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12 hours ago, Mattsbagger said:

Resoline and mop and glo are basiclly the same thing.Acrylic finish.Still cut it 50/50

Plus...I'm kinda curious to see how a lemon-scented Lady-Smith or Ruger LCP holster turns out :lol:

Have a great day!

Chris

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Unfortunately, there are a few instances of things that are pretty much leather only - edge creasers, bevelers, stamps, stitching chisels and irons, and a few others.  Even with those, you can sometimes find a creative substitute.

But fortunately there are also a LOT of tools and things that CAN cross over!  

Sharpening stones and strops don't much care what is sharpened on them - leather tools, straight razors, kitchen knives, woodworking tools - you name it.  (now that I've learned to sharpen leather tools, I have to warn the family when I've been at the kitchen knives so as not to scare them).

Cutting surfaces are more or less universal.  Self-healing cutting mats don't care what's cut on them.  While I wouldn't return them to kitchen use, a retired cutting board can be really useful.  The same goes for silicone cutting mats - they're really nice for gluing as the glue peels right off.  Retired silicone spatulas and basting brushes can be used for gluing as well and clean reasonably easily.

Hobby knives (X-Acto) have too many uses to count.  The usual #11 blade is a little too flimsy for leather IMHO, but the #2 scalpel blades work great.  Same knife handles either way.  Good for leather, wood, paper, fabric, even occasionally in the kitchen.  

For the most part, a ruler is a ruler is a ruler.  Same for a square and any number of layout tools.  I'm fond of combination squares, and have a few different sizes.  They do excellent double-duty as square AND ruler.  Being metal they are also excellent for guiding your knife as you cut.

Utility knives have all kinds of uses, and most everybody has a few.  Worth noting, however, disposable blades such as these and hobby knife blades are OK from the package but can be improved with some stropping!

More or less, mallets, mauls and hammers can cross over easily.  Same goes for chisels.

So there are a TON of possibilities.  

- Bill

 

 

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Posted

I use a Yoga  cork block to jab all my awls, needles and other sharp objects. Its pretty big 10x5x6

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Posted (edited)

Here I pay .05 for grocery bags, and I do it willingly. I use 'em for dog poop, dog hair,  regular garbage, etc, etc. and don't know what I'd do if I had to go to the reusable ones. Guess I'd be buying Glad Kitchen Catchers instead!  :(

Next time I need to replace my shower curtain, I am going to save a big piece of it for dyeing and gluing my leather work. Waxed paper just isn't big enough to cover everything, and if you use several sheets, dye can leak through the gaps if it spills.

Oh, and I have a ball of cheese wax from some Edam cheese that I use to wax thread ends when I'm sewing and they start to separate on me! Also works for waxing bow strings!

Edited by Sheilajeanne
Posted

Oh for dying I have a huge ⅜" plexiglass sheet from church. It was the type you put on the floor for a computer chair.

I set it up when I am dying or laminating the big stuff.

I'm not paying 80 bucks for a belt!!! It's a strip of leather. How hard could it be? 4 years and 3 grand later.... I have a belt I can finally live with.

Stitching is like gravy, it's only great if you make it every day.

From Texas but in Bossier City, Louisiana.

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an interesting side note? Shopping bags can be recycled as yarn....no, really! 

My wife sometimes makes things with them, It is surprisingly strong, I don't have any pictures of her stuff at the moment, but I grabbed a pic from Google for you to see.

5a9783a36cfd3_bagyarn.thumb.jpg.195350ecc504965023438a4ceb3fc836.jpg

 

But on the main topic here, I use a shooting range bag to keep my leather tools in (because I work on the go a lot of the time), and I love cereal boxes for pattern making, and my thread wax is a homemade blend of 70 percent beeswax and 30 percent pine pitch, it makes your fingers nice and tacky for gripping the needle, while still protecting the thread from the elements, may be even better than straight beeswax for that actually because the pitch gives it a higher melting point. 

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For glueing and dying swing over to the hospital. The bed roll paper they use works great! They usually change out the rolls once they are half way done and toss out the rest. If you can meet up with anyone, preferably a member of management, ask to take them off their hand. I have rolls of it out the house and never played a dime.

 

Also if you really need to you can use it as an extremely cheap tracing paper, but it will bunch up if not pulled tight enough and gets to wet from the leather.

Posted (edited)
18 hours ago, Jake907 said:

an interesting side note? Shopping bags can be recycled as yarn....no, really! 

My wife sometimes makes things with them, It is surprisingly strong, I don't have any pictures of her stuff at the moment, but I grabbed a pic from Google for you to see.

5a9783a36cfd3_bagyarn.thumb.jpg.195350ecc504965023438a4ceb3fc836.jpg

 

But on the main topic here, I use a shooting range bag to keep my leather tools in (because I work on the go a lot of the time), and I love cereal boxes for pattern making, and my thread wax is a homemade blend of 70 percent beeswax and 30 percent pine pitch, it makes your fingers nice and tacky for gripping the needle, while still protecting the thread from the elements, may be even better than straight beeswax for that actually because the pitch gives it a higher melting point. 

Potentially making one grocery bag out of many is pretty cool!

the pine pitch recipe is awesome!

PS Wow. now you've got me thinking. I remember climbing trees as a kid and that pine sap wouldn't wash off my hands I had to worry it off. Tough stuff.

 

Edited by Mjolnir
ps
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On 2/26/2018 at 5:01 PM, Sheilajeanne said:

i use a granite floor tile that I got for $9 bucks from Home Depot as my surface for tooling. Had it for going on 2 years now, and it has yet to crack or chip. And if it does, I can replace it numerous times for what a marble slab from Tandy would cost me! 

Bought 3 glass shot glasses from Wal Mart for mixing dyes. The clean up really well when I'm finished, and so far,  I've yet to knock them over, as the bottoms are nice and heavy! Before that I was using the disposable ones, and they were so light in weight I had to be REALLY careful not to knock them over.

I purchased a granite slab for $40 from a countertop builder. they had a remnant pile and cut it to size. 2 ft x 2ft x 1 inch thick. I love it. 

Posted
1 minute ago, Pirate305 said:

I purchased a granite slab for $40 from a countertop builder. they had a remnant pile and cut it to size. 2 ft x 2ft x 1 inch thick. I love it. 

I did the same thing because of this site. They had a Huge backyard full of scrap. They started cutting 1' 2's because of leatherworkers. $20 sq ft.

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