Scrabble bag

[josh d]

We're a family of Scrabble nuts and I've just finished making this Scrabble bag as a 30th birthday present for my son.  The board itself is a leather circle with metal pins to hold the letters in place (aluminium for "power squares", eg, double letter, copper for the rest).  The board is folded round a 4" cylinder (made with box-stitched and piped ends) and attached to  it with studs, the cylinder holds letters, racks, etc., plus anything else you might want to carry!  All stitching is either saddle stitch or box stitch.

Having done a bit of woodwork over the years I'm new to leatherwork, and struggling a bit to get used to it: I'm using a block plane and fat (2") japanese steel chisel for skiving, cutting with a laser cutter (CNC machine with blue LED laser), I find the plane and chisel easier to handle and to sharpen than leather work tools such as French skiver (Also struggling a bit with health to be honest: aged 62, 12y Parkinsons Disease, major back surgery 2y ago).

Anyway, my assessment is that round  board is OK-ish, but edge finishing not great; cylinder looks not so great, box stitch is pretty hard ...

[PastorBob]

WOW!  The craftsmanship is phenomenal!  The level of detail on the spacing of all those dots, unreal!  I am sure your son was pleased.   

[josh d]

Thanks for kind words, but the laser cutter does the difficult stuff.....

[BlackDragon]

This is a great setup!

Yes a laser cutter did the cutting but YOU told the laser where to put everything, YOU did the stitching, YOU put in the hardware, YOU worked the leather, and most importantly YOU came up with a great design.

[FrankHester]

Very nice!