JohnBarton

Rusty Rusty Rusty, stop it. They are getting too good. I hope you are charging accordingly for work it takes to do that seam! We just did a case going through 12mm on three layers with blind seams on both sides and I don't think anyone in my shop wants to do that ever again. My only comment is don't cover up your tooling. Specifically I am speaking of the strap covering up what you did on the lid. Your tooling is too clean to just stick something over it. You have nice separation on all the other areas where it's tooled and then the top does not match in my opinion since the strap just cuts off the leaf.

Amazing work. This is such a wealth of talent on this board. I need to get rich so I can collect work from each of you!!!

Believe me Johanna is right on the money. I used to use a service that would send people an email with a "check" attached. They could print this check on their normal printer and take it to the bank and the banks accepted them EVERY TIME. Their OCR (Optical Character Recognition) readers could recognize the acount and routing numbers and that's all the bank cared about. 20/20 or Nightline or one of those shows did a special where they opened a real account and then went to the Office store and bought the check paper and made their own checks. EVERYTHING on teh check was wrong EXCEPT for the account number and routing number. Then they sent people to the bank where the account was drawn on and cashed these fake checks. Then they sent people to other banks and deposited or cashed the wacky checks there. None of the banks - national brand banks - wanted to comment. Cashier's Checks, Money Orders, Traveler's Check and of course currency are all regularly counterfeited. All of us in business either have or will come across scammers at some point. I have lost about $10,000 in money and goods over the past 20 years through various schemes and from just trusting losers. Right now I am trying to collect $650 from a customer. :-( That one wasn't a scam though, just me being too trusting and the guy turning out to be flaky. He bought two cases previously without a hitch. Third time I trusted him for the money instead of getting it in advance and sure enough - no money.

Y'all need to be careful on any kind of checks from people you don't know. I think it's a Federal Law that banks can debit your account for any checks deemed to be fraudulent or otherwise disputed up to ONE YEAR from the date of deposit. You don't get to tell your side of it - they debit the account and send the money BACK to the account the check was issued against. When you complain they tell you to take it up with the person who wrote the check. And on top of it they charge YOU for this. About $35. Ask your bank about it and see if I am right. This floored me when my bank told me about it years ago. Since then I only take checks from people I feel really good about. as for the topic. Anytime someone wants to do these complicated payment schemes tell them to hit the road. Another one you really really need to watch out for is the double PayPal payment. In this one the buyer asks if he can pay you through two PayPal accounts. You being the gracious and hungry seller say SURE send me the money by as many as you have...... So they send you a small amount in the first payment and put a note that it's for the goods. Then they send you the balance from another account. Then once they have the goods they file a complaint on the larger amount saying that they never got the goods, was fraudulent, etc... PayPal pulls the larger amount out of your PP account and gives it back. You are then stuck trying to prove you sent the goods and explain what happened and they are long gone with your product and your money. I believe that PP has since dome something about this sort of fraud but I don't know what it is. There is a website I came across a while back and I can't remember the name of it but it's dedicated to showing off people's efforts to jack the scammers. They post pictures of the scammers holding up signs that say things like "I am an idiot" and things worse than that. The scammers think that they have a sucker and they send pictures holding up signs with these phrases to "prove" to the "sucker" that they are real. It funny and brutal at the same time. If anyone knows the site please post it. Warning though it's explicit.

I agree with you to an extent. I certainly feel that people are inventing things leather work each day. Don King invented the Sheridan style of tooling and had to make new tools to execute it. I do study a lot of leather working and study handbags, briefcases, and well just about anything made to carry something so that I can absorb and learn all the possibilities that there are. Yes the craft of making things with leather is as old as killing animals to eat. And certainly using lace to bind the ends together is just as old. My thing was that I took the idea of lacing the seam which is not new and the idea of riveting the D-ring holder on, which is also not new, and combined them into a new method that I certainly have never seen before which integrates the lacing through the holders. So I consider it as an invented technique, meaning it's a non-obvious way to do it. I am positive that no one else would do it this way because the stress points of the strap and handles would cause the lacing to loosen unless one was very careful to do it in such a way as to account for that, and in fact I can see from the way the other case maker used my idea that he probably didn't account for it. And the way I chose works perfectly and only came about through the expense of a lot of brainpower and trial and error. It's not rocket science, it's not world changing, and in some ways is a fairly impractical way of achieving the goal of attaching ring holders to a case. But it's something that I made up that's original as far as I know and until I see evidence of anyone else doing it on anything else prior to me then I have to believe I was first. It's a big deal to be first with something. At least to me it is. Most of us aren't going to get rich off this stuff. Certainly the customer doesn't really care about the minute details like we do. But I think most of us here take a lot of pride in what we create and we are incredibly happy if we can make an improvement on something or if we are lucky invent something that we can bring to show and tell. I guess what I am saying is that since I am not getting rich here I'd like to at least have some reputation for inventiveness or clever adaptiveness as a sort of intellectual wealth. I love showing off what we do, getting feedback, seeing everyone's work and their ideas, and giving back. I just don't like the feeling that I am a sort of unpaid R&D for the world. But I guess that's the price I pay for the ego-stroking I am looking for when I show off my stuff publicly. :-) Y'all are cheaper than a shrink - THANKS

Some folks are just comfortable doing what they do and they really believe that what they do is the best way to do it. I have seen a lot of those flea market belt makers who figure out the easiest fastest way to get it done and give the customer a quickly made belt with their name on it. They are like the sketch artist on the boardwalk who learns a certain technique and never aspires to be more that that. This is just bread and butter leather work where a guy created a job for himself but is probably lacking the passion for it. As a former fleam marketer I can tell you that it's not any fun standing there day after day dealing with a lot of people who just want to nickle and dime you. He might be the type that quite possibly could never understand the feeling that a Peter Main belt evokes in the owner as well as Peter's fellow passionate leather workers who get to see it if only just in pictures. I run into people in the billiards business who profess to know it all all the time. It's hilarious to hear them prattle on in ignorance of what is really going on. In case anyone here wants to know - I have been making cue cases for nearly 20 years. I have been on LW for about 2 years now I guess. Since being on LW my list of things to try grows daily. My skills as a case maker have grown substantially during my time here and thank you all for that. That said I myself have been guilty of acting like a know-it-all on the subject of cue case making and other things related to pool. So lately I have had to take a few steps back and reassess the difference between what I really know and what I think.

I get what you are saying and I certainly don't go out of my way to point out what other case makers have taken from me with very very few exceptions. If I did that then it would be a long list. :-) I am flattered when someone one thinks enough of my design to copy me. I am equally shattered when someone else thinks that I copied the person who copied me. An example: In the past I owned a company called Instroke Cue Cases. The scallop design was 100% new and unique to the world of pool cue cases. Within a few years it was being copied by several companies. I would have people come up to my booth and tell I had a lot of nerve to copy "their" brand of case. Their brand being the knockoff of my design that they were carrying and didn't know any better. Of course those few times that it did happen like that gave me the opening to explain that I was first and then go on about the differences. Now this was more of a corporate ripoff type deal that happens all the time, not much one can do about it as designs on utilitarian products are nearly impossible to protect. What I always wondered about was how many more people thought that we ripped off the knockoffs instead of the other way around. Now fast forward till now and I am now making pretty much all one-of-a-kind cases and am in the company of other case makers who also do custom cases. There are only about ten or so of us that are pretty active in the world. The rest are hobbyists, but some real good talent. My thing now is that I spend a lot of time thinking up new ways to do these cases. Almost every case has some new thing on it. I know that some people are going to take some of the things I do. Hell I take from them too when I see something that I like. But the difference is that I give credit to them when I do it and they don't give credit to me when they do it. Yeah my ego plays into it here because some of these things are great moves forward in cue case making and I know I won't see any money coming from these ideas other then from the sales of my own cases using these ideas. But I would be happy to get some credit from my peers for helping them out by providing them with new techniques. Am I being unreasonable to want that? In cue making there is a guy named Thomas Wayne who has pioneered a lot of new techniques. He is rarely flattered when people take his ideas. He is usually pissed that they take his ideas and then don't execute them properly. Which is another concern of mine. So is the answer that perhaps I should just mention it on the case's display page that I invented such and such technique on the day that I first show it to the world and leave it at that and really not get pissy about someone taking my idea and not giving credit? I feel like I should document that I was first just for the record if nothing else. Good approach or not. P.S. if you are about to hand me money then the last thing you will hear from me is anything remotely negative. :-) THAT much I know.

Jay, please, this really isn't about me and Jack. It's about how people about whether credit should be given when someone takes things from others and if so where the line is. For me it's not a money thing, nor is it a competitive thing, it's a courtesy thing to acknowledge those that help you by innovating and giving you a better platform to start from.

My question is what is your take on it when you see someone uses something on their work that you invented but they don't give you credit? And by invented I mean a true invention of something that no one has ever done before anywhere, not something simple like putting three rivets instead of two. Then the next question is what is a copy vs. an inspired piece? DISCLAIMER: I have had a few run ins with Jack Justis, whom I idolized at one point in my life, on another board over this but this is NOT the impetus for this post. I always give credit to others when I make a case that uses some of their elements. Jack has accused me of copying him on one line of cases we do. I have defended myself adequately and pointed out that Jack himself borrowed liberally from the prevailing cue case maker at the time he started. I think we have settled this for now but I wanted to mention it just in case the people whom I have invited to come here and browse LW to learn what REALLY GOOD leather crafting and decorating is think that this is the reason for the thread. The reason for the thread is that another case maker has borrowed some of my elements that I invented. I invented a way to integrate the D-Ring holders for the strap and handle on the case into the laced seam in a secure and stylish way that had never been done before on cue cases or any other cases that I have seen. I spent about three days working this out so that the lacing can snug up on the part and the part can't move and loosen up the lacing. I probably did about 20 different versions before I got it just right. Another cue case maker has taken this technique and look practically verbatim. Now, I don't mind that, it's flattering to me. What I do mind is the possibility that someone checks out his work before mine, sees this really cool way to do this part of the case and draws the conclusion that I copied him. I feel that he should give me credit for the elements he lifted from our cases that are not common among cue cases. I have written to him to ask him to give me credit as I would do the same for him should I take anything that he created. I should mention that whenever I do take something from another case maker, in addition to giving credit, I try to put my own spin on it and make it "better" if I can. Obviously "better" is often subjective but I do my best to add a little JB spice to the recipe. So what are your thoughts on this subject?

This is my biggest frustration. I go out and buy tons of samples, I buy tools and knick knacks that have specialized uses. No matter what I do and what I say much of these things ends up being put in drawers, boxes, behind stacks of other things, etc... It frustrates me to no end when I need something and I KNOW that I have it and no one can find it. We have a big cleaning every couple months and sure enough the things that everyone in my shop SWEARS that we didn't ever have when I was looking for it magically appear. The only other thing that upsets me is when people work in a space that is unsafe for the project. What I mean is that they do things like leave a razor blade exposed and then lay a case on it or work with easily tipped containers of dye, etc.... I can't stand it when I walk in and see them working on a case and it's laying on a screwdriver or something similar. aaaargrgh!!

This type of case is made with nested tubes so the cap just slips on. I cover the protruding tube with foam backed fabric to give it a nice pressure fit. The leather is just glued onto the body and the seam is worked so that it lays down nice and flat. The end caps are made of laminated pieces of leather that we cut to fit using a wood router with a cornering flush bit on it. Then we edge finish the caps. The writing on the bottom is the signature of the tooler Lee, Zhen Hai. I generally ask the toolers to sign their work on the special pieces like this one. While my primary reason is to simply give credit to the person doing the artistic decoration my other reason and hope is that in the future if people ever start collecting our work then they will be able to identify the work of the various toolers we have employed.

GTF Trophy Case - Sheridan Carved - This is a case we did that was done to pay tribute to the trophy saddles that the greats like Don King, Chester Hape, and other famous saddle makers have made.

Ed, I just looked at your flickr page and I have to say that those are some of the most beautiful tools I have ever seen. I deal with high end cues and exotic wood all the time and your work just sings to me. Amazing mauls, great great work, really shows that you love doing them. One or more is on the wish list. John

I took an old pool cue butt and cut off the length I wanted below the joint. Then I sanded all the finish off it and added some grooves. Sanded down the tip to emulate the edge slickers I have seen here and it works great. We use it on the drill, on the drill press and also manually. Fantastic tool. The wood is seasoned hard rock maple.

Jim Murnak uses a lot of Kydex in his holsters, cases, and quivers from what I understand. I have looked at it before and it seems to me to be the sort of material that lends itself well to all sorts of applications where you would want a stiff and durable substrate to bond to. Thanks for the heads up.

Also I don't want this to be confused with the embossing done by Silva Fox or Clay Banyan among others. I wish that there were other terms for either of these methods because what Silva and Clay do is genius and far and away more artistic than this type of machine assisted work. For those of you who don't know the Silva Fox type of embossing is done where one molds (sculpts) the leather from the back side and then fills the cavities with a filler that hardens. We do this as well on some cases but no where near the level of the two I mentioned. (yet)

We used a small hydraulic die press that was a factory cast off. The controls are broken but we can make it work with a screwdriver. So we decided to start playing around with embossing designs. Initially we did some larger plates for another line of Pirate Themed cases done for another customer. Those we did out of some sort of linen based material which worked well. Interestingly when we took the larger plates to the local factory and used their large die press the result wasn't as nice and crisp as when we used our small press. At this point I should mention that I am completely and utterly ignorant of how hydraulic die presses really work. We know press the button it goes down - release the button it goes up. We have blocks of granite to use to raise or lower the material to increase the pressure (at least that is our theory of what is happening) We just figured that we had this machine and wanted to see what we could do with it. I have seen larger rotary presses at the big machine show they have here each year. While they didn't say that they could be used for leather I assume that they could be or be modified to work with leather. At the leather market here it seems as though a lot of the leather uses plates or tiles and they use a hydraulic press. I can often see the misalignment clearly. But since most of the leather they sell at the market I go to is destined for handbags I guess it doesn't matter much if there are errors in the alignment since the actual cut pieces are likely to be fairly small. This is quite fun to play with. To do these stamps took us two days of trial and error to get them right in terms of what part should be raised, how big the pieces should be, how to align them, which material will work etc... There is a lot that can be be done playing with positive and negative space. I can see a lot of fun in making some really cool stamps and combining them. Leather is such a great medium to work in because you can do so much with it.

Here is a study in embossing. For this one we did a celtic knot stamp in acrylic using the laser and stamped it more than 48 times using the die press. We found that embossing, especially at this level, is not as easy as one might think. When you see a case that has embossed leather on it then it's usually referring to leather that was done with a large plate on a large press or run through really big rollers to impress the design on the leather making it like fabric. This case was done more like a hand tooled case in that the stamps are 50cm squares and we placed each one carefully - one screw up and the leather piece would be ruined. Not good when you are making a 5 ton press do the impressions and you have to place the stamp 48 times perfectly. So the embossing is carefully arranged. For this one we deliberately left the seam area unstamped to show off that it was not done on a large plate. Anyway, enough chatter, this was a custom job we did for GTF Cases and I am very proud of how it turned out.

In the world of high end pool cues we have a term which is probably the same for most aspects of life - A Monster. This is reserved for the wildest, out-there, coolest cues made - but of course everyone has their own ideas of what a Monster cue is - here is a fun site where "experts" discuss it.... www.cuezilla.com And what does that have to do with us here? Nothing really except that I think we made a Monster Case and I'd like the experts here to discuss it.

Rusty, Your skills are really tight now. In every case you do I see the wheels turning in your head about how to improve on the last one. Watching you has been an amazing progression from the raw talent of your first cases to these. The thing I really love about this one is the way you softened the edge on the small part of the lid to allow the case to have an nicer profile. Instead of making the lid a teardrop you have made the shape much more pleasing to the eye and it probably works better too. This is a truly nice effort. If I had one critique it would be ergonomic. As a user I would not like to have the handles done the way you have done them with hard edges. I know that you rounded the edges of the side handle a bit but with a case this size and the type of leather you use it's not light and a user won't be able to comfortably carry the case for long. I never thought of this as much of a problem until I went to Vegas for nationals and had to carry my case for a mile or so from one end of the casino to the other. Normally we think of going 100 feet from the car to the pool room. So perhaps you may want to think about this aspect for future cases and have a solution in mind. I have to say though that what you did definitely looks very sleek and fits the case well. I am sure that the owner will be very proud and pleased to own this case.

Well, I could certainly set up some sort of a distribution business to service smaller orders but I do think that shipping, delivery times and possible duties would certainly be factors that weigh in against it being viable. Things like buckles, latches, metal parts in general though are something that can either be found at the leather market or made on demand. Most factories here will produce them in any metal you request, iron, steel, alloy, zinc, or brass. Brass is the most expensive but likely to be a fraction of the price of buying from wholesalers. But I want to stress that I am not trying in any way to compete with or replace places like Ohio Travel Bag - that's not the scope. If you do need some specific things and are willing to discuss buying a larger quantity then we can talk about it for sure - for example I just bought more metal parts than I will ever need (well I hope that I will need them quickly) because I wanted better quality and the minimum amount was 5-10,000 pieces per type of part. So in this type of situation it's likely to be that the prohibitive factor may be the sheer quantity and not the unit price. As for the questions regarding shipping and export/import. Small shipments can go via the post office via their EMS air service and pallet sized ones would need to go by LCL (Less container load) freight. The catch with freight is all the document charges. The actual freight charge is small per kilogram BUT there are plenty of fees on both ends that make about the same or more as air freight up until you get over a certain amount of weight. Of course this is on a case by case basis as well and depends on the goods as to whether it is more or less economical. Import duties and taxes are really unavoidable. When I lived in Germany it was 17% tax and 3-6% duty. The tax was passed on to the customer eventually of course by the 17% we charged them for finished goods. To me it's just the cost of doing business. So the stumbling block I see is basically finding the balance between how much you can afford and how low of initial quantities we can negotiate with manufacturers. Typically for things like latches the minimum quantity to produce ones made from existing molds is around 500 but I have had them made in quantities as low as 100 per color. Buckles from existing molds are anywhere from 1000-10,000. Just about every manufacturer will quote you a 10,000 minimum to start but they are generally flexible on that. Any metal parts where a new mold has to be made will generally incur about a $250 mold fee. I don't really know what I am looking at to manufacture stamping tools. Near me is a street with something on the order of 30-40 machine shops specializing in CNC milling. These guys can crank out the tools but I haven't gone to see any of them yet. The machine shop across the street from me has said that they can make the simple patterns. They currently do precision brass fittings for pool cues, stainless steel joint collars and the like. I plan to go soon to check out CNC street to see what they can do. Another interesting option which I want to explore is stone stamps. I live in an area that is rich in granite and related stones. There is a village nearby that is specialized in producing stone jewelry and other decorative stuff from stone. One of the things that they make are "chops" which are basically Chinese signature stamps made of stone. These are dipped in ink and stamped onto calligraphy, paintings and documents. I have some crazy idea that they might make good stamps. One of the suppliers I talked to said send him any design and he will turn it around in a day or so. I can't remember the price but it was very reasonable. Of course this could just be a stupid idea and they may shatter with any use but it's worth a shot. Anyway, that's the China report for now. I think I wrote a lot but didn't say much. Send me pictures and specs of the buckles and parts you want and I will see about getting you specific details on getting them from here. John

It's quite funny but I have everything I need on my computer to mock up any type of bag in less than an hour. I have pockets, zippers, handles, textures, etc....all created and collected over the past 17 years. But in the past week I have gone back to pencil and paper and find it so much more satisfying. I made up an order sheet with all the specs to be filled in and had that copied and made into 50 sheet sketch pads. I love it. One thing I have never been able to do as quickly on the computer is mock up my ideas like I can by drawing them out. It just seems as if the flow is better. Don't get me wrong though - I love my library and I have plenty of half-done sketches done in Corel that were definitely easier to mock up there. I think it takes both - the willingness to use paper, rulers, cardboard and tape to pursue your ideas and make patterns AND the ability to transport it to computer and preserve it as well as expand on it digitally. One device that I bought which I thought would bridge the two worlds and hasn't for me is the Wacom Tablet. I bought a nice one and it was good for some things but it doesn't play as well with Corel as I thought it would and so has limited use for me. Once in a great while I will plug it in and use it but mostly it's just a glorified $400 mousepad. I really need to Ebay it. I can definitely see how it would be the nuts for those who can really draw though as once you get used to it then the precision control is great.

I just went through the thread on the Chaylor interiors and it occurs to me that there doesn't seem to be a lot of choice in suppliers of this item and I started wondering what else is out there that could stand to have more choice or even better quality? I am not looking to steal anyone's business but I am in a place where I can get things made fairly quickly. I can often negotiate lower production runs on items, and I can set the quality standards. I have seen that it might be nice to have some more stamps, maybe some new cool embossing plates/tapoffs, perhaps another source of interiors for common items or even a company that was willing to do custom runs for you in your configuration/leather type. I don't know. Usually I tend to not be thinking about much other than my case business and our billiard supply business. But I have seen a lot here that I thought it would be neat to have and I could have most of these items made fairly easily and to high quality standards. I know that China-made goods are stigmatized these days and that it's a polarizing issue. But I read the Chaylor website and if I read between the lines I get the feeling that a lot of what they sell is made in China. PLEASE correct me if I am wrong and not that there is anything wrong with that in my opinion as long as they stand behind their goods. My point is that as a community you have the opportunity to have someone like me working on what you want. We work leather every day just like most of you do. We use the same tools and even have a bit of a disadvantage as a lot of you have access to higher end tools and supplies that aren't readily available here in China. There is no Home Depot on the corner here and no Tandy Leather down the street, no Hermann Oak or Zack White, at least not in the same sense that most of you have access to tools. I am not looking to copy Barry King's tools, or Bearman's mauls - I am looking to do things where there isn't a lot of choice and perhaps the supply could stand to be a bit better in quality? Any suggestions on items you'd like to see or is everyone set? I sure am not looking to upset the applecart here but as easily as I can make new tools for myself I can have them made by the dozens, hundreds, thousands.... John - Mr. Chinglish - Barton

so many great details, original tooling, amazing edge work, great flow. All of your work is original and creative. Thank you for sharing.