RockyAussie

Thanks jimi. Could I trouble you for any links to them? Thanks blue duck, I will let you know how it goes.

Thanks @noobleather I sorta like that colour myself. Wouldn't wear it though if ya know what I mean The customer"s ordered colour is a pale grey leather with the pale pink lining. The grey matches up with the ring boxes I make for her.- https://www.amonie.com.au/products/light-grey-leather

Thanks for that @blue duck. From their website they may be the answer. Have you used their snaps? I would like to see and try a couple of them before ordering in a big heap.

From memory I think it is referred to normally as stitchless construction. I had a play with it awhile back and called it the holy poke method At any rate here's a couple of pictures that might just help a bit. I do not recommend doing the bottom as I did as it makes it very difficult to weave together without stitching inside along the bottom to hold it together. have fun and remember to post some pics when you got it beat.

Thanks @jimi the ones I am chasing have capped ends top and bottom. The ones you mention are not capped on the both ends. Another question....do you have a supplier there for Kenda Farben product? If so do they have the Orly SL edge paints?

I am trying to find a good supplier for the capped style of sigma snaps. The Tandy ones I have tried to use in Australia several times over the last few years don't come together well nor hold together well when done up. I have searched online and can find only other suppliers that appear to have the same looking snap going by their pictures. The problem is that the piece that goes down into the cap has different length slots and this makes the thing twist when pressed down into the cap. If you look around it you can see the holes do not all line up. Does anybody use this style of cap that works as it should and could let me know where to get them from.

Thanks dikman, My customer thankfully was also amazed ...enough to pay and order a stack more anyways. Thanks for the compliment but I believe you are more than worthy myself. Thought about that but I thought...tooo common and the stud will stand the test of time as well I think. Thanks @Scoutmom103 I can only say ....That's what they pay me to do. Thanks mate, I just checked your insta and have to say you got some pretty good looking stuff yourself now days.

Thanks HaloJones ...always trying. If the leather for the job ever gets here I will. So far its gone from NSW past me to Mackay and back down to Brisbane and at present....???? No I do all of the printing here on my old Prusa i3. I have not yet heard of anybody around Rockhampton doing any 3d production yet. I think I may have a go at building something along the line of a larger Ultimaker style printer one of these days if I can find the time. Makes more sense that the bed does not have to shuffle around doing the x and y with all of the weight and inertia etc. Thanks jimi. Will do asap. Mostly it helps to have a patient wife. I forgot to make a mention in the last picture I posted of my big/little laser above pointing out that that it has cut all the strawboard for 5 of these boxes. The little yellow button things are things I printed to hold 9x2mm circular magnets. They make it a lot easier to grab off of the job and collect and distribute around over the metal bed. It would be a large advantage to also have a vacuum bed set up to hold the work but that's just another project waiting to happen. This picture below shows one of the spots where the strawboard gets used to keep things level with the leather and another for covering with leather as in the top and bottom.

This is the latest design I have come up with for the same customer I do the wedding ring boxes for. These are just a few pictures of some steps involved in making this one. I have now got an order for a run which I will take some more detailed pictures as I go along. There is a bit of 3d printing for the shell parts and tray dividers and a bit of laser work for cutting out the strawboard filler pieces and cutting knives still to be made. Note the pouch stud for closure and tab Might make an interesting bag design yet. This pic below shows the base shell just printed with the hole for pouch stud later addition. Here all of the pla parts are shown after printing. Sorry I covered the 2 little dividers before remembering to take the picture. The shell closest on the bottom right is for the tray and note that there is holding slots incorporated for the dividers. Here the tray has been leather covered and velvet base and sides installed. I am here only sliding the dividers in dry. Note there is a small gap in the velvet wall join I need to get better. Showing velvet and foam joined and sliced to make good curves The foam and dividers will be removed and glued in later after final measurements are taken. If you would be interested to see a more complete breakdown on how its made here let me know.

Ohhhh I like this one. I wish I was not 1/2 a world away. Monogramming a tote bag after being made up would be easy with this one. The extra height adjustment also makes it highly versatile.

Thanks for that. I assume that you wanting this drawings to go into a cad drawing program on your computer for printing out further hard copies? I seem to remember you used auto cad in the past. What I have done sometimes is take some pics and then measurements and drop the pic into auto cad and squish the scale up down etc untill it matches my measurements and then draw the lines over the top. I do that only if I am wanting to go on a pattern up a project. Another way that may be of interest goes back to when I made shoes and the orthotics for them. For a relatively low price you can buy these casting foams which are for doing the feet impressions like these in the pic below- They come as you see with a foam either side to do both feet. I think if a gun were pushed down halfway into one side and again for the other side of the gun on the other foam, you would be able to cast either a plaster of paris or resin to get yourself 2 halves of the gun. This half would then be very easy to get you a 2d outline and have the advantage of having a blue gun of sorts when you tape or attach them parts together. A scan of this outline can then also be put into your drawing program and should true to size if done correctly. What do you think?

I hate to admit I am not understanding what above the guard means? Are the pictures above good and the type of thing that you want to be able to do for other guns? Would it matter if there was more detail as when taken from a photo? Is this only for the purpose of arranging the bottom leather piece patterns or ...... I am only wanting to understand if these pictures are what it is that you want to achieve or not and if so, do they need to be done on what size paper if that matters etc. Brian

so so true.

I have to ask why then you do not just take it to an upholstery place and pay them a few bucks to stitch it up for you. Way way cheaper and probably a better outcome. Plywood is not that hard to stitch through as some might think but a decent sized machine would be best.

@YinTx The best thing I can think to say is that you should not try and sew the pieces together untill you can have front and back pieces meeting together without much difference in length, meaning the top should not be hardly any wider than the bottom at this area. It (the top) needs to be wet moulded and dried to shape if going for the flat back look or the pattern would need to go more 50/50 at that area and wet mould the lot, putting in the knife after the stitching. On one off type pieces a trick I worked out years ago is to cut myself a strip of hard veg about 3/4" wide and quite thick depending on the job. From there after the leather is wetted and ready to mould (and initially over size by 3/8 to 1/2") staple down the base to hold position well and then I staple the thick welt down over and around the top piece keeping the staples about 1/4" out. This allows after the piece is dry for me to trim away the excess and loose the staple holes at the same time. This saves making up a full blown wooden or plastic mould and pressing technique. I do have a large board that is put together with the end grain up and it works beautifully for this type of work described. This knife sheath along with most of the ones I have made use this technique. I believe you could do this on the bottom surround edge if you were looking to maximise the flat back look. Best of luck. Brain

Yep its just you .....it looks good as is and nice any minimal in just a good way.

I agree. Grind away is a last resort. Needle bar may need to revolve a bit.

I'm thinking that the holes may be laser burnt and that would help with cad spacing. The top holes would be probably just burn marked in a bit and used to line up to with an awl. The other one is I agree with @Mattsbagger and I think plugged. Stitched out flat and then glued. That is how I do my wedding ring boxes.

Way before the time there were 3D printers a fairly successful way of doing this I found was to carve/stamp the design heavily into the leather and then seal it up well.After that I put on some release agent and the pored a mix of high impact casting epoxy on to it and immediately followed this with a steel plate and allow to set. I did this procedure on a cowboy boot cigarette lighter cover which stood up to the pressing for many thousands of copies. The old guy who used to sell them all over the country passed on and I let it all slide after that. This is a much easier process than learning how to do the 3d drawings and printing out but either way if you can draw up the 3D design whether its printed or CNC carved would make little difference. The cost of the print though would be less than 1/10 of the price and I found that the stamps held up very well as shown in this post I did awhile back. - https://leatherworker.net/forum/topic/82905-is-there-a-font-for-ivan-alphabet-stamp-set-8132-00/

Although I do this type of edge coat edging every day I have never really got round to doing a tutorial on it as yet. This link to Danne's tutorial is similar enough to my own and perhaps more applicable for small volume jobs - https://leatherworker.net/forum/topic/85026-finishing-edges-tutorial-with-edge-paint/?tab=comments#comment-575922 A bit of my own methods can be seen in this post of mine - https://leatherworker.net/forum/topic/86675-how-i-make-crocodile-skin-leather-belts/ Some more can be found in some of my other posts which can be fond fairly easily by looking at my profile here and then looking down the list in the (about me) section. The black acrylic I have used on the sides is not see through and covers 90% of accidental viewing and the top green is there just as an extra safety when viewing the job on the run. It is not a extra special grade bought in for the job, but I have found that it seems to be better than the cheap glasses they provide with these lasers. Unlike your earlier statement about being surrounded by genius's that is not true in my case as I have found my self guilty tooo often at seeing the laser beam in action with out having my goggles on. The green top thankfully has helped in my case but I can not say that this is the right thing to do. I tried to find some method of putting it to some safe testing procedure and could not find anything useful. It is certainly less glary than looking through the goggles supplied.

The machine was originally an Elksmaker A3 purchased through Banggood and I gave it a few mods to do poster size stuff. I have not had any call to do any curved or radius stuff so until then...... Yeah the beer coozie on the flat is the way to go and easy. Believe or not I have not yet tried to burn in Croc, in the laser anyway. I will give a try sometime. I think I may have posted this pic of a stubby cooler before before but ....

I am not knowing what you mean by this question ??? Temperatures here can reach pretty regular about 40 degree C so for me keeping the temp down may be more relevant than in the UK. I like the laser to be able to run for at least an hour or more if I want and as mine is in an enclosure for better fume removal AND eye protection I need a more direct cooling method than the standard set up. The pedestal fan or an air conditioner works pretty well in an open arrangement but not so if you want to extract the fumes. This pic shows my somewhat modified laser as at the moment. The rails,acrylic panels and extraction fan and all of those extra bits set me back probably about $500 and for my eyes and lung health and other around me, that sounded alright to me. Set of glasses cost nearly that.

Getting that focus spot on is a real surprise deal at times. I found that I can get that dot as small as can be and it still can be out from the best. I make up a wedge shape box /\ in thin cardboard and set it to do some lines up it. Where it cuts through I find the middle and then adjust for that height. If you have a check on the dimensions of the laser housing it may be 33mm square the same as mine. To enable it to run for a lot longer I made up a housing to take a bigger fan and also give me a manual Z lift at the same time for easier focusing. One turn = 1mm. Here's a picture that'll give you the idea. The temp gauge helps me to check that she's not getting over hot occasionally. The funnel is to give further air assistance if required and is held in place by magnets for easy removal. This one is for my 2.5 and as well 5.5 watt lasers. Let us know if you are ready or want any more info on it. Brian

that is a very fine result @mikesc and @toxo. I hope to see more in the future.