JohnBarton

Obviously I can test this for myself and I will do so but I thought I'd ask for your experiences as well. I see a few of my colleagues making cue cases and using glue instead of sewing. I have one of the brands in my shop and it's not as secure as I would like. I haven't ever seen an example of the other brand in person but by all accounts it holds up very well. I have used contact cement on two occasions to cover up one name with an overlay which had a sewn border. On both cases the final result was such that the overlay looked and felt as if it were sewn to the body. In my early testing I found that leather bonded with contact cement is very difficult to remove and damages the piece it's bonded to. BUT How does one know if this is a lasting solution or not? The reason I ask is that there are certain things I would like to do where sewing is impractical or so labor intensive that I don't really want to do it. Are today's modern adhesives enough to bond leather in a manner that is dependable (not load bearing) and consistent? I will do my experiments but I'd sure like to hear your opinions and recommendations. Thanks in advance, John

Anything that is shown on your screen can be saved to your hard drive. Search Google for how to download streaming video or how to download from YouTube and you will find a bunch of solutions. Firefox has a bunch of add-ons/extensions that allow this as well. I don't know what would work for the Leather Library's method of delivery but certainly there is something that would work. Also I think some of the videos are or were available on Tandy's youtube channel http://www.youtube.com/user/TandyLeatherFactory Although I just peeked and I don't see many titles overlapping so probably Tandy is taking down the ones which were available for free. I don't see them directing people towards the LeatherCraft Library site though. Also youtube now has the ability to rent videos so maybe they will put some of them back up and make them available that way on a 99cts per basis or something like that.

I subscribed to the videos and so far we have watched about 20 of them and already we have picked up several tips that are worth hundreds of times the $20. I am basing that on the fact that certain little tips are shown and demonstrated that just don't come across in books and we would have likely spent dozens of hours discovering them on our own. I also have the Stohlman book on making cases and despite being a cue case maker for 20 years I still found a few gems in there which we can use in our case making. All in all an EXCELLENT resource with very fair and reasonable prices. I think that perhaps they should have a tiered pricing structure on the videos, maybe $20 for the first month where most people will consume the most and then $5 a month after that. Or perhaps an a'la carte menu where you can buy access to just the videos you want in addition to the all-you-can-eat choice.

Those are so very cool. I am SO tempted to make my next pair of sandals instead of spending another $100 for another pair of Birks. I am in complete admiration.

I hear you. Actually we ended up buying this great thing called a Baby Wrap. Essentially a long swath of stretchy cloth that you wrap around your body and then stick the baby in it for hands free carrying. It was great, much better than the baby carriers with all the foam rubber and buckles.

So here is my dilemma. I put up all of our cases that we do as an ongoing portfolio of what we have done. Some of the cases are unique and then another customer comes along and wants something similar. What do you do? I make them another version but try to never copy any case exactly except for the very basic ones.

I get really irritated when people ask me for exact patterns. Sorry but I spent a lot of time fiddling to get the exact dimensions down. I do things on my cases that other people don't do. I also get copied quite a bit. I did release a pattern on here of my own free will to help any aspiring case makers get an idea of the parts they will need to cut for a basic case. But I am not going to send out the ones I worked very hard to develop. If I see something that someone else did then I am going to sit my ass down and figured it out myself. There is also a certain JOY in that for me. It's the discovery of figuring out what works and what doesn't and how to change things. This is one reason I don't charge (yet) for modifications like a longer pocket or a longer case. I wanted to develop the skills and have my team develop the skills to change patterns instantly and be able to do what the customer wants quickly. Also it builds our own library of patterns which are then ready to use when the next customer comes along. I have seen competitors refuse to do something as simple as change the side of the case that the handle is one with the claim that they would have to make a new pattern. Well I say that's BS and frankly I can't understand it. But maybe someone who isn't really into making true custom work is the sort of person who isn't into making their own patterns and as such isn't really willing to change them once they have them. I don't know. I just think it's tacky to ask a competitor for certain things. I try to have a fairly friendly relationship with all my competitors in this business and with a few exceptions I do. I have often spent hours on the chat or the phone with other cue case makers giving them advice, and I have sent or sold them supplies. I value that interaction. But I draw the line at sending them my exact patterns. I think that there are some things that a person needs to develop on their own.

Well, you guys can make a little coalition where you agree to get ONE merchant account and share it. Of course all the processors will tell you that's not allowed but it's BS. They would just prefer that EVERY small business have their own. In fact there are TONS of services on the net which are essentially resellers of their own merchant accounts. They provide credit card acceptance services to people who don't want to have a full merchant account by charging a little more than the actual processor charges them. Obviously this method would require a fair amount of trust between you but it would spread out the costs and allow all of you to accept cards using any phone. Edit: FWIW I jsut got an IPAD and I think that this thing is God's gift to retailers. This plus an internet connection is a DO-ALL device. We have been using it in the shop to reference cases and it's simply amazing. Using the aforementioned PayPal method of accepting cards would be a snap on this as well as using Square or any other method. Honestly this thing has SO many uses for business that it and devices like it will be indispensable in a few years. I highly recommend investing in one of these if you do more than a few shows per year. Get the cheapest internet plan and use it sparingly unless you plan to do a lot more then get the one that fits your needs.

Y'all can take credit cards through PayPal. It's simple. Setup a catch-all ddress, mine is bigbox@jbideas.com A catchall account which means I can make up emails on the fly, so when I take a customer's card I can make up an email that looks like this - joepublic@jbideas.com and it will come into the bigbox mailbox. The extra email is for you to send an invoice to through PP. So what you do is you create an invoice through PP and send it to a made up email name, use the customer's name, SallySeashore@jbideas.com THEN you get all the information from the customer, name on card, billing address, card number, phone number and ccv number. THEN you go to the invoice you got in the email box and follow the directions, click on the link and follow the instructions to use a credit card. Then enter all that customer information into the form and submit it. You will then get a confirmation if it's good and you are paid instantly. No waiting for the money to be deposited. The rates are similar to Square. If you have a PayPal debit card then you can withdraw the money instantly. It's obviously not as tidy as being able to run a card through a reader but it works and doesn't require any dedicated hardware. At a show it would be a bit cumbersome. What I have done at shows is take an old ratchet machine, you know the sliders that make an imprint? I made my own invoices and left a space at the bottom for the card imprints. I get the imprint, let the customers fill out the required info and write down their driver's license info and make them sign the invoice on the line I put there just like a regular credit card receipt. Then depending on how I feel about them I either make them wait while I run their card or I give them the product and run it later. Since I had an actual merchant account I had my phone already set up to speed dial the authorization over the phone service and bring me to the part where I had to enter the card information. That worked of course with any phone and requires a merchant account. It's similar to what a lot of Iphone apps do now. Only I did it 8 years ago and we still do it at shows. You can make your own invoices and have kinkos print them on carbonless paper. I make mine in the size of 5.5x8 with a white sheet on top and the yellow copy on the bottom. I keep the white sheet and the yellow one is the customer's copy. You can get little aluminum clipboards with storage space inside at office depot to hold the sheets. I have kinkos glue them up at 50 sets to a bundle. Getting people to fill out all the information and sign it is also great protection against chargebacks. In 8 years I have only had two people try and as soon as I sent the scanned image of the receipt that they filled out to the processor the dispute was over. I love the idea of SQUARE for taking payments and I ordered my reader last week. I wouldn't buy an Iphone/Android phone JUST for that purpose though. It's great if you already have the phone and the data service. If not then use the free wifi in the hotel and run your cards through PayPal as described above. Regarding ProPay, I looked at them and they seem quite fee-heavy. I'd be wary of them as they seem to charge for everything. Make sure you understand all the fees before using them. Lastly, here is an idea for Johanna. How about Leatherworker.net gets a merchant account and you grant access to it for a fee? Thus for example one of the benefits of being a paid member of LW.net is that you can use the merchant account to run cards for 1% over the standard fees. The way cards would be run would be using the phone in automated service I described above which all credit card processors offer. Thus the little guys who do a few shows a year can take credit cards on the spot without having to have a dedicated phone with internet at the venue. Just a thought and I realize that there are logistics but I think they are really no problem to work out.

Ken wanted something that doesn't stand out with some other protective features built in that I can't tell you about or I'd have to kill you :-) Here we sewed the lid on by hand but underneath it's secured with 3 rivets. This way the metal is not visible and the lid is still secure.

On another note, jsut got an Ipad and it's the NUTS for showing off pictures. The form factor of this thing is great for browsing pics or going to a website to see information, especially pics. It's so portable and different than using a laptop to do the same thing. I can't wait to go to a show with this. FWIW I got the 3g version so I could have internet access (wouldn't want to miss a post on LW) :-) Will definitely be working on some sort of case for it.

Boma did some work for us a couple months ago. I don't think I can afford him again after seeing the Ipad case he did. :-) He is an amazing artist who is a good representative of the talent here in China. He's only been tooling for less than a year and already is very strong. To see more of this case look here http://jbcases.com/wildflower.html

I send my customers there all the time. It saves me from having to do all the work showing them their name in different letter styles. I tell them to go to www.dafont.com and pick the font they like. Works great.

This case was done for a customer in Miami. He wanted wild and he says we nailed it. Thanks for the patience and the business Jon!

Awww, your little Apple stamp is very cute.

Maybe someday you will get good. When that day comes you will be crowned as the best leatherworker on Earth because this is really awesome to me. My only critique is that you didn't get $1000 or more for it. Or did you? :-) Really great work, thank you for sharing. I will look a little closer to see if I can find anything I'd change. Does it allow the Ipad to sit at a nice viewing angle? That's the big thing on most cases I have seen when looking at people using theirs in cafes.

In God We Trust. All others pay Cash! Sucks to hear this. I almost went broke once year with $80,000 owed to me from various suppliers among them some of the biggest names in the business. It's really really really hard to say no to terms when you are dealing with a distributor. BUT you have to consider what happens if you don't get paid on time. What I recommend is for you to get a credit card number from them and charge it. A lot of small companies these days pay with credit cards to build up miles and also use the bank's money as long as they can. If you currently don't accept credit cards then you can send them an itemized invoice through paypal. With it they can pay you using any credit card or via paypal. And as a general rule, custom work gets paid for BEFORE you start it. Stick to it or get burned. Because the alternative is you're stuck with product you can't sell to someone else or worse no money and no product. As I said, I have been there and it isn't fun chasing money. And you never get paid for the time and aggravation you endured doing it either. Good luck.

http://www.bikersadd...d&productId=106 I am pretty sure that this work is not tattoo. He is calling it that but I'd bet it's some sort of transfer printing. There are various techniques for transferring ink to leather. The coloring techniques surrounding the images serve them well to make the images seem much richer. I need to get good at this process because being able to print on leather is a good money maker. Combine it with tooling and you have a real winner. Thanks for the introduction to Rich Phiipps' work. Edit: Well I am not really sure. :-) http://richphillipscycles.blogspot.com/ Seems like a pretty cool and creative guy though. Lots of nice work here.

I would like to start a list of places around the world where I can send my customers who need work done on my products. It doesn't happen often but occasionally a snap breaks or a zipper slider fails or something goes wrong which could be fixed by a good leather worker fairly easily. My products are cue cases and for that reason a lot of luggage repair shops won't touch them because they are unfamiliar with them. Even though everything I do is pretty straightforward they still prefer to turn down the work when I send my customers to shoe repair/luggage repair shops. Soooooo, as the title states I want to build a list of leather workers who would be willing to take on repairs and servicing of my cases in the field. If you are interested then please take a look at my website so you can see what we do. www.jbcases.com I am always available to walk you through any part of our cases that you don't understand. So feel free to sign on here or send me an email to repairnetwork@jbideas.com if you would like to be on my list of shops. Bonus: My customers are generally the type of people who like handcrafted and well made stuff so you could end up with another customer each time I send someone your way. And you get to learn how we build a case just in case you want to try one someday. :-) (then maybe you could list me on YOUR global service list) Thank you for any consideration, Best, John Barton

You never cease to impress me. Whoever gets this should really treasure it and treat that zipper pull like the unique piece of jewelry that it is!

To me the takeaway from Sheridan is the circles that flow into each other and the viewing angle of the subjects. So really anything you can do with interlocking shapes and an approximately 45 degree angle can be "sheridan" style in inspiration. I am pretty bored with flowers myself but like you I appreciate the "Sheridan" form. Looking forward to seeing this develop.