JohnBarton

Excellent as usual. I can't stand trying to find good parts so I make as many of my own solutions as possible. In the past year the problems that have come up on my cases have all been zipper related. Used to be latches and I solved that by making my own. This one is SO MUCH NICER than with a zipper anyway. One of your best pieces yet.

Very very cool and very clever design.

WOW! That bike looks SO comfortable with all that leather on it. Nice job, bet it's fun to take road trips on that.

So does anyone really KNOW what the image technique is? Laser seems to be a viable bet?

Wonderful. As usual you have done an excellent job of construction design AND decoration. This one is a clear winner.

Is there enough leather here to qualify this for showing off on this forum? :-) We were shopping at the fabric market and came across this interesting pleated texture. So Karen made this out it. Karen also designed a new type of shoulder pad. She decided to make the should straps fixed to the pad. The pad is oversized and very comfy. It wears well but she sees the need to be able to let the straps down sometimes so she will modify the next one accordingly.

The design is nice. I don't see it as modern though primarily because of the way that straps and buckles are done. Also the shoulder strap is far too thin to be worn comfortably. Load some weight in there like a laptop and carry it for about ten minutes and I bet you will already be shifting it to another spot. Is this laptop size? I think that perhaps the pictures are deceiving because we don't see it contrasted against a laptop. At laptop size it's a normal thing for a guy to be carrying around. Smaller than that is out of fashion for men in most places. In China however it's common to see men carrying what looks like smaller versions of messenger bags for their stuff, or "murses" as they are derisively called in the USA. I think that as Ipads and the like become more popular then bags for that size will also become more acceptable for men to carry around. Anyway it's nice to a see a project in leather done for an industrial design task. Very cool and thank you very much for sharing. I love to find new things to use leather for and think that it's an underused material in industrial design. Good luck in your career! Should you ever need to find another place to take on some of your designs then feel free to contact us. www.jbcases.com John - Also American, Man, middle aged.

Yes we did. We use an lightweight iron on stiffener. Karen designed the logo herself. Thank you. I wish we could take credit for the design but it's mostly a copy from some no-name bag we found at the market - which itself was probably a copy of some famous brand somewhere. We did our own modifications according to the client's needs and our supplies. We used 4-5oz for the first bag. For the second 6oz. The first one is veg tan for the medium brown and nappa for the dark brown. For the second it's veg tan for the center pieces and black nappa leather for the sides and handles.

These are two we did recently. The first is from a purse we bought at the market and decided to do our own version. The customer wanted something that feels like Coach but not like a saddle. She is happy with the pix so hopefully she will like it just as much when she gets it. She asked that it be made large enough for file folders so we did that. The second is from a pattern we found in a book. I don't know which book but it's a simple hobo style with a little flair.

Someone posted his work before. He is definitely off the charts.

This is true and some of the best relationships with my customers have been started with them calling in and asking if I have any seconds laying around that I can ship immediately. In the past four years I have sent out maybe about four or five cases on that basis. In every instance the customer called back to tell me that I am too critical and that they were pleased with the case and proceeded to place an order. I think it goes both ways. I know cue makers who bandsaw their work if they make the tiniest mistake. They charge accordingly. Other cuemakers send out cues with imperfections and consequently they don't get to charge as high a price for their work.

As a firm believer that everything has a use and in an attempt to not waste energy I try very hard to make sure that every case I make that is functional finds a home. That said I have to draw the line when I think that something I put out there will result in negative advertising. The way I see it is that the person who matters most is not the person who is getting the item and who is aware of the imperfections but instead the person who inspects the work only having heard of our brand but never having seen an example of it. This person could form a negative opinion based on what they see. So what I generally do with the "oops" cases is to rework them until they are satisfactory to me and then I will see if I can sell them as they are with no need to disclose the mistakes because the mistakes were corrected or covered in such a way as to not matter. I think that mistakes give us the opportunity to be even more creative. One thing I have learned is that there is no particular way that it's "supposed to be" other than well crafted and durable. Any time you see us do a black or dark brown cue case that wasn't pre-ordered then more than likely it started life as a lighter color and for whatever reason didn't turn out right. We have taken cases where we did the name wrong and simply cut the name out and made an inlay with carving and turned a mistake case into a great piece that brought more money than we got from the original order. My rule of thumb is that if I would be disappointed in the case regardless of price then it doesn't go out. I just really really really hate to lose work and will do everything possible to recycle everything I can on a piece to be able to sell it.

I prefer to get gifts that people think will be pleasing to me. If they made it by hand and I can use it then I treasure it. If I can't use it then I display it. Think of what Da Vinci's little sketches that he frequently gave out were worth. I see nothing wrong with giving imperfect pieces to friends and family. THOSE are the people you want to practice on and not customers. :-) It's ok to be harsh and critical but not in the show off section. Unless someone invites criticism just let them show off what they did. There is a place on the forum called Critique my Work where people invite it. Here I think it's polite if the criticism is gentle and positive if given at all. Also we should not forget that not everyone has the time and money to make multiple pieces until they get it "just right". As my friend the great cue maker Bill Stroud said about pool cues, "there is no such thing as a perfect cue". And there is no such thing as a perfect leather item. Gifts made with love get free passes all the time IMO.

The leather working industry rocks. Anyone who wants to become a leather worker has a super low barrier to entry because of all the great information out there for free or low money. One such resource is the Painting Cow Studio of Paul and Karen Burnett. They are experts in coloring leather. One of the books they sell is called Creative Stamping. I bought these books last year with the intention to start doing a lot of cool stamping designs. Since then we have done quite a few interesting designs on the Mason case corners and started playing with many compositions. This case represents the first one where we did the stamping design and colored it with contrasting colors. It is the beginning of a series where we play with the interaction of color and design using the same stamping pattern but alternating colors in different spaces. And here is the same design without the color left in brown tones. In a few days I will show one that is a little more wild. I have always admired what my cue maker friend Jerry Olivier can do with the same design when he chooses different woods and different inlays. He can have one cue be sort of subdued and another one that is magical by simply picking different combinations. We hope to achieve the same thing.

www.jbcases.com/casesbyname.html

Well the information is there about many techniques to transfer imagery to various substrates. Being an artist is not just about being creative it also about studying the technical part of art. There are many artists who us other people's work to make their own interpretations on other mediums. Figuring out how to do it is half the fun. In the old days people would use carbon paper to trace images onto other things. In fact the same method that a tooler uses to impress the lines onto leather should work for pyrography - once you can see the image you only need to work on your technique in regards to shading, heat and pressure. Sounds easy?

more on leather http://www.scorchpyro.co.uk/Leather.html http://www.hendrikvrey.com/ So there you go.

Dennis check out pyrography. This is the art of burning wood (and leather). Think of a soldering iron with different tips. Basically you can get basic to elaborate kits with tips for varying effects. At the end of the day you can be way more creative than using the laser. I have a laser engraver and trust me when I tell you that it sometimes takes me DAYS to get an image prepped just right so that it comes out great. Granted, once done I can repeat it as much as I want. I have not yet gotten into pyrography beyond a few poor experiments with the soldering iron (not suitable for this). But I have a competitor who does it and people seem to like his designs. He calls it a Cue Tattoo. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pyrography http://www.suewalters.com/ Here are the machines you need: http://www.patrickfaleur.com/pyrography/wpage4.htm

That was my first thought. I like the looks that are achieved. Shows how a laser can be used to make great designs.

My first thought was laser or pyrography. But on the website it says that the images are hand drawn. I have done tests using Sharpies and other permanent markers and it appears as though the color is fairly permanent. Not saying that these are done that way just saying that I think it's possible that it could be done that way and be colorfast. I think I would use my laser but a good artist would be faster and more original.

Here are a few cases that we have done this summer:

I think that if you did then you couldn't help but to Tina-fy it with your own interpretation and then it would truly be two artists spanning a century. In any case it's a superb thing just to own in the original.

If you haven't already stitched this up I recommend that you bevel (skive actually) the inside edges of the top piece and add a slightly smaller piece behind the gator in the same shape. This will push the inlay to be closer to flush with the top piece. I gleaned this technique reading Peter Main's posts and have used it ever since with much nicer results on my inlays. Here is an example: http://www.jbcases.com/gillian.html These pictures don't fully convey what I want to impart. But the center of the inlays is level with the top piece. This is due to the plugs we put in and the beveled edges in the cavity on the top piece. This makes it look much more like a true inlay rather than two pieces of leather on different levels. No matter what though it looks as if your holster is going to be sweet!

What an amazing find. And you won't hardly find any books made today with such care and detail. I agree that it is a goldmine and I can't think of a more deserving person to have discovered it. It's serendipity as if Jehan Raymond personally delivered this book to the one person on Earth most qualified to execute the designs. And furthermore this was done all by hand, these wonderful designs that a lot of people can't come up with even with the aid of computers. Such wonderful use use of space in all these designs and excellent flow. I am really looking forward to what you will do with these.

I understand the sentiment and in general every place you see on my cases that is sewed is likely to also be riveted where you can't see it for extra safety. I am specifically talking about using modern adhesives and not the regular bag glue one uses to keep things in place before sewing. Another reason I ask is because I just subscribed to the videos on the Leather Craft Library website and George Hurst is doing a tutorial on inlays. His first example is a tooled section where the inside of the shape is beveled and then a python shaped glued to that on a belt. The way he did it seemed as if it would work just fine. I would consider a belt to be one of those leather items where everything should be stitched or otherwise tightly secured with rivets. I would not think of simply gluing a thin piece of leather in a recessed area on a high use item like a belt. But looking at how it was done I could see that the inlay would easily roll with the belt and the edges of the inlay piece would not normally be exposed since they are tamped into the beveled edge on the belt. So about the only concern I see is whether the glue would ever loosen up or not? My experience using the rubber cement similar to Barges says that it should be pretty strong and weatherproof. I am not sure though. When I did the two pieces I mentioned above I spent about an hour sanding the leather carefully and prepping it before laying down the glue. Then I followed the instructions faithfully to let the glue get to the right amount of tackiness and went ahead and secured the pieces. I then stacked books on the glued pieces and let it sit for 24 hours. The next day I was pretty satisfied with the results and so far the two customers haven't complained (both of them know it's glued so they might be being more careful). We do make cases where the leather is glued to the body. So far they are all holding up after three years. Here is one done with veg tan and tooled - the picture shows the back of the case and the seam is glued to the body. Here is the front So I am not totally unfamiliar with depending on glue. But usually with any leather to leather where there would normally be a seam I don't consider doing anything other than lacing, riveting or stitching. The endcaps on the above case are also laminated leather pieces though. I guess I am just looking to see what other people's experiences have been if they used just a glue solution for leather to leather bonds. The endcaps have been doing well so I guess that should give me some confidence. I think I might do something for myself and use it for a few months and see how it holds up.