Laptop Bag

[Dan28]

Decided to make myself a laptop bag.

[Dan28]

[MonicaJacobson]

Wow, that's an eyecatcher! What are the details on this bag? What's the leather, the finish, etc? It looks like it's 2/3 oz?

[Dan28]

The leather is 3 to 4 oz Herman Oak, though I'm thinking the parts used were probably closer to 3 than 4. Its the smallest weight I've used for a bag yet. The straps are laminates of 4 to 5 oz. I didn't have a long enough section left for the main strap, as I want to wear it cross body and have it come to my hip. I wanted to also use a strap slide. To get around not having a long enough piece of leather and without having to wait for more leather, I riveted and glued that joining piece to two straps (which are 2 inches). It doesn't have to hold a lot of weight so it should work.

I did the piping around the edges in black pig skin, as well as the lining. Althiough I ran out of black pig skin, one section was dark brown pig skin that I dyed black. I tested a small piece and once it dried it looked the same as the rest of my black.

Normally I had gotten away from using rapid and double cap rivets in favor of actual copper rivets, but I wanted all the hardware to match on this. I powder coated all my hardware with what was called "antique copper" powder. Besides the color, it also gives it a texture that doesn't really show in the pics.

Used black and ox blood dye. Guess the ox blood is becoming my favorite dye. For the two tone straps, I marked a line with a groover and then used blue painters tape to mask off sections of the leather. I did the ox blood portion first thinking that if it bled through the black would cover it. I didn't really have much bleed through though. Once the painters tape is on, you want to keep the entire strap on a flat surface, as I noticed if it flexed the tape would lift slightly in spots when it was flattened again. When I did the black portions, I applied it in light strokes brushing from tape to leather so as not to "push" dye up under the tape.