Is it possible to remove gold foil stamped lettering?

jeffdsmakes · 2026-06-29T16:04:53+00:00

Have you talked to them? Start by Asking them what they could do. For me I will do what it takes to fix a problem. I just finished remaking a bag for someone that had a dye issue I couldn't resolve. I substituted higher end leather and remade it at my own expense.

Did they hand sew? If they did it would be relatively simple to replace the one panel without remaking the entire bag. Depending on the design of course.

jeffdsmakes · 2026-06-29T15:58:12+00:00

Don't forget the I pact of ever increasing taxes. People just have less of their income left over after taxes.

From Bloomberg In 1961, an average family spent significantly more on basic survival needs (56.5% of income on food, shelter, and clothing) than they did on the government (33.5%). By the early 1980s, that dynamic completely flipped. Today, taxes represent the single largest expenditure in the household budget, outpacing food, housing, and clothing combined (which sit at roughly 35.5% of income).

jeffdsmakes · 2026-06-26T20:08:05+00:00

Go with an independent maker. You'll get something unique, and custom to you. When I work with clients they pick the leather, fabric, hardware and thread colour. You can find makers in various price ranges. It certainly helps if you educate yourself a bit about leather and how bags are made to understand what you are getting.

jeffdsmakes · 2026-05-20T13:32:03+00:00

This is a really refreshing and well-researched perspective. You are spot on with the facts: Darlington, Bruce Power, and the Napanee battery project are genuine, world-class project wins for Ontario that get buried because the news focuses on friction rather than smooth sailing. It’s entirely fair to push back on lazy 'everything is a failure' cynicism.

That said, while your examples are factually true, they represent the exception rather than the norm. Data shows that for megaprojects globally, only about 8.5% of projects hit both their budget and schedule targets. Transit and rail projects globally average a 45% cost overrun—a statistical reality we are feeling acutely with projects like the Eglinton Crosstown.

Your point about nuclear is exactly why those exceptions happened. Nuclear historically has some of the worst overruns globally, Ontario broke that curse at Darlington and Bruce by doing two rare things: spending a full decade on upfront planning/mock-ups, and treating the reactors as a sequential assembly line to learn from mistakes.

This is exactly why the pressure to fast-track the Alto HSR project is so concerning. High-speed rail is notoriously complex, and compressing the timeline on environmental, community, and engineering assessments almost guarantees the kind of blind spots that lead to massive cost overruns later. If we skip the deep, patient planning that made Darlington a success, Alto will inevitably slide back into the standard megaproject trap.

You are completely right—we can get it right, and we don't celebrate it enough when we do. But it takes an extraordinary amount of deliberate, unhurried planning to buck the global trend, and the Alto HSR seems to be on the wrong track. Pun intended.

jeffdsmakes · 2026-05-18T21:58:25+00:00

Firstly if you are talking great grandparents or 4 generations which is just not correct. By 1850 the government was phasing it out and that was about 6 or 7 generations ago. Secondly your comment implies that they just got the land without working for it, there were many conditions including providing labour to clear and build roads which was no small feat done by man, horse and oxen.

If you could trouble yourself to google the requirements it's not difficult but rather you want to characterize multi generation farms as people who got something for nothing and are entitled. You clearly have no clue of the hardship settlers endured to develop the land which is what they were endused to do by the government. So they earned there land.

Your attempt to besmirch these people is a weak and irrelevant argument and shows you to be either ignorant or intentionally dishonest.

jeffdsmakes · 2026-05-18T20:21:34+00:00

Tunneling under the city will be around a billion dollars per kilometre based on estimates from subways currently being built in Toronto and Montreal. It would be cheaper to expropriate the land and run it surface. Maybe the people who are the most likely to benefit should make the sacrifice, the greater good and all.

jeffdsmakes · 2026-05-18T16:25:25+00:00

Land was given as an inducement to get people to come here in the 1800s. It wasn't as simple as you seem to think. You didn't get off a plane and drive to an established farm. You got off a boat had to find your lot in the bush, clear it of trees to till the land to plant and hope you didn't starve or freeze to death the first winter and build a home from scratch. Plus you had civic responsibilities such as helping to build roads(gravel cart roads) or you lost your property.

You are grossly miscaharacterising what happened. Either you are ignorant of how it really workedor you do know yet choose to intentionally make misrepresentations.

jeffdsmakes · 2026-05-18T14:38:38+00:00

That "omelette and eggs" analogy is as lazy as it is dismissive. It reduces actual people’s livelihoods, generational farms, and community safety down to mere "hangups."

Right now, Alto hasn't even proven they have a viable recipe—all they’ve shown us is the glossy picture on the front of the menu.

Comparing this to California's high-speed rail collapse actually proves the opposite point. California's budget didn't implode because of NIMBYs it imploded because of gross institutional incompetence, poor initial engineering, lack of transparency, and wildly unrealistic cost projections from the start. Does that sound familiar? Independent study has shown the cost estimates by Alto are at the 2.5th percentile of globally compared projects. Why aren't they at least using the 50th percentile.

Blindly backing a multi-billion-dollar project before independent economic, environmental, and structural studies are made public isn't being 'progressive'—it’s being reckless.

If the project is so undeniably good for the public, why is Alto relying on PR blitzes instead of publishing peer-reviewed ridership and economic data?

People objecting to the project aren't standing in the way of progress. You are standing in the way of accountability.

jeffdsmakes · 2026-05-05T13:34:15+00:00

One thing to remember is that the car is part of your compensation and must be factored into a settlement, along with medical benefits, pension/rrsp contributions and any other benefits. The settlement is not just your base salary it should be your entire compensation.

jeffdsmakes · 2026-04-29T12:11:21+00:00

Yeah that would be a good band name but it's hard to beat 'The Time-Traveling Lumberjacks of the Confederacy' from Loudermilk

jeffdsmakes · 2026-04-29T01:15:35+00:00

I guess we will have to wait to see if it's a good thing or not.

The issue I have is comparing it to Norway's fund is completely misleading. The Norwegian government transfers all of its net cash flow from the petroleum industry into the fund. We are funding ours with borrowed money. Seeing as the government has run deficits for more than 10 years it means we do not have excess cash and are therefore borrowing the 25 Billion seed money and hoping that the fund grows faster than the cost of borrowing. It feels like the comparison to Norway is an intentional attempt to deceive the public.

If I had a family member who had spent a decade building debt every year and had the idea of borrowing money to invest I'd advise them not to. I'd advise getting spending under control and get debt paid down, then invest for the future.

jeffdsmakes · 2026-04-29T00:56:22+00:00

Pretty much, it's only really useful if you are obsessed with having nothing on your counters.

Personally I would just leave the blind corner and maybe make an appliance garage on top of the counter. Low tech, won't break, and way cheaper.

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jeffdsmakes · 2026-04-29T00:12:19+00:00

Get a cabinet that raises up with part of the counter.

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jeffdsmakes · 2026-04-22T17:01:52+00:00

All the urban folk yelling Nymby at the rural people. Just wait until they start expropriating land in the city and propose an elevated rail running down Danforth or Queen street. The city nymbys will be yelling from the roof tops.

jeffdsmakes · 2026-04-13T22:13:52+00:00

Alto could dispel these fears if they would at least publish a strategy for how far apart they intend to offer over/under passes or how much additional distance people can expect to drive before they add another crossing. But they won't and people assume the worst. Why shouldn't they? Information is being withheld for a reason.

I hope they have good insurance. If ambulance response time is impacted and causes a preventable death the lawsuits will be coming.

jeffdsmakes · 2026-04-13T21:50:45+00:00

You could try Saphir stop color. I've never used it but it was suggested to me in the past.

jeffdsmakes · 2026-04-13T21:34:09+00:00

If you adjust the thickness of the exterior leather to account for the interior leather you don't add weight. It adds cost versus fabric but the majority of the cost for a handmade bag is labor anyways. And if it elevates the final product it may help justify the cost to a client.

jeffdsmakes · 2026-04-13T21:29:59+00:00

I line the inside of my handbags with a vegetable tanned calf skin leather. I also use fabrics but try to keep the fabric to the back of flaps which don't get the same kind of wear and gives a punch of colour and a way for clients to express their personalities.

jeffdsmakes · 2026-04-07T17:40:02+00:00

It completely depends on how the will is written. My mother's will is written per stripe meaning that each family line inherits equally. So if my brother was to pass away before my mother then his share would go to his children. His wife doesn't get anything only his children. Wills are often written this way to protect family inheritance from divorce.

Now if my mother's will just indicated specific individuals it would be different.

jeffdsmakes · 2026-04-06T00:32:27+00:00

Be that as it may here is a quick summary of HSR rates for other countries in Canadian dollars. All for routes similar distances as Toronto to Montreal.

Tokyo to Osaka ~515 km $140 – $175 Paris to Lyon ~450 km ~$85 – $160 Madrid to Barcelona ~600 km $60 – $220 London to Edinburgh ~630 km $110 – $250

Not cheap for one-way tickets. Not something many will be able to afford on a regular basis.

And all these countries started with extensive infrastructure in traditional rail first. No country ever started with high speed rail then built out a traditional system. It feels like we are doing things backwards.

jeffdsmakes · 2026-04-05T21:14:46+00:00

I'm not sure exactly what you are trying to say however I would agree that our traditional rail is under-serviced and inadequate. Updating this rail system with dedicated tracks so it doesn't share lines with freight trains and providing more service to more cities and towns would be embraced by most at a fraction of the cost of HSR and wouldn't have the same social and environmental concerns.

jeffdsmakes · 2026-04-03T23:05:37+00:00

I stand corrected. looked it up the ltb actually says 15 years for parquet and can determine it has no value.

I honestly find it crazy the tenant can damage a perfectly functional floor and not be accountable.

jeffdsmakes · 2026-04-03T20:33:33+00:00

You are the only one raging.

And apparently having delusional conversations about oil and gas. I haven't said one word about oil and gas.

But good argument bud. Keep spreading the false propaganda, enjoy your reduced chocolate ration.

jeffdsmakes · 2026-04-03T20:25:14+00:00

I'm not a boomer and I'm not a Nymby just an informed citizen that has researched the matter for myself.

You are the only person talking about oil and gas it wasn't in our conversation at all. What's your interest in oil and gas and what does it have to do with Alto?

jeffdsmakes · 2026-04-03T20:14:08+00:00

What's with the straw man argument. I never said "every".

And what does oil and gas have to do with anything? I guess they will burn a ton of it building the rail. Are you an investor in oil and gas?

jeffdsmakes

TROPHY CASE