A touch of leather

We picked up a new car recently. It's a VW Tiguan, looks and drives beautifully.

I'm adding some Ped's & Ro touch for the car.

Starting with the key chain, naturally...

Next up is the handle grab, nice little thing to start the project.

 

Getting ready to stich

I'm utilising cross stitching method for look and strength

Final step is casing the leather with hot water, hopefully it will shrink to a nice snug fit

I'll be keeping an eye on how the leather holding up. It should develop a nice patina quite quickly due to the environment it resides. I have other ideas where to put leather accent in the car, watch this space!!

Workshop

Just wanted to share my workshop, this is where all the action is happening. I have a rather large laminated birch island benchtop in the middle to accommodate big leather hides. I build it myself using IKEA parts. It's robust enough to take a pounding and social enough to host a Poker games with few mates.

Tools

I strongly believe in a good quality tools. It's like an investment. This of course come with a price, more often than not, multiple fold on the price of the lesser quality tools. However, with proper care and handling, these high quality tools will last for lifetime, it comes out cheaper at the end. Not only that, it will also deliver a better and consistent result. My motto whenever I want/need to buy an expensive tools is 'Cry only once not many times'.

In my opinion, the cutting tool is one of the most, if not the most, important tool in the leathercraft. A clean and straight cut is the foundation of a good product. I find myself always looking for the best knife or cutting tool over the web or local shop. Right now, I have four different tools for cutting; 1) Head knife 2) Swiss Army knife 3) Logan Adapt-A-Rule with straight edge and 4)Mini ceramic knive.

Head knife is one of the most versatile knife you can get your hands on, it allows you to cut straight and curve. It will also skive a leather rather quickly. However, certain skill is required before it can be fully utilised. My experience with this type of knife has been wonderfull. I have to admit that my skill with this knife is not up to scratch, haven't been able to cut a nice curve with this.

Swiss army knife is very useful for those small to medium project. Extremely reliable for cutting straight edge. It can also do cut curve rather well. The blade is robust enough for cutting heavier leather not to mention extremely sharp out of the box.

Some people will settle on 'Stanley' knife for cutting straight edge. I've tried using those knife, I didn't quite like it. The blade is thin and tend to flex a lot when cutting heavier leather. The cutting tip is also 'gritty' it tends to grab the cutting board. An upside with the Stanley is you can economically replace the blade whenever it's dull.

My secret tool for cutting long straight edge is Logan Adapt-A-Rule. This is designed for Graphic purposes, but I don't see why I couldn't 'adapt' this tool for leather work. This is a nifty tools, basically it's a long aluminum ruler (comes in 3 different sizes) with gutter for the blade attachment to glide through. It uses Stanley type blade, very economical to replace.

The latest tool I bought is a small ceramic knife. I was fascinated by a ceramic knife few months ago, it's an extremely hard material that stays sharp longer. Kyocera pioneered the technology for kitchen use.

I found a small company in Canada that manufactured folding ceramic knife, which will be perfect for leather work. I decided to email the owner to see if he ships to Australia. To my surprise he often ships one of his product to Australia for cutting kangaroo leather. Kangaroo leather is the toughest leather you can get your hands on. If it cuts roo leather just fine it will definitely handle cow leather without drama. Placed my order and received the pocket knife 2 weeks later.

First impression, I didn't realise how tiny the knife is, was expecting a bigger knife. Moving on to scrap leather to assess it's cutting ability. First up, 2.5mm oiled leather, cut the leather like a butter without much effort, impressive!! Next up is 3.5mm hardened veg-tanned leather, having a bit difficulty cutting this, I suspected it's the size of the blade and the knife itself, it doesn't allow me to exert enough pressure. Tried on multiple veg-tanned and chrome-tanned leather, cut like a butter, this one is definitely a keeper. To sum it up, it's a much sharper blade than my Swiss Army knife, as a result it doesn't require extra pressure to cut through the leather, however the size is problematic for heavier leather. Rest assured I will be ordering a bigger ceramic knife from his company (http://ceramicknife.org/).

Some picture of the tools:

Some Sharpening stone to keep the tools sharp:

World War Relic

Back in August, me and my wife traveled to Scandinavia for our belated Honeymoon. During the travel I've always keep an eye for a interesting leather piece. Found one in Hong Kong during our transit, found another one in Stockholm and found the most interesting piece during the last leg of our journey, which is in Helsinki.

Today I'm going to share the piece I found in Helsinki. I picked it up from a market that located not far away from where we stayed. It's similar to a flea market that I normally back home in Brisbane. However, being in Europe, there will be some world war relic. Keeping that in mind, we stroll around the market. Voila, we found this Eastern European fellow that was selling all bunch of stuff from world war two, bayonet, helmet and ammo pouch. I bought the ammo pouch without much bargaining due to lack of communication and the fellow is quite scary...

There is some character embossed onto the leather, can't really make up what the characters are. I've been told that this was for a German sub machine gun ammo pouch. I'm not going to speculate anything on that one...

Anyhow, the build quality is exceptional. Leather is still in good condition, it's still soft and pliable, can't fault the stitching. Everything is still really strong and sturdy. The copper hardware has oxidize and left a green residue inside and outside the pouch which is very difficult to remove.

I'm going to use this pouch to show people how a well made veg-tanned leather article can last for so many years. The textured and color in particular is very intriguing...

Enjoy the picture!!

'Tool-Box' bag

As promised, finished the bag yesterday minus the supporting strap. Only took the photo today to wait for the perfect lighting. First impression after the bag was finished was 'Hmm feel more like a shoe-box'. Overall, the final quality is great, everything fit as it should which means that the cutting process was accurate to the nearest milimetres. The building project was smooth, I didn't encounter any issue or mishap.

Anyway let the pictures do the talking:

 

Provision for the wraparound strap

Busy week

It's been busy at Ped's & Ro this week. I started a new project to create a tool box style bag with reinforced strap. The idea is to have a bag that can carry heavy items (15kg+) without permanently deforming the leather, in other words a bag that can do 15+kg all day long. This will be achieved with heavy leather and wet forming.

I learned new things from this project, solid copper rivet. This is the strongest rivet out there for leather work. Takes about 5 times longer to put one of this rivet compare to the normal two piece rivet. I also learned that, for your neighbor sake, not to apply this rivet after hours, the fastening process involves a lot of metal to metal hammering. Look wise, it's doesn't look as neat as two piece rivet, it's more utilitarian and rugged, which fits the purpose of the bag. 

I use cross stitching for the edge to properly distribute the tension between the leather surface. Behind every 'x' pattern there is a knot so the thread doesn't come loose. Very time consuming to stitch this piece but in the end it's all well worth it.

I decided to leave the edge bare for the body of the bag. Few reasons for this, 1) the blade that cut the leather is extremely sharp and the resulting cut leaves a very neat and almost burnished edge, 2) I'm going to use this bag often therefore will let nature weather the edge naturally.

As for the strapping, I treated the edge lightly to give it a softer look and feel. I quite like how this turned out, very neat and minimal change in colour. I'm thinking of adding a shoulder pad but as the strap itself is quite wide, I might give it a pass.

Some 'In progress' shot (some shot of upside down bag due to wet forming). Don't mind the silver bricks, they are the perfect weight to hold the bag in shape while it's drying.

I haven't had the chance to take photos of the finished bag, waiting for a good lighting. I haven't had the chance to actually fasten the sling strap and the closure as well as making the reinforced strap yet, I'm too tired from mowing the lawn to complete the project mindfully :(.

Stay tuned for the finished photo. I'm excited to finish the bag!!

Inspiration

My inspiration always come from an object. Whenever I see a particular object of interest, I've always asked myself 'What sort of case I can make for it'? My mind will just start wandering around on the possibility. I found it very engaging and helps push the boundary of my craft.

I also like to surf the wonderful world wide web, so full of fresh ideas. I recently stumbled across Kenton Sorenson web site. The product that they offer is amazing, minimalist craft at it's best. It gives you the impression of light and simple yet sturdy. The minimalist style is definitely an inspirational item. 

Don't take my word for it, go have a look at it yourself, it's well worth it. The link is http://www.kentonsorenson.com/.