JohnBarton

Kowboyboots: Ok so when I first got the laser, a big ULS model, I was out in Vegas doing a tournament where we were laser engraving people's pool cues and cases and sundry small items like keychains, coasters, pool balls and the like. A guy gives me his case and wants his name in HUGE letters all down the back of it. So I design it, build of some makeshift jigs to keep it in place and let it burn - well it gets halfway through the job and throws the breaker on the power line taking down the whole row of vendors. So then they get the power back on and I start where we left off and there is a line and it gets halfway through the job and throws the breaker again. Turns out the convention center charged me for the high power line and gave me the normal one. So they get that all rerouted and get me the dedicated power I paid for and I redesign the drawing to account for the lines and FOUR HOURS after I started the job it was done to the customer's satisfaction but not to mine. Another time a guy wanted a skull on his and I kept going over it and it wasn't coming out right and I kept upping the power - until the guy was watching and asked me if it was supposed to be on fire. I told him it was normal, just flashes and when it was done it looked really great - - - - - - - for three seconds before the whole image crumbled into ashes. Turns out I forgot to focus the laser properly and thought I was properly focused. That cost me about $300 to replace the case with a new one. And the last one - I did a pair of cues - beautifully - just perfect placement - right color to match the cues - everything great - except I misspelled the guy's name by one letter. That cost me around $1000. Now I will rarely do anyone else's stuff but if I do I triple check everything before I hit go. Sorry WRONG place. I meant to put this in the laser thread. Please move it if you can. John

Believe me when I tell you that there are no laser engraved pieces ever that are "better" than the stuff you do. Someone might pick one over yours at some point but that's just a reflection on their taste and not their knowledge or appreciation level. And also believe me when I tell you that creating something by using the laser that even begins to approach your work requires hundreds of hours of practice and intimacy with the laser and the leather to use it for that level of work. It's a high powered tool with a lot of applications but it doesn't replace the brain and certainly does not infuse anyone with artistic talent.

Oh, I have some stories for you along these lines. :-) Not happy endings either.

The best place to ask this question would be the laser/cnc section at www.sawmillcreek.org Most laser places charge by laser running time plus setup charges. If you can give them files that are ready to go then you will save a lot. I can help you on that if you need it.

There are some cue makers who agree with you and I have seen them bandsaw and almost complete cue for a flaw that only an expert could see. They charge accordingly. I think that there is a place for both trains of thought in hand crafted goods. Each person has to determine what their level of acceptance is. If I order an anything from anyone then I expect it to right and without flaws OR I expect to be apprised of any issues. If I see something sold cheaper because of a blemish then I personally don't think less of the maker. I do however have trepidation when we sell something as a second that it won't be represented that way down the road and will taken as an indication of our quality level. And you know what, it is. IF I choose to sell it for any reason or price then it's part of my body of work that is out there and and I have to accept that it figures into the average. And I do have lines that I don't cross on most aspects of the pieces and we have trashed many cases over things that would be perfectly acceptable to just about everyone else. My staff hates these words "What is This (capital T)?" Because they know that it will be followed up with me telling them to build it again. I have to applaud you Bob, in all the things you have shown us here I have NEVER seen anything that I would call a flaw! Your level is what we aspire to. I think that you and Bill Stroud of Joss West cues could share this statement. He once asked me why I thought he could get so much for his cues and $275 for a shaft when his competitors were selling theirs for $100. I said I don't know, and he said it's because he rejects 75% of the grade A shaft wood he gets and he never wanted to stand in front of customers and explain why something wasn't right on his cues.

I know this topic is years old. Still I thought I'd add my 2cts anyway. We use the laser cutter/engraver a lot in our shop. We cut leather with it, we cut patterns using cardboard and wood and acrylic, we make all sorts of jigs. We sometimes use it to transfer patterns. One of the best uses lately has been on one of our models where we need to do straight and even lines of stamped patterns. I did not want to scribe guidelines as those are very often visible no matter how lightly done. So we made some templates with small dots to act as guides for the tool placement. We place the template over the piece and mark the dots with a pick. The stamp covers the dots and the end result is a perfectly straight line of stamps with no guideline. Laser cutters are extremely good for doing parts. We make all sorts of custom parts on the fly and the laser allows us to make cardboard mockups and try them and if the part doesn't work then we can easily modify it and cut another one. As for using the leather to do designs. Well you can do quite a lot of cool stuff using the laser but it takes time to understand what you can and can't do. Depending on the type of laser you have and the software that runs it you can cut lines of various depths and widths. Some lasers can do contoured shapes through some software manipulation. So essentially it's possible to sculpt using the laser. Using the laser to design can be as simple as throwing an image on the screen and telling it to "burn" it onto the leather or as complicated as doing something that uses a combination of engraving and cutting with many layers and power/speed settings to achieve a unique effect. I have done some pretty sporty designs which some people would think were hand tooled at first glance. In conclusion, a laser can be a very useful tool but it's not a replacement for hand tooling by a long shot. A laser can augment hand tooling in a lot of ways but never replace it. Tooling is the art of reshaping leather, lasering is the art of creating by destruction. The laser vaporizes the matter and if you understand that then you will get a great feel what you can make. John

Thanks for the nice encouragement. I feel the same way when I look back at the stuff I did 20 years ago and think about the tools I had then. My first cue case was made with a hacksaw, sandpaper, a roll (literally) of duct tape, a borrowed home sewing machine, and super glue. I confess to being a toolaholic and having occasional thoughts of "we would be so great if we just had 'that' tool". I believe a good set of tools and the right tools are important but they in no way make one an artist. I know that there are people out there who can do more with one single stamp than I can dream of in twenty lifetimes. I tell everyone I work with this all the time, "make the best of what we have". I am a big believer in finding alternative ways to use ordinary objects. As far as just deciding to start no matter what you have and what your level is - Confucious said that a journey of a thousand miles begins with the first step.

I struggle with it all the time. I call them my "oops" products. I have come to the conclusion that I want a functional product to be in use rather than collecting dust. So I sell it at a reduced price and point out the flaws to the customer with my name on it or not depending on how I felt about it when it was done. It's my experience that most customers are happy to buy a slightly flawed product at a reduced price as long as it functions well. Most of my customers say something along the lines of "hell, I will do worse than that to it in a month." I also have gotten OUT of the habit of giving away my stuff at half price just because of a flaw. If the case is 85% good then it's worth about 85% of the retail price in my eyes. Still I hate to send something out there with flaws but I know that most customers are looking at the piece as a whole and not picking it apart despite my feelings to the contrary. I pick things apart and expect that everyone else does the same. If you have a website you can list the "oops" products there. Or offer them to your past customers. Ebay might be a good place to list them. If you have a bunch I wold suggest only listing them in small batches as you don't want to give the impression that these things happen all the time. John

You could put a top handle inside the lid diameter as well. I have done that a few times by cutting a slot for it. But it never turned me on as much as I thought it would just seemed weird and off. On the orginal Predator cue cases I did design it this way and it worked but only because the handle straps were nylon and slim. Any time I have done it with 2mm or thicker leather I haven't liked it. You night try this though: Put the thick part of the handle/snap strap inside the lid and run a thinner piece over the top. This way the thinner profile is maintained and the piece won't look funny. Well it might :-) I don't know as I haven't tried it this way ever. Not all jb ideas are good ones......

This looks much slimmer with the new lid. I especially like the choice to put the latch tag under the lid, it's unusual and keeps the case looking slim. Nice job again! You're too fast for me - I only have one case to put up against your two! ;-)

Take a look here www.jbcases.com and you can see some interiors. Also Brian Bonner has some good info on his blog www.nittanyleather.com Jack Justis has some interior shots: www.justiscases.net As I said this pattern is made to wrap around a solid interior. Basically put it together and stuff the interior into the finished container. That's the simple version anyway. The easiest way is to get some 1.25 inch plumbing tubes and some .75 inch electrical tubes and line them with a soft but durable fabric. Tape them together in an oval form - plumbing tubes on each end taped to a bundle of four electrical tubes. Stuff this form into your finished exterior and you have a "Tube Case" as we call them in the pool world. This pattern I show here is about mid range in terms of design and execution. There are far simpler ways to make cue cases and most who make them use the simpler methods. If you master this pattern however you can make just about any cue case. The whole thing that makes a cue case different than most other leather goods is the need to close the loop if the case is to be an oval like shape - this requires rivets, lacing, blind hand sewing, etc... If you just want to do a simple fold over exposed seam case then that's easy. People do what we call "Envelope Cases" this way with a single or double piece of leather. They look good, the seam is easily done and they are functional. They have a larger footprint than oval style cases but customer's don't seem to mind that. This pattern I show here can easily be converted to that style of case as well. I am not handing out step by step guides with measurements though :-) For two reasons, one is that I believe half the fun in the discovery and two because I don't have time to do such guides even if I wanted to. Have fun and be creative!

Man I am soooo bummed - I opened the topic thinking I was gonna get to see some Kevin King "Leather" T-shirts made out of leather. I was like what has he done now and how do I get one? Anyway............ this rocks too and I submit that just about EVERYTHING I have ever seen you do would look kick ass on a t-shirt as well. Especially if it were appliqued/inlaid like you do so so well. I could totally see $100 KK T Shirts in the best malls of the world. Just think - leather and cotton - our ancestors wore a lot of leather......

As usual this is EXCELLENT advice. I would also add that one should participate in forum groups where customers of your goods hang out. Even just a few posts a week being helpful keeps your name in front of the customers. I'd also add that perhaps it's useful to do similar blogs on all the free blogging platforms out there like WordPress and Live Journal This is not entirely free though. It's free to host but the cost comes in the time you put into it. Ray, your 1940s blog is WELL DONE and looks very professional. It doesn't read like a cheesy doorway page at all.

May I ask a question and feel free to ignore it. Is there some reason Peter doesn't post here? I am buying his books on coloring leather and in the course of correspondence I mentioned this forum. He didn't reply concerning my invitation to post here. I sense that there is some kind of tension there and I don't want to bring up any worms but am curious. Thanks again Marlon for bringing us more examples of Peter's great work. John

Here is the orginal scallop design pattern that I developed with Peter Hackbarth based off my original design in 1992. This is recognizable as the Instroke Cowboy pattern that is one of the most copied (and still asked for) designs of the last 18 years. For all you aspiring cue case makers this is enough to get you started making cue cases as you can modify any of these parts to suit your needs. This is for a 2x4 (to hold 2 butts and 4 shafts) - hopefully I don't need to tell you how to modify the parts to fit any size and shape of case. Hint: Don't stretch them. Below is a small image representing the parts. This is also made to wrap around a hard shape such as pluming tubes bound together or a single plastic tube. Lately I have made one without a a hard interior and it turned out well but I am experimenting with a new material I found that is stiff and bends well without stressing to make the case as a in-between type between soft and hard. You can download the full size pattern at this link: http://www.jbcases.com/patterns/ The files are in PDF, CMX (CorelDraw) and AI (Adobe Illustrator)

Make yourself a jig with slats spaced for the lines. Write the poem on the slats so you know where each letter goes. That's probably how I would do it if wanted to stamp the letters using the crafttool type stamps and didn't want to scribe guidelines.

We use the laser cutter to make jigs for holding dies in place. What you want to do is think in terms of slicing your jig into thin sheets and laminating those sheets together to get the placement you need. With imagination you can make some incredibly useful and accurate jigs using a laser cutter. For example I can see in my mind how to make a die press jig that would work with the common alphabet sets which are readily available. Certainly this concept could work for a drill press, vice, or clamping method of applying pressure. As for hot stamping/embossing/branding - no clue on that yet. But if you have a friend with a laser cutter you can make some great tools. We also make our own stamps using the laser for the cases which have serial numbers. We use small blocks of wood and relief engrave the numbers. These blocks wouldn't hold up to hundreds of uses but they work great for the single use and we can sand off the previous number and engrave another one until the blocks are too short. So that's also an idea if you have access to a laser engraver and would also open up the font range for you to offer. Actually you probably don't need a laser cutter to make a jig to hold alphabet letters. If you have the ability to cut straight lines and drill straight holes you can probably do a great jig that way. Note to self: read all the replies before answering. Something like the jig posted is what I had in mind.

Here is the orginal scallop design pattern that I developed with Peter Hackbarth based off my original design in 1992. This is recognizable as the Instroke Cowboy pattern that is one of the most copied (and still asked for) designs of the last 18 years. For all you aspiring cue case makers this is enough to get you started making cue cases as you can modify any of these parts to suit your needs. This is for a 2x4 (to hold 2 butts and 4 shafts) - hopefully I don't need to tell you how to modify the parts to fit any size and shape of case. Hint: Don't stretch them. Below is a small image representing the parts. This is also made to wrap around a hard shape such as pluming tubes bound together or a single plastic tube. Lately I have made one without a a hard interior and it turned out well but I am experimenting with a new material I found that is stiff and bends well without stressing to make the case as a in-between type between soft and hard. You can download the full size pattern at this link: http://www.jbcases.com/patterns/ The files are in PDF, CMX (CorelDraw) and AI (Adobe Illustrator)

Can't help you pal. Rivets are my bane. No matter how many sizes and types I buy I never have the "right" ones. Just today I am finishing a case - a sample for production and all the hardware is antique brass only to discover that the 8 rivets I need are not in stock EXCEPT for polished brass. As for looking cheap, I disagree on that and feel that it's the placement and proper setting of them that defines how they compliment or hurt a piece. I can't stand to see rivets that are set wrong or where the wrong sized setter was used and so the rivet has a small ring on it or the surrounding leather does. In one of the factories we deal with they have a custom air-driven machine that has a 50cm arm and can get to most any place on a case. I have never seen the equivalent on sale anywhere, they had it customized to their needs. For ourselves I had a custom manual spring setter built that more or less works although we more often end up just using it as an anvil to set the rivets by hand. Packaging is really important but you want to avoid making your things look "too professional" in that the packaging should not scream "store bought" or "Manufactured". I study packaging all the time and try to strike the kind of balance where the packaging is elegant and sincere without being overbearing. When I ship cases we put them in a nice cloth bag with a drawstring made of the same cloth. Recently I decided to laser JB Cases on them. I have also made up little credit card holders (two pieces of leather sewn together and a little shorter than a credit card) where I put about 15 business cards in it. On the back of one business card I write a thank you note to the customer and call them by name so they can see it's not pre-printed. I think that my next step might be to invest in a nice box. Again I hesitate because of not wanting to look manufactured and also I don't want to add a lot of cost to the cases that I may not really need. I think that the tissue paper is a great idea. Basically I try to imagine my customers feeling like kids at Christmas and hope that the thrill of opening a box from me is like that. I would stay away from tags. Unless they fill some need like care instructions I think that they take away from the look of the piece. In my old company we used to sew a small piece of leather inside the case with a clear window where we put the warranty and care instructions. This way the customer could have it there all the time. I should do that again. One thing we did for one line of cases I do is to make leather key fobs with the tag sewn on them out of the same leather that the case is made of. These cases have locks on them so that's a nice touch. Anyway, the right kind of packaging can really make people feel special about what's inside.

Don't you know that the camera adds 10 flaws to any piece? :-) For me it's a love/hate relationship with high res pix of my stuff. Because I almost always see something that I am not happy with. Sometimes this leads to catching things that we need to fix like dull spots in the finish. On the otehr hand when the blow ups highlight a quality aspect particularly well then I swell up with pride. A month of so ago I came to the realization that it's nearly impossible to see a product with the naked eye as well as you can see it with a high res picture. Now, this sounds like common sense but bear with me.... here is why in my opinion that this is the case; a picture is static and unmoving and can be blown up instantly. Looking at a product in person makes you look at the totality of the piece, you are taking everything in at once and because of that you tend to skip over things you can see when looking at a picture. Because of this idea I am now a little less harsh on our goods than I was before. I realize that people aren't looking at our cases like I look at them. They are seeing the whole piece.

The criteria I use to judge if I am "good" or not is asking myself would I gladly pay what I am asking for this piece and be able to use every day without complaint? Some people make perfect awesome bags that have all sorts of "flaws" in them where the rivets aren't set quite right, the handles are a little off, etc.... and they charge relatively little for a bag that works great and holds up. To me they are GOOD. If someone wants a couple hundred for a bag then it had better be nearly perfect in the fit and finish though in my eyes. Family and friends often don't make good critics. I usually ask my wife for her feeling on a some pieces because she is artistic and I like to hear her first reaction. The important part is NEVER EVER EVER EVER EVER show any irritation at anything they say about your work if you asked them for their opinion. This causes rifts. As far as the idea that hand made goods 'have' to have flaws I completely and utterly disagree with that. I have seen so many top notch pieces that were nearly flawless - I say nearly only because I wasn't able to inspect them all minutely - that I don't accept that something has to be flawed as a mark of being handmade. Almost all forms of leather goods that are made in factory environments have a LOT of hand work in them. The resulting quality of the finished pieces is almost always conditional on the ability and care of the people doing the sewing and riveting. There is no such thing as a machine where you throw leather in one end and a perfect bag pops out the other side. :-) Flaws in the fit and finish come about simply because we don't take the time to do it right, we measured wrong, we put something in the wrong place, or we just had a brain fart at the wrong time. They happen to all of us. In cue making there are cue makers who will throw away a nearly finished cue if they make a mistake. They will put out nothing less than their idea of perfect. They also charge accordingly for that perfection. I have rejected cases for the things I mentioned in my previous post. It honestly depends on the flaw and how I feel about it. I don't think that there is anything wrong with being picky about the things that will bear your name. I think each of us needs to find their own comfort level with the goods we do and hope that our level finds customers who agree. As my friend Bill Stroud said once, "my stuff costs so much because I don't want to stand here at shows and explain why something is not right on my cues."

I am adding my reply before reading everyone else's. That way I get my thoughts out of the way without being influenced by other's criteria. For me the very first thing that I look for in our own pieces as well as others is that everything is lined up as it should be. If it's supposed to be centered and aligned then it better be or I am going off like a rocket. Pieces that are supposed to be symmetrical should have a balanced flow to them. The next thing I look for is the quality of the sewing. Are all the lines straight and properly spaced from the edges? Is the stitch length consistent, are the threads tight? No missing stitches. No loose ends. Then I check that all measuring marks are gone. I hate to see marks left on a piece. Then I check that all the snaps are set right that they work as they should, that rivets are set right and are set properly without dents and dings. Then I check the zippers to make sure that they work right and are well sewn. Then I check the edges and make sure I am happy with how they are burnished. If all that checks out then I am happy with the piece. I wish I could say that I always only let "perfect" pieces out the door but in fact I will let pieces go which aren't perfect in all areas. It's literally a case by case basis and it does pain me when something goes out that I am not 100% happy with. However I have come to understand that we are imperfect people working in an imperfect medium. So I do compromise on my own standards if the totality of the piece is good. Having said that I aspire every day to improve our methods so that can turn out better and better goods. I forgot who did the description of the edge burnishing where the edges on his notebooks were like well polished wood. Bob? But someday I want all of our edges to look like that and for me it's a process of creating a foolproof method that everyone in the shop can follow to get the same results every time. I think most people agree that it's in the details. I tell my people all the time that if someone is trading a good portion of their income for one of our cases then they expect it to be right and when things are not right it diminishes the magic in their eyes and makes them question their judgment in deciding to buy from us. I say that even worse is when something is not right with the case and they don't notice it but their friends do. So for me a well done, well finished piece is one where the design not only flows but everything is just as it should be.

As posted previously Ohio Travel Bag has them. We make our own as well out of tin and glue two pieces of leather to them, one on each side. Alternatively you can use a piece of 8oz and sand/skive it down toward the edges. You just want to make sure that your dee ring is not cutting into the leather. I either grind off any sharp edges or tape over them when using the leather method.

My 2cts; When I do a business card I try to think what the uses will be. I have done complicated ones with every bit of information on them that someone needs to find me as well as what I do. These can be very complicated and read like a little book. I do make the phone number larger on the card as that is often the thing that is looked for most. Lists? Can be good but should be short and consistent. If you have a specialty then highlight it. Leatherworks is fairly broad to me, do you make leather jackets? Bondage gear? Do leather restoration? Cleaning? Upholstery? When you do them make triple sure that everything is spelled right and that each point is done the same way either with all the first letters capitalized or none of them capitalized. I also like to see the words have a touch more spacing on the vertical - spread them out just a little more and that enhances each point and makes each line easier to read. I like saying something like "General Leather Work - Specializing in xxx" Or the way the factory owner in Turkey told me, "we can even make a man out of leather." :-) I like the idea of a picture of your maker's mark rather than the line drawing. Most people will recognize a maker's mark as a stamp of quality - it just feels solid. Doing it as a line drawing is also somewhat redundant with your name elsewhere. I'd also like to see the picture of the chaps be bigger. When I design a card I like to have some example of what I do in as large a way as possible. I probably went a little too far on the last card I just did but I do want the product to have center stage. Lastly, on your card I'd probably include an address. You will probably end up handing your card to people who need your address and it's always a pain to have to take it back and write it down. Just my thoughts as someone who has been through around ten different variations of his business cards. John

Here is one I just did. It is intended to be included with all the cases we sell. Is it too minimalist?