jkittle99

Nice work Wedgetail. I too have been experimenting with a laser on leather. I wont hijack this thread talking about it, but lets chat sometime and swap experiences.

I know this is a dumb question, but I'm going to ask it anyway... if I'm making a brifecase, bag, whatever, I hear a lot about lining it with pigskin, etc. So my question is, do I want to line it smooth side out (facing the stuff inside the bag) or do I want the textured side? What's popular? I kind of like the rough side since it's soft feeling..

Thanks for all the tips! I'll post pictures once it's complete!

I want to make a leather portfolio to hold a legal pad , your typical pad-folio type of design. My natural tendency is to gravitate towards tooling leather for something like this, because of it's stiffness, but I really love the look and feel of much of the other stuff I come across, but even thicker leathers seem to be very flimsy and I"m afraid the final product wouldnt want to hold form very well. Am I stuck with tooling leather and dye for a project like this, or are there ways to make other types of leather that tend to be less rigid do the job? Super newbie here, open to thoughts and suggestions.

I'll post some more photos, Some of my mistakes included various fails on trying to make the strap, ended up going webbing instead of leather, making the mistake of attaching the brass D rings after the bag was together versus prior to assembly, and various glue mistakes. The zipper went better than I thought it would. I haven't yet come to understand the best way to 'sew corners' or to join panels, so lots of little things... But hey, its done, and my mantra right now is going to be 'done is better than perfect'. So I'm happy

I've got a baby boy due in about 6 weeks, a couple of months back I started on a small diaper bag project. I just finished it, learned a ton, made my share of mistakes, but it's usable! I'm happy.

Well I dove in head first, made my fair share of mistakes, but boy I'm happy with the results. The bag itself is done, the zipper is installed (thank you, glue, you made sewing a snap), and the strap is made. all I've got left to do is stitch some D-Rings onto the bag and put some clips on the strap so it can be removed. I'll post up pics once I'm done. It's not perfect, but for a first machine-stitch project, I'm satisfied.

I've been digging around and found this - http://www.modabakeshop.com/2010/09/baby-on-the-go-diaper-bag.html It's as close to a pattern as I'm probably going to get, and helps me out with critical dimensions. I'm going to vary the design slightly, but it's a good overall representation, taking some influence from the original link I shared. I will be doing this bag unlined, I'm happy with the raw leather on the inside for this particular project. Thanks for the tip about leather backing on the Zipper, I had not thought of that. You're right about it being a little thin, but I wanted to err on the side of thin versus thick - it's got a nice feel to it. I managed to cut out the 'large piece' tonight, as well as the sides and one of the pockets. I'm going to try and make the straps tomorrow and see if I can get them sewn onto the main piece. Trying to take my time and move slowly as to not make any mistakes that cannot be corrected. Having a lot of fun.

Amazing work. Thanks for sharing!

I'm preparing to make a diaper bag out of leather. I found the perfect hide today, its roughy 3-4oz weight, but ive never attempted anything on this scale before. IT will be not unlike this in design (single piece of leather for the top,sides, bottom, and then separate end panels. http://leatherworker.net/forum/index.php?showtopic=68573&hl=duffel Are there any suggestions or tips I should follow before I just dive in and screw something major up? I'll be stitching on a cowboy 227r with 138 size thread. Josh

If my wife reads your last post, I'm dead

It's reassuring to hear that it's indeed possible to run 207 from the comments above - Ryan at Neel's Saddlery is setting the unit up and is going to demo it to me on 138, he is hesitant to guarantee that 207 will be a trouble-free experience, and feels that it may be pushing the machine 'to its max'. I can see where that might be a fair statement, but to say I'm not experienced enough to even have an intelligent conversation about it at this point would be an understatement - I'm as green as it gets, but hopefully I'm choosing a good machine and distributor. I'm going to drive up to his location tomorrow and lay hands on the machine, run some sample leather through it, and if all goes well, bring it home with me. The one point he has driven home to me so far during our phone calls is that 'there is no single good middle ground machine', and that if I really want to do both lightweight leather with smaller thread gauges and heavy leathers with large thread gauges, that eventually, I'm going to end up with 2 machines.

In reading the specs on the Toledo website the Cowboy 227r lists its max thread size as 207, but chatting with Ryan @ Neels's he's telling me 138, and he certainly knows volumes more about these machines more than I do. Is anybody currently using 207 in this machine that can chime in? I'm machine shopping and 207 thread is about the smallest I'm comfortable going with for work on the holsters I want to do, but the bulk of my work is going to be significantly thinner.... I'm sitting the fence between buying a 227r and a 3200. Thanks!

That looks very nice.

So I'm using the leodis leather plans and patterns for the most part, but i put a little twist of my own on the strap. This is the first project I've made, and I'm extremely thrilled with how it came out. It's flawed, imperfect, and has lots of errors, but I had a blast doing it, and I learned a ton in the process. I'll do things a lot differently next time - I guess that's how thos goes, ehh? I'd love to hear feedback, good, bad, and indifferent. Josh