on a construction salary. The only way to get this stuff and actually own it is to sink your money into starting your own business, work hard for 20 years, put away the money in the bank, refrain from toys and extra bedrooms you don't need. When you have that 25 grand in the bank, get a new car. Or just sign up for another credit card.

The immigrant is living within his means. He has what he can afford, not what he can finance. More americans need to learn how to do this.

In any case, how someone lives at home has no bearing on the work they do.

Now the fact that the project managers are willing to accept sub par work is the reason the immigrants do it cheap. The reason the project manager is willing to accept it is the end consumer just wants it done cheaper. If the standards of the consumer went up, the expectation of quality will go back up the chain and the immigrants will do better work. They are maximizing their output. If sub-standard is the standard, why do better?

 

[cdthayer]

Before we get too far away from the original thread label of "Make America Great Again" and the leather trade, I have a question for the production people (I’m not in production, just repair and mending).

I read an article the other day that suggested that the Baby Boomer retirees are causing the luxury item industry to branch out into travel and amenities.  It seems that the current retirees aren’t spending as much of their money to buy items, but more for services these days.  If so, I’ve wondered if the custom leathercraft community has seen a real decline in “retirement spending” for their high quality leather items?

On a side note, I had a police officer come into the shop the other day to get some minor repairs done to his duty rig, and I remember commenting to him at the time that there wasn’t one bit of leather on the entire rig.  Everything that used to be leather on a rig was a man-made material of one kind or another on his.  He said it’s what officers are mostly using now.  The increased non-use of leather for traditional applications has got to be hurting the leather industry.

CD in Oklahoma

 

[JLSleather]

2 minutes ago, cdthayer said:

He said it’s what officers are mostly using now.  The increased non-use of leather for traditional applications has got to be hurting the leather industry.

Neat and trim is good, and cops are often expected to look "presentable" (pay no attention to the big belly and the disillusioned scowl  ).

This is something of a reflection on quality of workmanship, and one I agree with.  Personally, I would rather wear a clean, good looking WEB belt than an ugly, poorly done leather one (especially when the ugly is priced 10-15 times the pretty).

 

[TinkerTailor]

18 hours ago, MADMAX22 said:

The problem stems from the other half, ones that come up here to setup grow areas and meth houses in the mountains or mule the drugs up here

While it does have a small bearing on this issue, I ask you "Who bought the drugs and stuffed them up their noses?" American Citizens. People gonna get their blow, one way or another. Washington, Oregon, Colorado and Cali are FULL of white american citizens growing weed...and not paying tax on the income... It has long been proven that prohibition does not work. Regulation, rehabilitation and a better mental health system do help.

The war on drugs and its success/failure is a whole other topic, only loosely related to this issue, and totally not related to leather so I think we should leave it for another thread/forum. I'll gladly discuss, just not here.

[TinkerTailor]

8 minutes ago, JLSleather said:

Neat and trim is good, and cops are often expected to look "presentable" (pay no attention to the big belly and the disillusioned scowl  ).

This is something of a reflection on quality of workmanship, and one I agree with.  Personally, I would rather wear a clean, good looking WEB belt than an ugly, poorly done leather one (especially when the ugly is priced 10-15 times the pretty).

 

It also has a bit to do with the fact that the plastic tactical stuff is so damn innovative. Super-customization. This holster can be mounted hip/thigh/chest/forehead whatever, as long as you have all of your gear from acme defense systems......Those sliding cam lock buckles that don't work good with leather are great as well. Not enough uniformity in the leather world plays into this. In webbing, 1" is 1"....In leather, straps will vary more both due to cutter error as well as stretch

Plus, your daily duty belt can transform into full judge dredd mode just by clipping on the corset and garters kit......179.95

[JLSleather]

21 minutes ago, TinkerTailor said:

plastic tactical stuff is so damn innovative. Super-customization.

Yep, convertible is good.  Attachments are good.  Any time I can use one thing for multiple purposes, that's good.

Sometimes, leather people are not the most creative batch.  

Take a piece of leather like everybody else, use the same pattern as everybody else, and call it "custom" (or, the truly gifted call it "kustom") and then expect people to pay a mint for it.  

I know one in particular, ALL his stuff looks about the same.and when another guy made something "kinda like it" he asked that people don't copy his trademarked "design".  I advised guy #2 to go on about his business, as long as you aren't using Thing 1's logo, tell him to go back to his own yard   Might have been amusing, but Thing1's work looks like it was made by a blacksmith

 

 

[cdthayer]

We haven’t heard from the American sewing machine sellers that are selling machines made somewhere other than in the USA.  Is there much concern that possible Trump changes in Trade Agreements and his tariff comments might make things rough on sewing machine sales?

CD in Oklahoma

 

[TinkerTailor]

15 minutes ago, JLSleather said:

I know one in particular, ALL his stuff looks about the same.and when another guy made something "kinda like it" he asked that people don't copy his trademarked "design".  I advised guy #2 to go on about his business, as long as you aren't using Thing 1's logo, tell him to go back to his own yard   Might have been amusing, but Thing1's work looks like it was made by a blacksmith

Trademarks and patents.....I can prove that trademark and patent law as it has evolved in the United States and Canada has taken away the rights of the common man to do as he wills on his land and with his property, whether that property is physical or intellectual. It took 6 months of research which I managed to trim down into a pretty concise 11 page paper.....I'm thinking of editing out the old real name and posting the pdf here. It is a pretty technical paper, and assumes the reader has a basic knowledge of political science theory. In summary, it examines the history and origins of patent law in the United States (Canada followed the US model until the 80's) and the changes that were made over time in the effort to balance the interests of the individual/company that originated the design to profit from their ideas, with the interests of science wanting to use the ideas unrestricted as a stepping stone to further discovery. It then goes into the landmark cases in the 1980s in which large companies fought and won the right to patent living things such as canola strains. This lead to corporations suing farmers for their farms and winning because trademarked genetic material was found on their land. Genetic material that likely flew in on the wind as seeds or pollen from neighboring fields where the material was being grown. Canola can blow for miles.

I'm going to make it really simple here:

"We sold our souls for rock and roll."

Intellectual property rights as they sit need to be changed. Period.The whole deck is stacked in the interest of big business. If they want your Intellectual Property, they will get it.

[MADMAX22]

Agree with your response above tinker but like I was saying its not all happy times with the immigration issue. Dispite what some like to believe they arent all hard working decent people. Anyhow on topic I am curious how starting any production company works in the US now. We the american people are already thought of as having endless income which is reflected in various premiums we pay (goods, insurance, medication, health care .....) and we are actually required to obey the OSHA laws and EPA self appointed "laws" and "regulations" and probably a ton of other stuff that is required by a company started production here. 

So looking at starting a tannery for leather would require huge hurtles to overcome ecspecially something related to any chrome tanning and probably veg tanning as well. I guess a person starting out with enough money and time could eventually make it happen. Curious if it would be the same as the old saying in the aviation industry " How do you make a million dollars in aviation? Start with 2 million."

As mentioned its a big mess directed at making large corporations money, and the world trade organization which HRC set up with expansive powers to do what they want are all going to have to be overcome. I mean when companys can send motorcycle frames all the way to china, get them welded up, and ship them back cheaper then paying a decent wage to welders over here who can do a much better job, how do you compete with that. Pay a experienced welder $8 an hour ? 

 

[Big Sioux Saddlery]

4 hours ago, JLSleather said:

I think some folks get confused about what they "can't afford" to work for.  I got a guy - used to be my buddy, but now became quite proud of what he owns, which is strange since any money he has was gained by exploiting teh work of these "illegal" people.

Anyway, he was quite proud to show me his brand new king-cab truck, with all teh options.  Had a long pretty story to go with it, about how if you're a contractor, you have to look professional - and driving a 'nice' truck makes you look professional.  

I told him when I see a guy in my drive with a truck that comes with $600/month payments, I don't see "professional" -- I see a guy who likes shiny trucks and wants ME to pay for it .

In fact, I think if he shows up again, I'm gonna ask him what size he wears, so I can order him a new skirt.

POINT IS:  What is it that keeps you from being "able to afford" to work for less?  

After bad-mouthing the immigrant, the government, and the young -- are we ourselves guilty of a bit of "entitlement"?  I mean, everybody loves to point at someone else, but I'm already seeing people who go on about saving money and saving the planet now hanging Christmas lights and decorations.  No doubt they will add the cost of these as "overhead" and add it to the cost of their goods ....

Just an example of cost - a simple 'pancake' style holster.  Pattern available free on my site for a simple Glock 43 holster (download any time you like).  That pattern will require a little over 1/2 of a square foot of leather.  THE BEST leather for teh job is sold at about $10/foot (after shipping charges - delivered).  Some waste is expected even in a good hide -- nowhere near 50%, but lets use that for this example.  So, call it a FULL square foot.  There's $10.  Throw in a dab of glue and a couple feet of thread, and you have a whopping $11.50

Now, don't line up to tell me about all the "legitimate" expenses you can think of to add on.  In case the new guy doesn't know, I have an idea what that requires   The question is rhetorical -- ask YOURSELF if you are doing what you don't think others should do ....

Because I have kids in school, I meet other people with kids (whether I want to or not).  In the last couple of years, I have met several DOZEN people who do not work.. some of them NEVER have, and do not intend to.  I've heard them complaining that the 'welfare check' was late.  One was absolutely livid when finding out that she was going to have to pay a portion of her own rent herself (she's not paying it actually, the check she gets from tax payers will just be reduced a little, but she sees the that as the same thing).  And these people are not immigrants, politicians, or youth.

Well, I guaran-fricking-tee you I can't live on what an Amishman does. Lol   For one,  because I have insurance premiums, as much as I hate them.  And I do have to have a vehicle.  I don't have time to sew my own clothes or my kid's, because I'm too busy making a living. (No spouse here with a good income, in fact no spouse at all, and just the way I like it).  My "newest vehicle is a 2002 Chevy S10, that I just bought last May. My "second" vehicle I bought new in 1999, has 216,000 miles on it, is getting to be a pile of rust,  and will likely be the one and only new vehicle I'm ever able to buy.  I don't spend much on myself. Id be willing to bet money that I live poorer than any of my customers, and probably poorer than most of the people reading this. I have NEVER had cable TV, or satellite or whatever they call it.  I grow as much of my own food as possible and cook our meals from raw ingredients.  I do have internet, obviously, but only because I need it for the business and it's pretty much required now if you have a kid in school.  I wear clothes for work that are mostly hand-me-downs. And I could go on, but I'm sure you get the picture.  I'm not bitching, because I'd rather live the way I live and do what I love than to be a slave to some A-hole that wants to retire in their 40's. (Yes, I really did work for that person)  BUT I do live about as cheap as anyone can live and still have running water and electricity.  And BTW, I DO know 2 different people (not Amish) that live without running water.  No kidding, in the year 2016, neither of these people have running water in their house. 

 

[bikermutt07]

If sub-standard is the standard, why do better?

Then perhaps we should just quit playing with overpriced leather products and give China their do props for satisfying the consumer's needs.

[JLSleather]

1 hour ago, Big Sioux Saddlery said:

Well, I guaran-fricking-tee you I can't live on what an Amishman does.

Yer funny

I'm a simple guy, too.  Smart dog, truck what runs, and a decent fishin' rod, and a guy got what he needs.  

The wench wife not so much.  Spoiled brat from birth, basically.  I love garden fresh veggies, but I aint allowed to til up 'her' lawn  She sold my truck AND my Suburban, gave me a '07 van "for the mileage".  This, of course, freed her up to buy the new car ...

Oh, well --- the van works, my 7.5 foot fishin' rod fits in there without a bow in it, and there's walleye in teh river not more than half a mile from here .... 

End result, ther's some "wiggle room" in the pricing around here.  I once sold a fully tooled and lined belt for $8, just cuz somebody told me I couldn't.  And a couple incidents that cost me some money and some hours.  Wouldn't wanna make a habit of that, though.

[MADMAX22]

History is a funny thing. Hopefully we arent in the same point in time as some other well known countries were. 

 

[Big Sioux Saddlery]

1 hour ago, JLSleather said:

The wench wife not so much.  Spoiled brat from birth, basically.  I love garden fresh veggies, but I aint allowed to til up 'her' lawn  She sold my truck AND my Suburban, gave me a '07 van "for the mileage".  This, of course, freed her up to buy the new car ...

And THAT, my friend, is yet another reason why I choose to remain single:-)   My money is my money, my truck is my truck, if I screw up it's my own fault, and NOBODY is spending my hard earned  money to buy stupid shit that I don't approve of while bills go unpaid. Been there, done that, never doing it again. And he STILL asks to borrow money from me.

[cdthayer]

1 hour ago, JLSleather said:

ther's some "wiggle room" in the pricing around here

A motorcycle-riding acquaintance of mine had brought me some sewing business from time to time, sewing embroidered patches on his vest, repairing a side seam in his chaps, and one thing and another.  One day he brought in a pair of slip-on work boots that both had the back side ripped open right above the heel (a crease had finally failed in old fatigued and rotting leather when he used his bootjack to pull them off).  He just wanted me to overlap the rip and sew it back together to get just a little bit more use out of his boots.  I could do that on my boot patcher.  He was razing me about not charging him more than the boots were worth.  I didn’t think that the boots were worth very much, but understood him wanting to get by for a payday or two until he could buy a new pair.  I think my shop labor rate at the time was $18/hour for sewing repairs.  So, in an effort to avoid insulting him, I told him to just pay me what he thought my sewing was worth to him.  He paid me a dollar a boot and went on his way.  I didn’t say a word.

It was a fairly long while before he brought anything in for me to work on after that, and then one day he dropped off one of his motorcycle semi-rigid saddle bags at the shop to have sewn back together where some stitching had failed.  To make a long story short, it took me the longest time to decide the best way to repair that saddle bag, and I didn’t ask him how much he thought it was worth to him.  I already knew the answer to that, so I charged him what it was worth to me for my careful planning and excellent sewing services.  He paid it, and didn’t say a word.

CD in Oklahoma

 

[LumpenDoodle2]

10 hours ago, MADMAX22 said:

History is a funny thing. Hopefully we arent in the same point in time as some other well known countries were. 

 

I remember a quote from an historian, "The Roman Empire didn't fall, it just moved".

[cdthayer]

On 11/10/2016 at 5:30 PM, TinkerTailor said:

Also, I think we need to keep the last 100 years of US foreign policy and the problems and solutions created out of this conversation.  The US is not going to get great by messing with other countries. They need to clean up their own house before looking at the neighbours.This is a whole additional topic.

I’m thinking that you have said that your country, Canada, has a VAT tax.  It also seems to come up from time to time in other threads talking about folks in other countries than the United States when talking about buying sewing machine parts and other things from the US.

How is a VAT tax different from a tariff?

CD on Oklahoma

 

[Sheilajeanne]

It's called a 'sales tax' here in Canada. EVERYONE pays it when they buy something in a store or online - the clerk doesn't ask to see your passport!   

A tariff is only paid on goods that are crossing the border for sale.

Edit: wow, this is an old thread!

Edited July 8, 2021 by Sheilajeanne

[chrisash]

The things that make a Great Country is the people and who they elect as there government, none of which will ever be perfect, but if the majority are fair and just they may succeed

 

[Sheilajeanne]

One thing I like about the area I live in is that people will go out of their way to support local businesses and buy local. I'm in a very small town, which has ONE restaurant. It's been closed for most of the last year for in-person dining due to COVID. But it is doing very well with takeout, and sometimes even sells out its most popular daily specials! Of course, the food IS very good, and portions are very generous. They know how to keep their customers happy. There's a large town just 15 minutes away where local people could buy their food instead, but they know if they do that, the restaurant will have to close its doors.

One of the best things I ever saw in the local WalMart was this:  it was the height of strawberry season here, and the store I usually shop at (FreshCo) was sold out. I reluctantly went to WalMart, but all I could find were berries grown in the U.S.A. As I was making strawberry shortcake for company, and HAD to have berries, I reluctantly picked up a pint.

THEN I got to the end of the aisle, the part that was at right angles to the main aisle, and there was another cooler with the Ontario berries in it!  Yes, they were more expensive, but I didn't care! I took the U.S. berries out of my cart, left them there, and grabbed the local ones!

What really warmed my heart was I could see a number of other people had done the SAME thing!

The main local industry in this area, besides the Honda plant and other manufacturers that support it is agriculture. Local farmers support other local farmers!! 

Edited July 8, 2021 by Sheilajeanne

[Squid61]

All very interesting.  Two points though; someone is going to build "it" because someone wants "it", look around your houses and garages and see how much stuff you have accumulated from cheap sources (many our sworn enemies) before you point fingers. 

Here in the USA we pay people more than minimum wage to not work, we destroy livestock and cattle if we can't get a high enough price, we raise corn to burn in cars even though it's 15% less efficient than gas and much more expensive, we block oil and gas production forcing us to rely on our sworn enemies for their oil and gas, we're even so stupid as to have all our medicines produced by our sworn enemies and we keep electing self-serving morons to "lead" us!

[Rahere]

I am a historian, on the edge of the Warburg Institute, the world's leading research establishment into the Renaissance,  because I spotted something that had been missed.

Sometimes history's a game of billiards. The Han Chinese get about as pissed off with the Goths as the modern Chinese are with the Uighurs, and instead of genocide, kicked them out. Socially disrupted, they broke apart as a tribe into hardcore goths, Eastern Goths (Ostrogoths) and Western Goths (Visigoths). The latter moved too fast for Rome, but were culturally accretive, as they had little of their own other than sourdough and yoghurt. Accidentally demolishing the Western Roman Empire by destroying its civil administration when the sacked the place in 425CE, they eventually settled as the Catalans, and still cause problems of a distinct tribal identity in Spain and France.

That left the Eastern Roman Empire, and a West which wasn't as anarchic as thought 50 years ago. Strong leaders developed family identities, and found themselves repeatedly challenged by nomadic incursions. A major one was the rise of Islam, taking over Spain and threatening central France, which led to the Crusades: the Church was pretty good at eugenics. However, in 1348 a pandemic arose which devastated the population, weakening its economy to the point where plague and a power struggle in France destroyed the economy. Self-help created a new middle class, printing destroyed the authority of the Church, but along the way, it fought back. The Council of Constance allowed new research to replace the old mixture of celtic and christian creed, creating the Protestantism you know in America. They attempted to distract Western Europe by taking on the Ottoman Turks in a projected Crusade to defend Holy Roman Empire lands along the Danube, but the oddest of things threw the plan off course. The Papacy had been reduced to a French puppet in Avignon, Rome was a ghost town, but not everyone accepted French Valois writ: they made their own Popes. The sort-out replaced all the rivals with someone expected to snuff it quickly, which didn't work because the nuns caring for him identified lactose intolerance, switched him to goat's milk, and he lived long enough for the plans to come unstuck. The Valous recovered from Agincourt, and instead of trooping merrily off to the Carpathians never to be seen again (this was the age of Vlad Drakul), they revived the old punch-up around Orléans. That left the Lombard finance pissed off, so they took control of the Church (the Medici and Borgia Popes) who in turn annoyed the Northern European freethinkers. That spun the wilder extremists off to Plymouth Rock, while alchemical breakthroughs in Brussels led to gold fever in monarchy, and modern Chemistry (and if you dob't velieve me, read up on Jan van Helmont's 1618 breakthrough experiment. The UK was fastest in putting monarchy back in its box, and thus we have modern 

So when you talk of local view, you do exactly what Europe did in the 1430s, you take your eye off the wifer picture. Both are necessary. If you can thrive locally everywhere, you create a rising tide which floats all boats. Just control the evil "geniuses" who aren't, and want the whole shebang for themselves. 

[Sheilajeanne]

Rahere, I can sort of follow what you're saying, but autocorrect has really done a number on your post. Suggest you read it over and fix it before the edit window expires!

3 hours ago, Rahere said:

take your eye off the wifer picture = um, yeah...

The Council of Constance  - you mean Constantinople, the Council of Nicea, in 325 A.D.

The Valous recovered - who??  And who was this that had lactose intolerance?

That spun the wilder extremists off to Plymouth Rock, while alchemical breakthroughs in Brussels led to gold fever in monarchy, and modern Chemistry (and if you dob't velieve me, read up on Jan van Helmont's 1618 breakthrough experiment. The UK was fastest in putting monarchy back in its box, and thus we have modern   - this all needs some major editing to make sense!

 

 

 

[Rahere]

That's the thing about packing 600 years of history into a paragraph. Valois. The Council of Constance was a premeditated European Council convened by the Church between 1414-18 to sort out the new society: the Papacy was no longer a political puppet, but the moral authority, which was soon perverted. Agincourt happened in the middle of it, destroying French feudalist authority. The lactose-intolerant Pope Martin V was a stop-gap sop to the traditionalists, allowing a temporary return to how things were before charging off down a new path, where Popes weren't elected from a cosy clique of Roman famiglias: his successor Eugenius IV broke the Petrine line, as he was Venetian, therefore Marcine, and a Windesheim man into the bargain. The Lombard take-over which followed lost the support of Northern Europe, with Luther and Erasmus - both Windesheim men - leading a new Enlightenment which turned into Calvinist Puritanism, while secular power became increasingly dogmatic, leaving the Pilgrim Fathers no real choice but to flee into exile. It's much more complicated than that, if course, but essentially James I's Scottish Catholics were intolerable to them, and vice versa.

A similar thing had been happening in the Low Countries. The Dutch revolt threatened Brussels, and Felipe II thought he'd succeeded in near-enough bankrupting the Flemish, until they had a breakthrough in gold production. There's no doubt about it, I've seen the receipt in the French Regional Archives in Lille: someone produced 40 000 mountons d'or! It forced the King's hand, so he had those responsible executed (the Counts of Hoornes and Egmont) for heresy and tried to go into production for himself; Prof René Taylor's Magia y Arquitectura (Siruela edition: the English translation misses the key appendices) cites his correspondence on the subject, repurposing the Escorial as the Third Temple of Solomon, with a decidedly alchemical orientation. The bloke responsible fled, and only resurfaces long afterwards, in 1618: he's destitute, but is soon back in funds, and does a demo before van Helmont: read up on that 1618 experiment, it's the birth of empirical observation. That the alchemist could only work in Brussels explains why the furore which swept Europe (Elizabeth I and John Deee, Rudolph II and the Prague experiments) got nowhere: there was key kit in Brussels. I've reluctantly had to accept the History of Science position that alquimia may have had something to it after seeing with my own eyes a bunch of Royal Arch masons working for London's top gold refiners break through in medical practice: I think I've described the Platinol/Cisplatin history, haven't I?  The Philosopher's Stone, catalytic platinum.

This is the common ground of the Royal Society: Newton wrote twice as much on it as he did on physics. It's why he became mixed up in the Royal Mint. Thus far, I can see how you transmute an atom of Hg (AW80) into Au (AW 79), you strip the electron shells away and add an anti-proton. Fine now, but in 1568? The two processes of Alchemy give a hint: Wet Path used conventional wood-firing for a year (Felipe jests that he has a forest needing clearing!) whereas the new Dry Path, just a month. The Law of Conservation of Energy implies the latter process would be twelve times as hot as a wood fire, which is in the 200-300°C bracket: 3000°C is a plasma temperature, needed to strip the electron shells. I'm now tinkering with Heisenberg determinism to see if the philosophic side of the corpus could supply the quark package needed. I know exactly what the power source was, the only source of electric power before Faraday. I'll leave you to puzzle that one out, it explains why chest capacitors date back that far.