Hey all,
I would like to run my plans by someone with a little more experience that me. This is my second leatherworking project and I want to get it right.
I have a group of 9 Cub Scouts and we are going to make three-legged camp stools with a leather seat. The seat, of course, is triangular. We are using 8-9 oz leather. Here is a link to the plan for the stool we are making:
Leather Seated Camp Stool
Here is my current plan.
Have the scouts cut out the seats using a template.
Adhere leather reinforcement triangles under each corner of the seat using contact cement. The reason we are doing this is because in my first leather project I built these stools with 5-6 oz leather and it split out under my weight. I do not want that to ever happen with the scouts, even when they get older.
The seat is attached to the wooden legs with a #10 x 1" brass screw and a decorative cup washer for the screw (the washer is to distribute some of the forces).
Use a pyrography tool to burn a fleur-de-lis into the seat.
Apply neets foot oil to the seat for a simple finish.
In working this out, this is about as simple as I could get it for the scouts. We are not getting real fancy with edge treatments, etc.
We are also making some stools for the adults. Some of us weigh 250+. The salesman at Tandy Leather assured me the double layer of 8-9 oz leather would not tear out at the screw under adult weights. However, I would like to be a little more proactive and make sure that things are fine for the adult weight. On my stool, on each corner I am considering not only gluing with contact cement, but also doing a two-needle running stitch and a double loop stitch around the edges to help further prevent tear out on the corners. Do I need both stitched or can I get by with just the double loop stitch on the outsides of the triangle and the running stitch across the bottom of the triangle?
I am going to show the scouts how to do the stitching, but because of the time factor, I will leave them to do that on their own.
Sorry for the length of the post, but I wanted to make sure my thoughts were right before we did this in a couple of weeks. When we get them done, I will post some pictures of the scouts and parents with their projects.
Thanks for the help,
Rob Hix
