Rahere

You've learned a lesson! Excellent. There is another lesson, cut on the waste side. You can always turn it around and cut back from the far end. Another approach would be to be a little less gung-ho, cutting straight through in one swoop, instead cutting a groove and then through. This can be an important skill in tooling, just cutting the surface: that cut will then guide the knife for a clean final cut.

It's not just pulling out, but through, connecting the stitching holes.

Two different techniques have been used on that. I'll not criticise the work, as it's not been done to any particular quality, which puts it in a beginner's reach. For the main parts, the holes have been punched before being butt-joined edge to edge. A flat thread has then been used to hold the edges together: you'd stitch it backwards for about 5 holes each end to bury the threads. Ideally, they'd have been glued around a former the same shape as the handle. Contact cement would serve. Later, as your skills develop, you'll learn to use a sewing punch and awl. The bottom edge has then been covered with a leather edge-binding strip, maybe 5mm wide, skived (thinned) to about 0.5mm. In an ideal world, that would have been glued flesh-side together with about a 2mm overlap to the rear, before being wrapped and glued to the front. The entire shebang has then been sewn with about a 1mm allowance. But in reality, edge-binding shouldn't be necessary, and a beginner would be better to learn good edge-finishing. It's how a cloth-worker does things, not a leather-worker.

One consequence of the theft of roofing lead has been the development on non-toxic self-healing alternatives, which aren't as heavy, which might not be a good thing. It's the selfhealing aspect which intrigues me: has anyone tried any of those?

How many parts to it? You could go one- or two-part, and include a rest, itself in anything up to three-part, with pockers for different pouches... A one-part might be done as a really long cup, or braided around a liner, but once you start in parts, something like a pancake holster might be coherent, leading right up to a form of briefcase - not unlike a weapons case!

There are so many carry points! It may be you've gone for a set style in the US, but in my military days, a handle-down off the webbing shoulder strap was preferred, magnetic hold woth backup clasp.

I've answered this elsewhere, hoping someone else might pitch in. As that hasn't happened, might I ask where you want this set up, and what kind of volume are you talking about, please? Also, as I said there, what kind of dyes? That may relate to the tanning used. Most folk on here are low-volume workers, you're talking industrial volumes, I suspect. Jumping ahead, you'll probably find working with several dye suppliers to find the most appropriate level of plant, either lab volumes or volume.

I'm not saying there's no use for such, just recognising thicker leathers can have a remarkable difference in structure between sides, which affects the cutting. I'd chamfer the loose stuff more.

Another facet was touched on earlier, about working with intent. Uncertainty shows in an uneven cut. Another facet applies in working with heavier weight leather, where you'll likely notice the flesh side is very different from the surface, positively stringy. It may be wiser then to cut the surface layers, then come back to the lower rhubarb. There can even be a case for cutting it with scissors!

A decent skiving knife (they're "handed", so a leftie needs a left-handed one), and a steel straightedge. And a sharpening stone. I like Japanese water-stones, other oilstones and strops. There's a section on this. Thonging and a thonging needle, gentler on steering wheel covers.

Try rubbing a pencil over it to create graphite lubrication. It's often a question of angles, getting the teeth to come together flat around those tight curves. Also, try putting some thick corrugated card between to hold the faces enough apart for the zippers to settle into a perpendicular. You might even need to stiffen slightly with white PVA glue well thinned in water.

You're really looking at the dyeing stage of a tannery, which normally means a pressure drum (or more) and dryers. Additionally, you'll need to consider waste water treatment. What type of leather are you using, for starters? Do you have technical needs for dyes? Because it's organic chemistry, if you can't find what you're looking for (this is project design, normally, rather than off-the-shelf), a general food manufacturing plant design team could probably handle it. The one I worked for at the start of my career (Schweppes International Production Services) is sadly long gone. Essentially, a drum with axial hot liquid feed framed by roller bearing rims at each end is connected to an analine dye tank, delivering the dyestuff at up to boiling point. You might also need a mordant tank as well, to fix the colour - it depends on your dye supplier, which is a starting point. I prefer rim rather than hub bearings because the drum can get seriously heavy, and spreading the load at four points makes a lot of sense.

That's Renia, ideally.

Not with a double head, someone's been searching the internet and stopped once they found something like it. We'll use hammers to drive leather into shape, planishing, but it's a more rounded head with no true edge. That is, unless there's a tradition of sadomasochism to cobblers somewhere. All things are possible.

They told me, a door marked "Push", you push. A door marked "Pull", you pull. Then I came to a door marked "Lift"... Which works in English, but not in American. I had to spend years in Tibet before I could elevate er

It'll be too stiffl for anything worthwhile. In extremis, experiment with silocon caulk molding< thinning caulk with naphtha?white spirits< the using leather powder reather than cornflour as the thickener>

Some folk use adhesive abrasive tape.

In any craft, practice and experience are irreplacable. Practice until you've made all the mistakes known to man, and then some.

Your thinking of a pencil case is very much where I was headed, the issue being protecting the blade edges in the case. My liners are individual sheaths shaped to fit the case.

If you're seriously working that power, I'd attend to the buckle tongue. You'll either bend it or break it. As far as thickness is concerned, you're talking serious amounts of flesh side, unless you double it, so issues of suede become fairly irrelevant. In reality, the military use a stable belt for a similar purpose - which has two buckltes and is made of thick canvas to conform to the body shape more closely.

You're definitely off...

Probably tension. Might also be leather thichness. Try plaiting it losely while damp, on a greased former, or cover it in clingfilm

First see if they'll swell closed with water. If cut with a sharp awl, it's not unknown. If punched so material's been removed, gluing a plug from the same punch and material might work too.

You could skive to half thickness, and glue. Experiment with edge lacing rather than sewing on some scrap. I sometimes dye before edge grooving, because the dye is only surface the natural tan comes through creating a clearly-defined stitch line. Be careful not to glue to the edge or it'll show in the burnishing. Get a Dremel burnishing set from Proops on Etsy.