Some Input Requested On An Idea For A Really Thick Drawing Folder/map

[Jimenie]

Ola folks!

Last week I was at my brother's, who spends half his life above a drawing pad, and he asked me if I could make a sort of case to store a A3 drawing pad, pencils, sharpener/eraser, combined with a flap that doubles as a cover and a holder for the sheet that he's working on.

So we did some brainstorming and came up with the design as shown in the pictures.

1) The walls are basically layers of leather cut out in strips of 1 cm (25/64 inch) build up till about 1,6 cm (5/8 inch).

2) Underneath that comes a sheet of leather that covers the whole thing, but doesn't fold over on the front over the whole length. It only closes the main compartment for the drawing pad.

3) On top comes another sheet, that gets glued/stitched to the walls of the main compartment, and folds over and closes the compartments for pencils etc.

I hope it's a bit clear what I mean from the description and the drawings, if not, please ask!

Now for the input requested:

1) Does this look viable construction-wise? I warned him that it's going to be a bit bulky/heavy, but as he's like a 6ft 6 drawing giant, he said that's not an issue

2) The stitching bothers me. I'm planning on gluing the walls together first and then attach the top and bottom. But how on earth will I be able to stitch through 2 cm of leather? Pre-drill holes in the walls first, glue top an bottom and pierce those with an awl?

3) Anyone got an idea on how to attach press studs to the outside of the walls? It's to get the smaller compartment to close.

After that is complete, I need to attach a big flap, consisting of 2 sheets of leather with some thin hardboard (or something similar) in between, that he can fold close so it's resting on top of the case (just as big as the major compartment, so the rest stays accessible), with his drawing on the inside, or open so he can draw on the flat backside. I'm thinking of maybe placing magnets on the edge of that flap and in between the walls and the top leather sheet and bottom sheet, so it's easily open-able and close-able in either position. If it's easier I can draw that up aswell and include it in a next post.

So yeah, there you have it, big (crazy) plan, for which I would really appreciate some input from the way more knowledgeable people around here!

Cheers,

Aäron

[DavidL]

Drawing a 3d rendering (on an angled ariel view) would make things more clear.

Have you considered substituting for wood in some spots?

[Jimenie]

Included some angled views. These are not fully correct scale/perspective wise though (only found a ruler ) but they should clarify things a bit!

In the view from the right, I cut out a bit of the middle section due to space restrictions. The crosshatched part is the bottom btw.

I proposed using some light wood for the walls to my brother, but he's reluctant, because it would make it breakable. The whole point of the thing is that he can carry it around town, and that it's able to take a (bit of a) beating while protecting everything inside.

Aäron

Edited April 26, 2015 by Jimenie

[DavidL]

just some brainstorming :

you could pre punch holes the entire thickness piece by piece then glue, stack and stitch

Another way would be a less secure way but much easier, only stitch (in the stack of leather) the bottom piece to the base and the top piece to the second piece. Contact cement creates a permanent bond, so the leather wont separate easily . The stitching will show at the top and bottom creating the look that it is stitched through. Remember to use a groove on the inside pieces so that the stitching sits below the surface of the leather.

Using something along the lines of plastic or hard paper board wrapped with leather can work for both the compartments and the flat base.

From the first picture the flap will get in the way, hitting your wrists.

If this is a flat table the flap could turn into a stand.

Edited April 26, 2015 by DavidL

[Jimenie]

Thanks for the input, the plastic or cardboard combined with the leather should indeed be hard enough instead of wood.

How do you mean, the flap will get in the way?

Bear in mind, that although I haven't drawn it for clarities sake, there is another big flap that will go over this, to hold his sheet of paper that he's using. So while drawing, that flap would be flipped to the back, and he would actually be working on the outside of the bottom. The small flap would be resting on his legs in that position, I think.

[Windrider30]

The magnets would be a good idea as for layering the leather why not use a plastic? Tandy sells some stuff that I have been playing around with that is kind of fun it's called terraflex. And personally with that much of a thickness I think I would try to pre-punch each piece then glue them together but I am still learning the ropes so my idea might not be that good.

[Jimenie]

You mean, using plastic to form the walls? Could be an idea, but I'm thinking that I would still have the same problem of getting holes through everything.

I've been thinking about the punching everything pre-drilling, do you mean just puncturing with an awl or really punching wholes with a hole punch? Because I imagine that with an awl, the leather will have closed up again by the time everthing is glued and such?

[Windrider30]

You could use the plastic as the terraflex and be easly molded with a hair drier (heat gun would be a bit better) You can even wrap the leather around it and stitch it inside (so you wouldn't have so many layers of leather maybe) and yeah I would use either a whole punch or a set of pricking irons as I honestly hate using an awl hurts my hand and well lets just say you can't get blood out of leather once you stab yourself. Oh and the good thing with the terraflex is that any scraps you have can actualy be reheated and rolled out to form bigger pieces, was playing with that last night.

[Jimenie]

I must say, that terraflex sounds interesting to play around with!

But for this, I'll stick to just plain leather, trying to keep it a bit lowcost for my brother, and the scraps for the walls I got for €5 or so

Started cutting everything out tonight, hopefully I can find the time this week somewhere for glueing etc... I'll probably end up drilling the

inner parts of the walls as I don't own a punch/pricking awl that's long enough to go through 1,5cm of leather in a straight line

I'll try to put up some pictures as it starts taking form

Cheers for all the input in any case!

[Windrider30]

Good luck!!