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I'd be very interested in hearing more about tanning salmon skin in particular. Could I interest you in starting a thread in the DIY & Traditional Crafts about it?

The salmon leather is incredible - I just need to come up with an excuse, um, application for it. Ostrich I'd want for inlays.

Given you're apparently in Portsmouth at the moment, there are a few of us nearby. Could probably organise some sort of impromptu show & tell on kit & books, for example.

Ah, I'll bring you some goodies at the weekend... ;)

If you're still looking for reindeer leather, http://www.dick.biz/ sell it (Materials/Leather) - albeit by the whole hide and significantly darker than that. Beginning to wish I hadn't looked now - they've also got ostrich in...

Yup, exactly the same thing - except in the dye you're using iron acetate, which can soak into the leather more evenly. Other than oxalic acid, there's really nothing going to shift that that I know of!

The black is iron tannate, formed by the reaction of the steel & the tannin in the leather - and it is deep in the leather. Oxalic acid might remove some of it, but I wouldn't guarantee it. Best bet is to dye the entire thing black. There is an old black dye that is sometimes used made up...

Possibly daft question - how close is parking to the barn?

"Problem" is - and you've pretty much hit the nail on the head - this group tend to be pretty can-do about making things (and learning about making things) and it is easy to get carried away on acquiring the skillset, without factoring in the cost of the time to make the item... We're also...

Ditto. Oh, and the thread drags horrendously on the needles. Guess I just scuppered any chance of selling mine! :D The Wild Rose stitching pony is a hinged beasty; very effective, but I've come to prefer a traditional clam now. Just as well, really - I've got 3 of them now.

If you're paying top whack for veg tan tooling leather and it comes dried out to that extent, I'd send it back.

Probably not, due to the Christmas moot. I don't know the Chase Inn, could be interesting?

I've not tried using Steelbrite (or Steelcut, another Abramax compound) on strops, but I do use Tripoli on some - and it is just a case of scribbling the Tripoli onto the leather to give moderately even coverage. Rouge works - I've got both powder and block; chromium oxide powder works really...

More importantly, you need to brew beer first to make it :)

Tues/Weds/Thurs are not too bad for me generally - and it's a cat, BTW!

I think the Prince of Wales is now under new landlords... :D

I'd have assumed that was one of the Flexcut carvers from the photo, but I'm not entirely sure.

IIRC, Nomad Bushcraft were seeling some at the Wilderness Gathering.

Missed this the first time round... For longish objects (like blades), I've got a similar forge - albeit side draft - with deep notches cut out of the front & back, so I can build a good bed of fuel over a trench for the beasty. Remember that in supposedly smelling gas, you aren't smelling...

When they start curling over the front of the sandals, that might be a hint? :D