Doc's Onis

[JohnBarton]

We just finished this one for a customer in Florida. The design, from what goes on it to how it's built, took us about a year in discussion and about two months in actual build time.

As you can see we laced up the sides and the job could have been better. We didn't think about the tight circle when designing it so it took almost a week to lace it up tightly. The ring holders for the handle were designed and cut by me on the laser cutter. I went through several versions before settling on the ones you see. In retrospect I should have skived the lower portion to bring down the profile of those parts.

The lid and Combat Medical Badge were cut by laser and the tooling is all done by hand.

All in all the piece came out well and the customer was very pleased - his words "%^&%%ing Amazing"

More pix at www.jbcases.com/doc.html If you go here you can also see a cute little "extra" hidden storage space that I built in using the laser and magnets.

[TomSwede]

Great looking case John!! Is that a koi fish motif?

Very generous of you to share some of the problems you had. I use 2 layers of thin foam (the type used under laminated floor tiling)around the inner plastic tube for my rod tubes so I use the measurent with the wrapped innertube from start. Should I get shrinking probs or a tad too narrow cutting I can remove from those foam layer as a fail safe. I lace my tubes in the back (folded over, flesh to flesh) and then slide onto the plastic inner wich make things very critical with those measurements but I also like the foams ability to work as a cushioning to make the leather less sensitive to indents when loading in and out of cars and whatever handling they are put through.

I have also used the plastic tube to make a kind of friction lock to the top cap to streamline the design more ( the idea is to make the tube look like one single piece since I don't have pockets or rivets to it).

I really like the way you put the lace over the attachments for handles and stuff.

A really great piece of art from you again!!

Thanks for sharing!

Tom

[JohnBarton]

Great looking case John!! Is that a koi fish motif?

The back is a samurai facing his inner demons or 'oni'. The front is highlighted by the Combat Medical Badge that the customer earned in Vietnam. This is where he acquired the nickname "Doc" and where he got his oni as well, hence the clouds swirling around the front. My customer has similar artwork tattooed on his back.

The top pocket says "mischievous doctor" or some approximation thereof. It comes from tattoos that Doc has already. The lower pocket represents the fallen brothers in Vietnam with a small tombstone, again in direct relation to the tribute on the customer's body.

Very generous of you to share some of the problems you had. I use 2 layers of thin foam (the type used under laminated floor tiling)around the inner plastic tube for my rod tubes so I use the measurent with the wrapped innertube from start. Should I get shrinking probs or a tad too narrow cutting I can remove from those foam layer as a fail safe. I lace my tubes in the back (folded over, flesh to flesh) and then slide onto the plastic inner wich make things very critical with those measurements but I also like the foams ability to work as a cushioning to make the leather less sensitive to indents when loading in and out of cars and whatever handling they are put through.

I have also used the plastic tube to make a kind of friction lock to the top cap to streamline the design more ( the idea is to make the tube look like one single piece since I don't have pockets or rivets to it).

Yeah. The decision to lace it on the side was made so that there wouldn't be anything to distract from the art on the back. We offset the seam and skived the edges so that the pieces would come together like a puzzle and not have the seam raising up on the apex of the curve. It worked more or less. But because this case was somewhat smaller it was harder to get inside to lace it up. We really need to work on our lacing skills as they are pretty basic at the moment.

Would you send me or post a picture of your lid design? I am always looking for a better way to do that part and so far haven't had a lot of luck getting them to line up perfectly. Here is a pic of one we did where I used the tube to make the lid as well. I didn't really like the result so I'd be happy and eternally grateful to learn a better way.

Zack's Case

I really like the way you put the lace over the attachments for handles and stuff.

Thanks. It really helped to have a laser cutter to cut the parts. On the other hand I spent about three days designing and cutting the parts with a lot of trail and error. So even though the laser makes it "easy" to cut complex shapes it's certainly not plug and play by a long shot, especially with a Chinese laser. If any of you have a laser cutter then you might know what I mean. We own an American one, a ULS, and this Chinese one. The ULS is a dream compared to the Chinese one. It also cost $25,000 and the Chinese one was $5000.

Like I said though the parts are a little high for my liking. I think it would have been better to thin them out just a little to make the profile blend better, as well the bottom side should have been designed with the parts a little smaller so that they would line up perfectly when folded and molded to the curve of the tube.

A really great piece of art from you again!!

Thanks for sharing!

Tom

You're welcome. This particular piece has a lot of depth to it. It comes from a lot of conversation between Doc and I and similarities in our lives. I am sure that some of you have worked on pieces that have some deeper meaning for you and this is one for me. Doc gave me full reign to do whatever I wanted to on this case. Thus it's far more then some ink on leather for both of us.

[JohnBarton]

Tom,

Just went to your website. Really nice work! I love your style. If I make a "Tom Swede" style cue case I will give you full credit for the influence. First we need to learn to lace half as good as you do it.

:-)

John

[TomSwede]

Tom,

Just went to your website. Really nice work! I love your style. If I make a "Tom Swede" style cue case I will give you full credit for the influence. First we need to learn to lace half as good as you do it.

:-)

John

Oh , thank you very much John!!! That'll be the day!!!

The lacing is more about patience:-) I sit in my couch, one eye on telly and one on the needle to avoid neck stress + the couch is soft so I can move the tube around with out denting it.

I really need to head of to my regular job now but I'm back om subject when I return home tonite and try to dig up some shots of the friction cap and whatever info I have on it, as you allready noticed it is not the easiest thing to make it fully align and I'm not 100% there with the design.

Best regards

Tom

[David]

John,

I've made no secret, on this site, of my love of tattoo art, so your case was very interesting and very well done. I especially like working from artwork

that a client likes enough to wear on his body. It allows you to create a truly personal item.

Thanks so much for showing it.

David Theobald

[Dags3777]

You do amazing work, I can only hope one day in the future, I can be 1/2 as good. Beautiful. Darryl

[TomSwede]

John,

I've made no secret, on this site, of my love of tattoo art, so your case was very interesting and very well done. I especially like working from artwork

that a client likes enough to wear on his body. It allows you to create a truly personal item.

Thanks so much for showing it.

David Theobald

One of the guys responsible for my love of mexican basketweave, Hi David!

So I rounded up three pis for this post that shows how it lines up. The two first shows that there is not 100% exact wich is nearly impossible to get (I think) with a fold over, flesh to flesh tube. There is a spacing in the back that have to be filled with something that would make the cap hug the tube. That's why I did like I did on third pic, not as neat but has it's own charm and hugs the tube over the lace closing points. I used square lace wich just fits the eyelets so they're pretty tight locked when tying the knot. This last cap I tried by holding the cap and shake the tube downwards and all I got was a tiny glitch where cap meets tube. Still I did recommend the guys to seal with something if they ever were gona ship with flight or so. It was not made for bulletproof action but rather elegance.

[TomSwede]

Here is three more. First two is just to show the design and shape of this cap. I think the first one's function is easy to spot.

I explained to you about the cell foam padding. I have now used a pvc fakeleather fabric sewn as a sock as interior/lining. It's just hanging down in there (these tubes are non-profit and development platforms and portfolio work really). The liner is about half the thickness of that foam padding but much more nice looking AND provides a good doze of friction when you use it to line the inside of the cap too. That gives the same thickness as the foam and that make a good line up for those caps.

I also thought about having a distraction to lure the eye away from whatever glith there is between cap and body and for the first cap you can see I went out on a limb and just had a blasting fun time with it. I seriously don't recommend that sort of play if you don't fee like wasting hours but I do like the outcome of it, only I should have used wider black lace or perhaps better skipped having the braided string going all the way up on top.

The second cap I choose a timesaving solution and just took some experience from my bracers and implied the corsette type cap. I like that one but it needs some more enhancing before releasing to a customer. For instance at the body part, there is a gap in the back between leather and tube. The lining does stretch down there but I think it can be done neater. I had a sudden change in deadline so only two weeks from build start to finish if memory serves me right.

One more thing that might be of importance, I think the cap has to extend fairly long way down onto the tube, firstly for a good hugging fit and secondly adding more friction.

Theese caps is wetformed to the tube so they're pretty solid when you take them off. I did try that shaking on the black tube without tightening the string aswell and gotta tell you it takes some above normal force to shake the tube of even when I held it with my fingertips at the top.

There's probably alot of solutions to make other types of nice cap fastenings one can use for this cap type. One straight off my mind would be if the tube is not too long to put a handle riveted to the side of the cap and fasten the other side of the handle to the main body with som sort of good looking snap or whatever type of quick fastening there is available. Dunno if this would look good but like I said if the handle looks good..it draws attention from an area we'd rather like to have invisible.

That is the essence of those caps

Hope I made myself understandable and didn't miss anything obvious. I'll be glad to try to answer any questions, that is also a way of learning more..and sharing.

Tom

[JohnBarton]

John,

I've made no secret, on this site, of my love of tattoo art, so your case was very interesting and very well done. I especially like working from artwork

that a client likes enough to wear on his body. It allows you to create a truly personal item.

Thanks so much for showing it.

David Theobald

You're welcome. Our resident tooler, Zhen Hai Lee, is also a tattoo artist. So he was excited to do this case as well. I love tattoo flash and think that there is so much that can be done to combine it and leather tooling. As you well know.

It was interesting to me to learn that tattoo ink doesn't really work for leather. Apparently it has to do with the fact that the cells are all filled up with chemilcals and they don't absorb the ink as live cells do. Or something like that. Was an idea that I had and found that others had as well that didn't really work.

Your seats kick ass by the way - I have been looking at them for quite a while now.

[RustyMelton]

Sweet case John, I see your work on az and really love it.

[JohnBarton]

You do amazing work, I can only hope one day in the future, I can be 1/2 as good. Beautiful. Darryl

Thanks. It's a team effort though. I do the general design and Zhen Hai does the tooling. My mother in law and brother in law do the sewing. I just direct. :-) (and sometimes pick up a tool)When I see the beautiful work that you all put out as individuals I am constantly floored knowing that I don't have the patience or personal talent to do most of that work.John

Sweet case John, I see your work on az and really love it.

Thanks - yours is pretty sporty as well.I really like the way you are putting the cases together. Very clean and efficient.

[RustyMelton]

Thanks, its guys like you,Jack and all the other case makers that made me want to try and make one. I'm just glad I tried because I love messing with them. I posted the last one I made if you want to check it out.

[ArtS]

Awesome John - just awesome!!!!

Art