Quick tips (as we think of them)

Hard to tell from the shot, is yours one of the straight shaft bevelers or the bent shaft? I can comment better afterwards. :)
 
Bent.

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Keen-Edger ("Old #????) #2.

I think they cost a couple of bucks more than the straight shaft ones, but I have no idea if one is better than the other. I wouldn't be surprised if they were all made from melted Taiwanese tin foil (sorry, I can't help myself :D ), but so far it seems to hold a decent edge. I use it every day.
 
Tip of the day.

Get your marble/granite/whatever at a counter top company. I stopped in at my local business today and got a (roughly) 18x18 piece today.

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Thing is super heavy and flat. I had them cut good 90° edges. I don't know what it would have cost if I didn't insist on giving them a $20. Far better deal than buying a little piece in a box from the Evil Empire. Got to support the local economy to boot.

I may go back for a table top depending on how I end up arranging my shop. It would be nice to have a table half granite and half Hydroma.
 
My piece of marble came from a pizza parlor renovation.
I picked the biggest chunk of counter I could carry & when I came back with the hand truck for the rest, it was all gone.

One man's trash...
 
Strig buddy I question how durable those thinner counnter tops will be. I've broken one inchers before. Like forging, tooling is about mass under your tool. I've got a two incher out in the shop from the Empire. It works well. The wife has an 18" by 24" by 4" granite surface plate on her bench in the dining room. The difference between the two is unbelievable. They said it weighed 200 lbs but they lied. Its heavier than that. I know it took me and another big guy to move it. If I'm doing just a little tooling I do it on my stone out in the shop. If I've got a lot to do, I gather up my toys and go inside even though that is a PITA cause you always forget something and make another trip or two. Mass is key. You don't have to spend major $$$ either. You can get b and c grades of these surface plates. Do we really need one certified to be .000001 off of absolute flat? I'll tell you where your counter top would really shine is just as a bench top not so much a tooling stone. I really like to do a lot of work on a stone. I do most of my glueing, all of my edging, creasing and skiving on the stone. Lots of other things too so your stone would be a great work bench addition for all those tasks. Sure is purty too!
 
Strigamort said:
Bent.

Keen-Edger ("Old #????) #2.

I think they cost a couple of bucks more than the straight shaft ones, but I have no idea if one is better than the other. I wouldn't be surprised if they were all made from melted Taiwanese tin foil (sorry, I can't help myself :D ), but so far it seems to hold a decent edge. I use it every day.
Click to expand...
All mine are keen edge bevelers, one is pushing 20 and going well. The first bent ones had a bad channel, way too narrow, but some time with my jewlers files made it work fine. It sat for several years till I was turned on to the reprofile of sorts.

TLF's stuff may be considered trash to some, but I dont think so. You've just got to know how to sharpen or modify it to your taste. I've never found a tool yet that didn't need some work in one way or the other.

As far as the surfaces go, if you have a monuments maker (think cemetery head stones) They always have goof up stones and most are at least 4"- 6" thick. Its amazing how stable they are at that size. Bonus is you have a great story for visitors! :p

I've got a huge piece of lab table top ready for when I get time, Its like soapstone but stronger. Impacts on it are absorbed so well, but its so heavy its ridiculous. The table I make for it will have to be strong.
 
Tip of the day. For years I've used oxacalic acid (wood bleach) to clean up the oaccasional oops on a piece of leather. Mostly its me touching a cased piece of leather with less than angellicaly clean hands. My local supplier went out of business when I need to resuply of course. So I'm walking around Home Depot to see if they have it. They don't and when I ask I get a blank stare. But the next guy up the food chain says what about this. Its Behr Wood Cleaner. Its only $8 or $9 bucks a gallon so I buy it. Wow way better than the wood bleach and not as nasty. In efficiency I'd rate it 3 or 4 times better. Just a dab on a paper towel and wipe it on your offending piece of leather. Poof its gone. I finish with a water wipe down with another paper towel and wowza does this stuff work. Looked on the back and its got oxacalic acid in it but other stuff too. Get ya some. Used it this morning. Making a sheath with no tooling and as I'm slicking the leather, pow a spot right in the center of wear the knife will go. Now if this had been a tooled sheath no biggie motor on cause it was only the size of a pin head but this is going to be an oiled sheath with out any tooling. Little dab will do you and the spot is gone. I'm ocd enough with out this stuff I'd probably thorwn that sheath away and started over. Didn't have too.
 
Great stuff guys! We do have a shop in town that makes head stones. That's a great idea. I'll stop in and see what he has.

Dave, I'm sure you're right. It's gotta be better than mopping the bathroom floor and doing my tooling on the tile though. :o

Question. If the cemetery guy doesn't come through, I have an end table with a round top of granite. The thing is on its last leg and I considered taking the top and tooling on it, but it's about half the weight of the new piece. Would it be feasible to somehow glue them together to get better density? If so, how would you do it?

You're right, I love doing all of my work on the granite kitchen Island. I've tried tooling on it, but it's a bit bouncy feeling. Doesn't have that totally dead feeling that the floor does. Honestly, working on the floor isn't as bad as it probably sounds. Only thing I really dislike is the terrible ergonomics of the whole thing.

Btw, about a third of my "shop" is in my bedroom (upstairs) some of it is downstairs, and the dirty work gets done in the garage. I know all about forgetting that tool that I needed and forgot. :( I figure I burn plenty of calories with every sheath! Silver lining and all that. ;)

Edit- Dwayne, I's just kidding about the tin foil. I'm actually pretty happy with this tool now. The v gouge is pretty good too. I bought that one years ago, so I don't know if anything has changed, but if it hasn't, I'd have no problem recommending one. I almost bought a head knife there the other day. Had it on sale for $30 but I figured it wouldn't be better than the one I already have and it's the same size too.
 
Aargh!!!!!! Had a whole deal typed and the sock monster that lives in the dryer jumped out, ate it and then went back to the laundry room to eat more socks. I have a headstone out in the shop. Mine was never polished enough for tooling. It was for a Master Sgt from WW2 so major cool factor there. They screwed up the inscription so never finished it and I got it for free. I used it as an anvil for years and still have it even though I have an anvil now. If you are into the Brut de Forge look forging a knife on that hunk of granite will give you all the brut de forge a guy could wnat. So if you find one make sure its polished enough to use for tooling unless you're wanting brut de forge leather work. Try a poundo board under your new stone it will make it last longer. Sure has to be better than working on the floor for sure. But sometimes a guy has just got to lean over the saddle horn and go. Not sure on the laminating the stone layers. I'd think the impact would bust the glue loose wouldn't it?
 
I wonder what that poundo stuff is. I see that it comes on a roll, I bet it could be bought in its industrial form really inexpensively. Sort of like garolight(sp) is to micarta and natural industrial g10 becomes "ghost jade", cut into scale size pieces and sold for way more than if you just bought it from an industrial vendor. Maybe it's because I work in a factory with all kinds of rubber and plastics. I wish I could snag a big cut off of uhmw (ultra high molecular weight) plastic. I know it work wonderfully for cutting on.

Sorry, I'm getting off topic. That headstone sounds perfect for a beat up look. I know some guys take damp leather, wrap it in plastic and beat it on gravel. Lots of ways to skin that cat, but the headstone would be cool. I drove by the memorial stone maker a couple of hours ago while running errands. I slowed down but couldn't make myself stop. Bled a lot of money on a bunch of things over the last couple of days. Probably time to actually make some. ;)
 
So I was working on a pair of my USMC concho spur straps. They are a retirement gift from one Col to another. He'd requested I tool the receipiants call sign HOSS on them. Due to the shape of the spur strap the stamping had to be done at an angle. So I worked on the angle and spacing on the left strap first. Got it all lined up perfect and went ahead and stamped the letters. Then I started on the right strap. Got the angles and spacing just right again. On this one you have to fuss with it more to try and get it to be a mirror image of the other. Well I did. I got it to be an exact mirror image. So much so that the left strap says HOSS and the right strap said SSOH. Tip of the Day: English is read from left to right! Had to toss that one and start over, no fixing that puppy. Wasn't like it was my first rodeo or anything. I've probably made 4 or 5 hundred pairs of spur straps. Never done that before!
 
None the less, it WAS a perfect mirror image so you still get credit for perfection.;)

Paul
 
Uh yup. I don't know if I'm losing it or what but I keep making silly mistakes. Forgetting to put a d ring on the loop before sewing it, forgetting to put the Sam Browne on before gluing a top panel to the welt... Just total lack of concentration stuff. I pride myself enough to fix it properly, but yeah. Not sure what that's about. Maybe I've been getting too much radiation lately.

Dave, I picked up one of those Hide Crafter basket weave stamps today. Apparently they do a cheap line, and a better one. You ever seen that "Real Leather" brand at places like Hobby Lobby? Anyway, the stamps from them are HC's and say USA on em. They seem pretty nice in hand. It's a tiny one with a diamond center for little sheaths (or if a customer just likes the small pattern.

Um. That's not really a tip is it? I'm gonna go ahead and blame that on the radiation too. :D
 
Yup and its not tin foil they use...where do you think all the old beer cans go? Nope havn't seen those stamps. The wife just ordered some new BKs this morning. Should have em soon.
 
Tip of the day: English really does read from left to right.

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Also I think I finally got off the imgur struggle bus. Posted thse pics myself. Here's what they were suppose to look like.

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Those are slick. I really like the hardware. Where do you buy those conchos and buckles?

Congrats on learning to post pics too. The app is pretty good also. You can snap a pic on your phone and post it in a few seconds if you use Tapatalk as well. Hope to see lots of pics from you. You have way too much cool gear to not share pics of it. ;)
 
Thanks Strig buddy. I get almost all my hardware from Weaver. They have almost anything I'd ever use. The only thing I've found that I use that they don't cary are 1.25" stainless D rings. I don't use these a bunch and have found them other places (Teskeys and Springfield). If you can buy in quanity their prices become excellent. They are also the only USA supplier of the JWP buckles and I use those alot as does the wife in her purses.

The conchos we have made. We order challenge coins from a military supplier and have them droped shipped to a guy that makes them into conchos for us. We can get them for any branch of the service. We can also have the customer use his own unit or special challenge coins. They ship them to us and we get em to our guy. I've used them for spur straps, wild rag slides headstalls etc. I've put 7 of them on martingales before too, several times. Our guy can use any coin. Before the price of silver went wonky we were using and selling alot of old Mexican coins that he would make into conchos for us. This was very popular but its cost prohibitive now.
The spur straps have been the most popular of these for us and by far we do more USMC then any other branch. I mentioned it prior I think, this set is a retirement gift. We've been doing these Challenge Coin Spur Straps for probably 12 13 years now. We cover the shiping on these, just our way of saying thanks a little to these guys.
 
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Weaver, good deal. I've been buying my hardware from all over including local like Tractor Supply. The weight bearing dee's are obviously stronger than I'd ever need, but some that I have gotten have crappy plating (zinc galvanized or something). I've gotten some pretty nice buckles from ebay, but it would be nice to have a consolidated source.

I found a great 1" removable square dee from etsy. They are handbag hardware. They cost a few bucks each, but that's a small price to pay if you do a lot of danglers and occasionally forget to put a dee on the loop before sewing. :rolleyes: They are also quite nice for the customer. My danglers use a Chicago screw and can be removed but that still leaves the dee on the loop. This way they can remove the dee and leave the strap assembled. Credit Jason (Talfuchre) for that one.
 
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