Klaken

May I ask what you have ordered from them and what you thought of the hides? Living in Europe I have eyeing them for a long time and this summer I pulled the trigger but ended up getting quite disappointed. However, I believe I just had some bad luck and I don't want to close the door to them just yet but I would love to hear some opinions of the quality

Sorry I think I was a bit unclear what I meant, I was referring to the leather you sell as Finished vegetable tanned leather in English and in Polish I think it would be the 'Skóry roślinne wykańczane'

Would it be possible to split the leather to a certain thickness? Say for a finished shoulder?

A quick update, in the end I decided to use some cheap, stained veg-tan of 1.8mm I had laying around. I have however not ruled out using Texon in the future, I think 0.6mm Texon it shaped the bag quite similar to the leather I decided to go with in the end. The reason to why I went with the leather is that it was just easier to attach and put in the bag at this stage, in the future if I will use Texon it will probably be incorporated into the bag at an earlier stage of the process. I really appreciate all the help I got in this thread!

For the bottom of the bag I have used plexiglass which turned out quite nice. I have never made an item of this size so there are many steps I am unfamiliar with. I have filed down all sharp corners on the plexiglass but maybe an additional layer would be good in order to protect the lining. I think you are right that I should expect any bag to "loose" it shape a bit after a while and probably should be what I would go for when working with the stiffener to avoid an unnatural look of the bag. The box would consist of 4 parts to cover the inside of the bag. This is due to the form of the bag where the bottom of the bag is boxed and the upper not being boxed, resulting in different widths for the bottom and top part. In my head I divide the bag in a lower and top part which also is formed when the bag is closed and the top is tied down. I have attached a picture of what I have been playing with below, this is the lower part and the top part would then be attached to this two parts. I choose to separate the box as I made the bag inside out with a fold on side running from the bottom to the top of the bag. The way I was thinking was that if the short sides and the wide sides were to be attached to each other it would take away possible quirky corner effects occurring when the leather moves. This, after attaching the top part, would be lowered into the bag and glued to respective sides of the bag.

Looks really nice! I will do my best to follow up on this thread as I keep working on the bag.If it works out with Texon I can see some nice benefits with it. I saw that you are based in the US and bought the product under the label Texon, I was so sure it was just a matter of different labels for different regions but I guess that proves otherwise

If only glueing would hold it in place that would be great, I can't sandwich it between two pieces of leather as then I would run into the weight problem again. The way I was considering to do it would be to create a box shape like I plan to do to lining and then glue it to the sides and stitching it together at the top with the zipper and on the sides of the bag (shoulder strap attachment and handle attachments). But maybe I am overthinking it here and it would work just as well to attach the pieces seperatly on each side? The bag is inspired by the Mulberry Clipper (https://www.mulberry.com/us/shop/women/travel/holdalls/clipper-oak-natural-leather), and I wish to retain a shape as such pictured also when the bag is empty, - more or less. I think the shorter sides would benefit from using the thicker .8mm and for the longer sides I was thinking I would go with .6mm of Texon. The benefit of creating a box as I see it would be to avoid qurky corners in the bag but maybe that wouldn't be a problem anyhow? I have the outer layer of the bag completed, the lining I will be using is very soft and will unfortunately not add that much to the structure of the bag. Maybe I can try to upload a picture of the box I have created for testing purpose and that might be more informative of what I am trying to achieve I think they are actually the same product, just sold under different names depending on where you are located. For me, living in Europe, it was sold under the name Texon. I would say that both the .6 and .8 are about as stiff as a 2mm veg-tan leather (very roughly), I can imagen that the 2mm is quite stiff and maybe in my case would be more suitable for the base of the bag as I believe you used it. I will update the thread if I decide to use the texon!

Thanks, that is really helpful. The part about the Bontex getting bent or damaged sounds worrying. I was hoping that I could avoid adding more leather as the weight quickly adds up, but maybe that is the best option after all. I just can't completely shake of the idea of using bontex as for this project it would make things so much simpler, I have it in 0.6 and 0.8 mm and I wonder if I can still reinforce parts of the side to give the bag the initial lift

Hi Gary, The stiffener I have, goes under the name Bontex in the US and Texon in Europe, is very similar if not the same as the one Tandy sells. I am quite happy with the product itself and plan to use it, right now I am mostly wondering about how. I have searched the forum but haven't really found what I am looking for, but glueing and then sewing trough the stiffener seems to work quite well which I think answers my first questions

I am making a weekender bag out of chrome-tanned leather which is quite soft. Therefore, I need to stiffen the bag up to make hold the desired form when empty. After the bag is stiff enough I will also drop in a lining. To make it stiff enough I have been experimenting with texon/bontex. I was thinking if I can apply the same way of thinking as with the lining by sewing a box which I drop in the bag and sew at some strategic places? I have thought about just adding some thick leather to stiffen the bag but it will make the bag quite thick and too heavy. I have a few things I am still unsure of: 1. Saddle stitching texon/bontex - will it hold over time? Is it a better way to put two pieces of texon together? 2. Sewing corners with texon - Is there a good way of doing this so I can shape a box out of texon sheets?

I am currently making a weekender bag with boxed corners. After trying out some simple prototypes I decided to abandon the idea of using veg-tan and went with chrome-tan. If you are set on veg-tan I, as previous writer said, believe it is doable but I would avoid anything thicker than 4-5 oz. Maybe you could also consider a veg-tan with softer temper?