Halitech

Howdy neighbor I feel your pain, it's not a cheap hobby to get into but it can be relaxing and satisfying turning a side of leather into something useful and beautiful. And I'd love to see some of your work

I haven't heard of any standard sizing but personally, I would keep the buckle end down to no longer then 6" just to make sure the billet end is hanging down regardless of the overall length of the strap. You could also make 1 template or get a clicker die to cut them out to make things faster without having to have 3 or 4 different ones

just my luck :/ although I was doing them in 2" and 3" size so this stamp wouldn't have helped me anyway

Oh sure, where were you last week with this when I was doing 5 of them by hand lol looks good and if I needed them for a belt I'd order one

It takes some work but it does work and it's just a small 1 1/2" plane that I picked up at Rona. Doesn't work as well for anything thicker then the width of the blade but it is usable and better then using a disposable knife

I know it will sound strange but a small block plane works a lot better then the super skiver or any kind of knife. But for a really nice job, pick up the High tech splitter, one pass and done with uniform thickness. I know it's not in everyone's budget but I picked one up on Friday and it is great for smaller jobs

wasn't as hard as I thought it would be. I cropped and sized the original image the customer sent to me then copied it to the leather and I just made sure I was beveling the right edges which was the hardest to keep track of

I tried talking him into a liner but he didn't want one so no, it's not lined

Let me firstly say, the design on the front was not my idea but it took the customer 5 days to finally decide on something so I didn't have the heart to say no. Besides, the money was pretty good. Overall measurements are 14.5x11" and it's made from 6-7oz veg tanned leather. I used 1/8" lacing (28' +/-), finished in timber brown and black antique. 2 coats of resolene on each side. 2 line 20 black snaps. I did a light wet molding on it with a piece of 3/4" plywood cut out slightly larger then then actual laptop. He didn't want a handle or strap on it so that's why it doesn't have one. Only thing he did want that I couldn't easily figure out with doing the lacing was a hole in the side to connect the charger since the model has the charger almost right on the corner.

thanks Matt, found a few there that would work but they require orders of 500+ and I only need maybe 50 to start out. I know the prices are cheap enough but I don't really want to store 500 or a 1000 when I may never use all of them

Have a customer that is interested in getting keyfobs made but would like to get this type of set up if I can find a supplier without needing to buy a few thousand of them. I've tried searching google but my google-fu is letting me down. Any ideas?

that's why I don't use the edges to line up my letters. I take a piece of cardboard and tape it to the leather then line up the edge of the letter itself with the edge of the cardboard, gives me a better fit and I can adjust the spacing by eye better

Overall it looks great. Looks like the tri-fold stamp lines up in each direction (something a lot of folks have issues with) and your letters are all in line however on the second pic, it looks like the C and S are farther away from the rest of CHAOS then the rest of the letters are. When doing rivets, I will mark one then use a tri-square to line up the other one so I get them straight.

there are pros and cons to sourcing out your work and how to pay. If you pay by the hour, you'll get the quality but your labour rates are going to go up because they will take their time. If you pay by the piece, labour rates will stay the same but your quality could suffer because they will rush to finish so they make more money. It's a tricky line to walk

personally I look at wrinkled leather as giving a product with character, something you won't find in off the shelf products you get at walmart et al.

Pretty sure due to the way chrome tanned leather is made, it won't accept dyes or stains except when it is tanned. I could be wrong though so if I am, someone will correct me. And I've never heard of chrome veg tanned leather, they are 2 totally different types of leather

Having made a fair number of these, I know roughly what your cost is and I sell mine for 65.00USD but I also use veg tanned for the exteriors and I do carving on them as well. I've had no problem selling at that price and people have actually commented after receiving them, that I should be charging more. The sweet spot is around 75.00-80.00 for a wallet, especially with carving on the outside and 6 card slots.

looks good. Only thing I'd do different is round the corners so they don't end up getting banged up as bad as a square corner will

Overall, good job. I would try and move the stitching out a little closer to the edge so you don't have so much wasted room. On the slots, as tugadude said, punch small holes to reduce the chance of tearing. Another thing you could try is instead of just cutting a single slot, punch holes then cut lines between the tops and bottoms of each hole so you have a little extra room to put the cards in.

Use something like sno-proof on the flesh side. Use something like a hair dryer or heat gun to slightly warm up the leather, rub the sno-proof into it then go over it again with the heat gun to make it "soak" in. You can also use things like tan kote or resolene but I find they crack with bending

Honestly it looks good. About the only thing I would do a little different is where you have what looks like 1/2" between the card slots is make each slot a little bigger to allow putting more cards in each slot easier. Beyond that, stitches look good, you stayed the same distance in from the edge, finish looks good.

once you figure it out, it's actually no more difficult then double loop lacing this really helped me http://www.kingsmerecrafts.com/page100.html

ok, they looked like rivets, that is why I was concerned as they will work loose over time but since they are chicago screws, shouldn't be an issue

the cases could be a stamp for all of it but the armour, I'd say was grooved