biker wallet

[JoeS]

Hi,

I'm going to try my hand at copying an old biker type wallet with a lot of little pockets stacked together with a fold over flap and snap. I called Tandy today to get an idea of leather weights and he suggested 4-5oz. outside and 2.5-3oz. vegtan kip they have on sale in their latest brochure for the inside. My question is whether the kip will be too stretchy and soft to hold up to wear and tear and whether you folks who make a lot of wallets use a certain weight and type of leather as a general rule of thumb. I know there must be many situations where it depends on the item being made but I'm looking for a ballpark estimate so I have a logical starting point.

Thanks, and the site is looking great!

joe

[badLoveLeather]

For the insides you should use 1.5 to 2 oz skin. Rolling the edges doubles up a lot of the pockets and the combined total can make the wallet thick after its done.

Most people will pack the snot out of their wallets with all sorts of nonsense so a good guide is to make the wallet as thin as possible. Trust me I've seen my customers show me their wallets a few months later and they look like little footballs.

If a kit doesn';t satisfy your creativity i always recommend buying a cheap wallet and taking it apart to learn how its put together.

Look around here, you may find some good design ideas.

Best of Luck to ya on this project. Have fun with it!!!

[JoeS]

badLoveLeather,

I have the old, well worn, stapled together wallet and was given permission to take it apart to make patterns from. My problem is guessing what it was made of and how thick. The edges aren't rolled so I assumed it was handmade from something vegtanned. It's soft but doesn't have the little pin marks that I've seen on pig so I went to Tandy and picked up a vegtan kip skin 2.5-3oz. thinking that when it's used it will break in and become soft like the old one, but now I'm wondering if it might be goat or something else. Do you mostly use chrome tanned for your wallets? I have to get a better handle on using vegtan before I try skiving/rolling edges with chrome tanned. I've got a month to do it so I have time to get some ideas together but I do wish I had picked up something thinner to work with. I'll make one out of the kip and see how it goes and if I learn of something better I'll make another. Thanks for the boost and I'll try to keep in mind the fun part. If nothing else I'll have a free pattern.

joe

[TwinOaks]

There is a pattern for one right here on Leatherworker! It shows how to lay out everything and where to stitch. Here's a link to it http://leatherworker.net/forum/index.php?showtopic=16404&hl=biker++wallet.

There's also a few others you might like. Do a search for [ "biker wallet" ] (include everything in the brackets) in the pattern and templates forum.

[JoeS]

There is a pattern for one right here on Leatherworker! It shows how to lay out everything and where to stitch. Here's a link to it http://leatherworker...=biker++wallet.

There's also a few others you might like. Do a search for [ "biker wallet" ] (include everything in the brackets) in the pattern and templates forum.

Hi TwinOaks,

Thanks for the link, the pattern there is very close to what I'm trying to copy. Thanks for the search tip too. Every time I search I end up with a lot of unrelated results and thought the parenthesis were all I needed.

joe