Business card holder and watch strap

[Danne]

Outside is vegetable tanned leather, and inside is pink chevre.

 

 

Edited April 2, 2019 by Danne

[GRod]

Nice work.  I'm impressed by the precision of your stitching and creasing. 

Did you dye the veg tan yourself?

[Danne]

8 minutes ago, GRod said:

Nice work.  I'm impressed by the precision of your stitching and creasing. 

Did you dye the veg tan yourself?

Thank you.

Leather is dyed from tannery. I plan on dye some leather myself soon. Trying to do some nice dyeing effects. 

[GRod]

I forgot to also ask...  are you using an electric creaser?  I am very impressed with the the consistent spacing you are achieving between edges, creases and stitches.

[Danne]

2 minutes ago, GRod said:

I forgot to also ask...  are you using an electric creaser?  I am very impressed with the the consistent spacing you are achieving between edges, creases and stitches.

Yes I use a creaser from Regad. On this project I used FN2-iron. 

Do you need an electric creaser for good results? No I have seen very good results with Wuta manual creasers (You heat over an alcohol lamp) 

For a lot of people you have a budget for leatherworking tools. If I had to choose between spending the money on an electric creaser or save the money for a bell knife skiving machine I would choose a skiving machine. I'm looking for a skiving machine right now and it's certainly a more "important" tool. Maybe not so much if you live in Us where you can buy smaller amounts of leather with splitting service, but here in Europe it's a very good tool for smaller things like watch straps and wallets.

[Carnivore]

Very clean, very crisp, very nice!!!

[Scoutmom103]

Those are beautiful.   The creasing and stitching look great.

 

[JazzBass]

If there are any flaws, I sure can't spot them!
Beautiful work!

[YinTx]

1 hour ago, JazzBass said:

If there are any flaws, I sure can't spot them!
Beautiful work!

Indeed, I aspire to make goods as nice as this!  Fantastic work.

YinTx

[Danne]

6 hours ago, Carnivore said:

Very clean, very crisp, very nice!!!

 

5 hours ago, Scoutmom103 said:

Those are beautiful.   The creasing and stitching look great.

 

 

1 hour ago, JazzBass said:

If there are any flaws, I sure can't spot them!
Beautiful work!

 

17 minutes ago, YinTx said:

Indeed, I aspire to make goods as nice as this!  Fantastic work.

YinTx

 

Thanks, appreciated. Since I started with leathercraft a couple of years ago, I've always wanted to do watch straps and wallets, unfortunately, there is very little information out there if you want to do thinner leather goods. If you do a thicker watch strap, wallet, card case. There are no "rules" regarding construction. If it looks good it is good If you do a slim watch strap (like around 1mm at the lugs) it will stretch over time and leave a gap. (Needs reinforcement) 

I wish I could study a couple of weeks at either Peter Nitz or Shiang, it would be the first time in school you want short lunch breaks :D

 

 

[GRod]

 

36 minutes ago, Danne said:

If you do a slim watch strap (like around 1mm at the lugs) it will stretch over time and leave a gap. (Needs reinforcement)  

Danne, I'm still a beginner and am curious about how you put this together. 

What thickness leathers are you using?  did you purchase these split already to your final thickness?  or are you splitting these down on your own?

Are you using glue or contact adhesive between the black outer & pink inner layers?

Are you skiving the edges of the card pockets?  How thin?

(sorry for all the simple questions.  your work is exactly the kinds of thing I hope to achieve...  if I can ever figure out how to stitch a straight line )

[Danne]

9 minutes ago, GRod said:

 

Danne, I'm still a beginner and am curious about how you put this together. 

What thickness leathers are you using?  did you purchase these split already to your final thickness?  or are you splitting these down on your own?

Are you using glue or contact adhesive between the black outer & pink inner layers?

Are you skiving the edges of the card pockets?  How thin?

(sorry for all the simple questions.  your work is exactly the kinds of thing I hope to achieve...  if I can ever figure out how to stitch a straight line )

Outside leather (black) is 1mm. Lining 0.5mm pockets 0.5+0.5mm I send them to a company who split it for me. I'm looking for a Bell knife skiving machine, with which I can split smaller pieces myself for watch straps and wallets.

I use water-based glue on everything on this card holder (Renia Aquilim 315) You can use it as a "wet bond" (glue on one side and attach) or as a contact cement where you put glue on both sides and wait until clear/tacky. On the outer piece I "wet bonded" since it's not glued in the middle, if you look carefully on my fourth picture you see it's not glued in the middle. (But glued around a curve) 

I also use solvent based contact cement when I glue reinforcement to watch straps. 

Card pockets are lined and skived down to around 0.6-0.7 (just before I reach the glue line) (See picture on skiving) 

Personally, I wouldn't skive veg tan pockets like this, I don't know if they have enough tensile strength. From my experience, I and some friends have used my wallets with this construction without a problem. (See the picture of my 2 years old wallet pockets)

Regarding stitching straight. For example on this wallet, I pre-punched the outer section (black veg tan) before gluing the lining. And when assembled I used an awl. If you prefer to punch after everything is assembled it's a better choice to punch from the inside since the skived pocket edges make it hard to punch from outside. 

Keep in mind this is my amateur thoughts

[thefanninator]

Really nice work Danne!

[DV8DUG]

Stitching and creasing are beautiful. Great work!