Rifle case

[PastorBob]

A beautiful piece of workmanship for a beautiful rifle.  Well done.  Did you sew by hand or machine?

[Tequila]

@AndrewWR beautiful looking case, I like the handle detail.  Got a question how did you get the edge to lay flat on the curves, when I try to do it the edge material puckers.  

[AndrewWR]

2 hours ago, PastorBob said:

A beautiful piece of workmanship for a beautiful rifle.  Well done.  Did you sew by hand or machine?

All Hand sewn, @PastorBob. I don't have sewing machine can't justify the cost or space as a hobbyist. If I was running a business, it'd be different but I think I still prefer the netness and quality of hand sewn leather.

Which brings me to  @Tequila 's question:

1 hour ago, Tequila said:

@AndrewWR beautiful looking case, I like the handle detail.  Got a question how did you get the edge to lay flat on the curves, when I try to do it the edge material puckers.  

Tequila, I don't think what I did here can be done with a machine (But I'm willing to be corrected on that). Because it's hand sewn, I punch all the holes first and each stitch pulls them into alignment close to the inner radius. I wet the middle of the edging strip with a cotton bud so the leather is more inclined to stretch around the outer radius. This stretch is only a fraction of a millimeter at a time, since the stitches are 4mm spacing. As I understand it, machine sewing doesn't allow this progressive tension so the outer radius is unstretched and the inner radius puckers under compression. 

This is time consuming work but I happen to think it's worth it.

[Tequila]

25 minutes ago, AndrewWR said:

All Hand sewn, @PastorBob. I don't have sewing machine can't justify the cost or space as a hobbyist. If I was running a business, it'd be different but I think I still prefer the netness and quality of hand sewn leather.

Which brings me to  @Tequila 's question:

Tequila, I don't think what I did here can be done with a machine (But I'm willing to be corrected on that). Because it's hand sewn, I punch all the holes first and each stitch pulls them into alignment close to the inner radius. I wet the middle of the edging strip with a cotton bud so the leather is more inclined to stretch around the outer radius. This stretch is only a fraction of a millimeter at a time, since the stitches are 4mm spacing. As I understand it, machine sewing doesn't allow this progressive tension so the outer radius is unstretched and the inner radius puckers under compression. 

This is time consuming work but I happen to think it's worth it.

I don’t have as much patience as you, so a tip of the hat to you for that long tedious work, and your right the outcome was worth the effort.  Thanks for sharing your knowledge and technique with everyone.