Advice on a new idea with the Cue cases I am making

[filluptieu]

Ive been building cases for about 3 months now and have completed 3. Its an envelop style and I want to change it to an enclosed case.

Now the thing is that I dont want to directly copy Mr Jack Justis, even though I love his cases and want to make a Tribute case.

I have this as an idea and was wondering if you guys think its a good idea or a bad one.

Its basically a enclosed case with two main pieces for the body and two thin strips for the connecting pieces. I want to have this on both sides of the case.

Also whats the best/ easier way to set the rivets if I do it this way, THANKS FOR ALL THE ADVICE IN ADVANCE!

[MADMAX22]

Not sure if this will help but for doing the rivets I would take and make two V notched stands say out of 2x6's or something similer. Then take a longer round post that will be about 4" longer on each side then the case your building so you can slip the cue case over the post then set it in the V notched stands so that they support it at both ends.

If you wanna get really intricate get the post leveled off on one side to give you about a 2" flat on one side the entire length then attach a flat piece of aluminum or steel, you can get the 1" wide pieces at lowes or home depot for a decent price. Or even try metal shops may be cheaper. Attach this metal strip to the flat portion that you have made.

Now you could put your rivets in, slide it into your jig and hammer away.

Just a thought. May not work as I have thought lol.

[JohnBarton]

The best way to do this is to make your holes just big enough to put your post rivets into on the under piece so that they will stay in place. Do one side then the other, don't try to do both sides at once.

Now set your rivets with the open leather laying flat.

Then you want to ideally have a round iron bar in a free clearance sort of setup to set the closing line. The suggestion of using a v-notched support on each side is a good one but in a pinch you can support an iron bar between two stable surfaces - bricks, wood whatever and something like a towel under each end to keep it from moving.

You can use a flat piece of iron if you like but make sure it's not going to crease your leather as you maneuver it on the bar. This is why I prefer the round piece.

We have a welded X-stand that has four different bars sticking out of it - two flats and two rounds of different sizes for different application involving putting on rivets, snaps, and latches. This is more than you need for what you want to do here.

Make sure that the iron bar is sufficiently thick so that your hammering on it won't dent it or bend it. I don't know jack about iron so I take a hammer with me when I go to the scrap yard looking for pieces we need.

Another thing I would suggest is getting three or four GOOD heavy duty large clamps. These are expensive but worth their weight in gold around the shop. I can't tell you the amount of times we use an iron bar and clamp it to the work bench in various positions to be able to set rivets in funky positions and such or for some other purpose.

You have one drawback with the way you intend to do this according to your drawing and by the time you read my reply you will have probably figured it out.

It is that the leather will raise along the line where the two pieces are butted against other on the curve and look bad. What we do when we close the case in this way is to leave some room for the underpiece to lay down on the curve. I am at home right now or I would send you a picture of a piece we did to illustrate this. You can see it in action somewhat if you look at the pictures of the Palace Garden case that we profiled on here several months ago. On that case we did this type of closing method except that we chose to sew the seams instead of rivet them. You can see that we let underpiece (connector) also hold the strap retainers and side handle.

Anyway, that's my advice for you. Hope it helps. Making cases this way is much harder than doing it the "envelope" way but I think much more rewarding.

[filluptieu]

The best way to do this is to make your holes just big enough to put your post rivets into on the under piece so that they will stay in place. Do one side then the other, don't try to do both sides at once.

Now set your rivets with the open leather laying flat.

Then you want to ideally have a round iron bar in a free clearance sort of setup to set the closing line. The suggestion of using a v-notched support on each side is a good one but in a pinch you can support an iron bar between two stable surfaces - bricks, wood whatever and something like a towel under each end to keep it from moving.

You can use a flat piece of iron if you like but make sure it's not going to crease your leather as you maneuver it on the bar. This is why I prefer the round piece.

We have a welded X-stand that has four different bars sticking out of it - two flats and two rounds of different sizes for different application involving putting on rivets, snaps, and latches. This is more than you need for what you want to do here.

Make sure that the iron bar is sufficiently thick so that your hammering on it won't dent it or bend it. I don't know jack about iron so I take a hammer with me when I go to the scrap yard looking for pieces we need.

Another thing I would suggest is getting three or four GOOD heavy duty large clamps. These are expensive but worth their weight in gold around the shop. I can't tell you the amount of times we use an iron bar and clamp it to the work bench in various positions to be able to set rivets in funky positions and such or for some other purpose.

You have one drawback with the way you intend to do this according to your drawing and by the time you read my reply you will have probably figured it out.

It is that the leather will raise along the line where the two pieces are butted against other on the curve and look bad. What we do when we close the case in this way is to leave some room for the underpiece to lay down on the curve. I am at home right now or I would send you a picture of a piece we did to illustrate this. You can see it in action somewhat if you look at the pictures of the Palace Garden case that we profiled on here several months ago. On that case we did this type of closing method except that we chose to sew the seams instead of rivet them. You can see that we let underpiece (connector) also hold the strap retainers and side handle.

Anyway, that's my advice for you. Hope it helps. Making cases this way is much harder than doing it the "envelope" way but I think much more rewarding.

Thank you for chiming in John, What you mentioned was great and something i have been thinking about. By anychance could you take a quick picture of the stand?

and the last part about the leather edge kinda of sticking out is something i actually didnt think about. well the diagram i made was a rough example but i wanted to make the two outer body pieces of leather touch each other so you cant even see the strip down the middle. so in you honest opinion do you think this would be an okay idea?

Thanks for you help AGAIN! always giving great advice

[JohnBarton]

Thank you for chiming in John, What you mentioned was great and something i have been thinking about. By anychance could you take a quick picture of the stand?

and the last part about the leather edge kinda of sticking out is something i actually didnt think about. well the diagram i made was a rough example but i wanted to make the two outer body pieces of leather touch each other so you cant even see the strip down the middle. so in you honest opinion do you think this would be an okay idea?

Thanks for you help AGAIN! always giving great advice

Sure as soon as I can get to it I will take a picture. I stole the idea from one of the factories I work with. It's a beast though because it requires a fairly large and heavy base to be freestanding and work well. I'd bet that this will be too big and overkill for what your needs are.

Phillip, the best advice I can give you is test test test. Whenever you have an idea to put pieces of leather together and you don't know what it will do then make a mockup. I have an entire wall of mockups. Some of the ideas turned out not to be practical and others have led to really nice breakthroughs in the way we build cue cases. As well we are often further inspired with even more ideas once we build a mockup. For some reason seeing something made real seems to lead to a quick succession of good ideas on how to make it better.

As to the butting of leather ends together, yes on a curve the ends will stick up unless you do something to keep them down. Even when they are not on a curve you don't want leather butting end to end as it often happens that the ends are not the same thickness through the length of a large piece.

Believe me when I tell you that finding a way for leather to easily butt end to end and lay down is the leather worker's holy grail. About the only way I have seen it done is by using a curved awl and needle and sewing the ends together through the center of the leather. I cannot imagine how time consuming and frustrating that must be. That said we are still gonna try it because when it's done right it looks pretty killer. I still think that even this technique though will not allow the leather to lay down on the curve.

[BHCustomCases]

Thank you for chiming in John, What you mentioned was great and something i have been thinking about. By anychance could you take a quick picture of the stand?

and the last part about the leather edge kinda of sticking out is something i actually didnt think about. well the diagram i made was a rough example but i wanted to make the two outer body pieces of leather touch each other so you cant even see the strip down the middle. so in you honest opinion do you think this would be an okay idea?

Thanks for you help AGAIN! always giving great advice

filluptieu -- Maybe this will give you a better idea of the stand that they are talking about. I made something similar to what was suggested earlier that works well enough for my needs. Basically I built a sawhorse, but instead of a board going between the top of the to sets of "V" support legs I used a steel pipe. To secure this pipe in place I used two small 4x4's on either side of the pipe on both ends and fitted it tightly. This pipe is what I rivet on as it is removable once the case has been enclosed.

I don't have a camera right now, but when it gets back this weekend I can take some pictures. It is a real simple design and probably won't last forever, but it was cheap as I had all of the stuff around. Hope this helps, let me know if you need the pictures to visualize it and I will post them as soon as I have my camera.

John -- Thanks for mentioning this site. I've been like a sponge soaking up all of the information around here!

[JohnBarton]

filluptieu -- Maybe this will give you a better idea of the stand that they are talking about. I made something similar to what was suggested earlier that works well enough for my needs. Basically I built a sawhorse, but instead of a board going between the top of the to sets of "V" support legs I used a steel pipe. To secure this pipe in place I used two small 4x4's on either side of the pipe on both ends and fitted it tightly. This pipe is what I rivet on as it is removable once the case has been enclosed.

I don't have a camera right now, but when it gets back this weekend I can take some pictures. It is a real simple design and probably won't last forever, but it was cheap as I had all of the stuff around. Hope this helps, let me know if you need the pictures to visualize it and I will post them as soon as I have my camera.

John -- Thanks for mentioning this site. I've been like a sponge soaking up all of the information around here!

My pleasure. I love it here. Every time I think I have seen it all I am BLOWN AWAY by something someone did whether it's making a leather something, or a new tool or technique.

The sawhorse idea is great - that's all anyone really needs. For me all I want is that it doesn't move and I can work on it. Just the other day I suspended an iron bar between two sewing machines just to be able to do a tricky rivet installation on a small diameter case. The iron bar was set on foam rubber and towels to keep it from moving or damaging the sewing machines.

The only thing I caution with using pipe is to make sure that it's strong enough not to bed when you are setting rivets. You would be surprised to know that fairly sturdy feeling pipe can bend with what seems like relatively light tapping.