Leather sewing machine

[Cliff Fendley]

When doing the knife sheaths like I'm speaking you don't have that taper. It does taper in thickness from three layers of 8-9 oz up to 5 layers but even starting out on the five layers it can give you problems. It works fine if you put 5 layers of scrap in the machine without gluing them but glue it all up with 5 layers of stiff leather and it will lift the workpiece if the presser foot is not cranked down tight.

Changing to an S needle and using different thread solved most of my problems but still required running the presser foot pressure heavier than normal when sewing this heavy material.

[Red Cent]

OK. I have searched and searched and I cannot find anything on sewing leather with a machine. I did run across a decent tutorial on making a holster.
http://leatherworker.net/SimmonsHolster.pdf

I am sure the machine will come with instructions but isn't there any DVDs I can get now? I love to read but not instruction manuals. My wife is a software guru and actually reads and understands the stuff.
SHOW ME!!!

[Cliff Fendley]

Get John Bianci holster video. It shows him sewing things on a machine.

[Slowhand Bob]

Thumbs up on the Bianchi video for any aspiring holster maker.  Also the Dusty Johnson video showed small samples of sewing with the BOSS and Aero machines, from before the fall out.  There is also a whole lots of stuff scattered around on thet YouTube site showing machine stitching leather.  There was one book out there that might have actually been titled 'Sewing Leather' (not the Stohlman book) that supposedly covered a bit on machines also but was entirely garment based.

Fer a short spell Simmons was doing the 'How-To'  leather scene in a real big way.  He quickly came out with a couple of books and a video that were all very interesting and educational, often with a different perspective.  He had a couple of really good techniques but many of those techniques were a bit time consuming and better suited to the new or hobby leather crafter.  He also had some really great leather patterns out on the market also but I think he might have been closely tied into HideCrafters and when they started to fail he may have gotten pulled down also??  I would definitely recommend trying to locate some of his material to study.  He used to pop in here on rare occasions but I have not heard from him in a long time now??

[Red Cent]

i consider my self pretty high on the 'mechanically inclined" scale. My concerns is my ignorance in how to glue, where to glue, when to glue. I also am concerned about the sewing of liners that are to be glued to the heavier material. When, how, and where. I understand the waste attributed to experimentation. I simply want to pick those brains that will allow me to do so.

Some of the material I have read differ in their approach to gluing the liner flat and then sewing or gluing the center, folding, and then finish the gluing process. It occurs to me that since the Cobra 4 is not a flat bed I should not be concerned.

Actually, I will be more of A Gordon W. Davis holster maker and maybe an Andy Anderson type creator. Developing these holsters is a challenge to go further in holster development. As a type "A" personality, I will always be searching for the best way.

i will search for the DVD.

[Slowhand Bob]

Red Cent, I will give you some information sources and my interpretation as to their value, ymmv.  As always, specific questions asked here will normally get good info or a place to seek it.  As a teaching aid I have come to much prefer videos over written material and this will reflect in my recommendations.  Glueing liners is as good an example of the superiority of seeing over reading as I could imagine.  This will just cover your question on glueing and how well I think the source material covers that one aspect.

There are two primary ways to glue liners into holsters and etc, flat glueing  and glueing in stages that work around the major folds in the project.  Flat gluing needs little explanation as you simply cut the holster out and while it is laying flat on the table you glue on a slightly oversize piece of leather for the liner.  After the glue has had time to set you can trim it to size, sew it and then fold.  The complaint on this method is that it causes leather wrinkling at the inner folds.  The other method requires a fair bit more work, time and learned skill, I would almost liken it to juggling cause two hands are kept busy performing two different tasks.  I will not even attempt to try and describe the process. 

Off hand I think the two best video sources for seeing each of these performed are the Bianchi tapes for flat glueing while  Holster Making,  by George Hurst, does a good description on lining while pre-folding a holster.  I am seeing Bianchi videos on DVD with different titles and do not know if these are the same as the original videos released on tape and containing the same info?  It is possible that Tandy might carry the holster making video by George Hurst but I think Hydecrafters, out your way, might have gone under and I believe the video was made while he was there??  Perhaps others can help more with locating these?           

[Red Cent]

looking up some of the names ran me across an old 2011 post of yours. Also ran across this.

http://www.tandyleatherfactory.com/en-usd/Leathercraft-Videos.aspx?tcd=9M11TEM-H-TC

Site to file away.
Gotta go order some CDs. Hurst and Bianchi to start.