Finished up another Bible cover

[johnnydb]

16 hours ago, YinTx said:

Difference is I didn't line this one because I am trying to make a more affordable version than my usual stuff. That cuts about $10 of leather out of the material cost

Actually I have a recommendation that satisfies both cost and a more finished look...

(Beautiful work BTW...your tooling looks a lot better than mine) 

 

As you are going to work on completing the stitching line across the front and back anyway...you can use a piece of cloth to line the project.  Even nice upholstery fabric isn't more than $14/yd. And it will remove the "unfinished" raw leather from the inside. You should be able to get at least 6-10 Bible covers out of a single yard. And that's if you use upholstery fabric...lighter weights non emroidered are of course going to be cheaper. But you can use anything from denim to monk's cloth to just cotton flannel and make it shine with that. 

Pockets can be burnished on the inside using gum Trac...if you want or fabric laminated as well so the leather dye/oil doesn't get on the paper. And it will look something like this. 

 

 

[PastorBob]

2 hours ago, johnnydb said:

Actually I have a recommendation that satisfies both cost and a more finished look...

Very nice.  Like the added touch.

[YinTx]

On 11/28/2021 at 8:02 AM, rleather said:

That is beautiful. I think Jim would say so as well.

Thank you much!  Jim is pretty easy going and complimentary, so he might, but I suspect he'd be dyin inside.  

On 11/29/2021 at 6:07 PM, kgg said:

Nice work.

kgg

Appreciate it!

On 11/28/2021 at 8:20 AM, chuck123wapati said:

That is beautiful!!!

Thanks!

23 hours ago, Simplejack1985 said:

That looks nice. Now I want a set of those letter stamps

Thank you.  Keep in mind this particular font works best on thicker leathers, or you have to put a compressible backer for thinner leathers.

15 hours ago, JLSleather said:

Yeah, I know the ones.  Still, some of them are quite nice, and the fabric usually allows a much thinner finished product than is generally seen in leather.  Tough to tool nylon, though

And THERE is the rub.  Have to have the book dimensions to make a "legit" case for it.  Some of the ladies at the Sunday service have those fabric covers that are FAR too big for their Bible.  Some of them cover LEATHER bound  Bibles - seems they just wanted the zipper closure to protect it and keep in contained should it get dropped or bumped (which causes me to wonder why they didn't buy the HARDCOVER Bible).

MY Bible is hard cover, and I've been hesitant to make a nice leather cover for it ... for fear that it will get seen and EVERYBODY will want one.  HOW would I find time to make all those covers AND be here complaining ...

Congrats and thanks on your willingness to do your own designing ... that's getting SO rare these days - everybody wants to click a link and have it all done for them ...

I went and looked.  The one for $20 wasn't so nice imo. Spongey leather looked like plate embossed, whip laced single layer.  I'll drop some photos.  

Regarding the rub, that is why I went and bought bibles to go with the covers, folks look at the covers I've made, and say thats nice, but I don't know if it'll fit my bible.  Well, no more excuses.  Get em for gifts!    

And if you get too many orders, send a few my way, I'll crank em out.

Can't take too much credit for the design work, I've seen several patterns, read Stohlman's book - couple of times - seen Don's video, etc, enough repetition that somehow the knowledge leaked into my brain and got applied when I sketched out my pattern.  Nothing new in my design, heck even the tooling pattern was Jim Linnell's.

12 hours ago, johnnydb said:

Pockets can be burnished on the inside using gum Trac...if you want or fabric laminated as well so the leather dye/oil doesn't get on the paper. And it will look something like this. 

 

Thank you for the compliment and the photo showing the fabric lining.  Yours came out well.  I've not been happy with my own attempts using fabric.  So for the second version of this same style cover, I've burnished the inside of the leather with Tan Kote, it is much slicker, and I hope it works well.  Time will tell, I hope to finish it up tomorrow!

YinTx

[YinTx]

The aforementioned commercial cover...

 

[WalterF]

Nice job, clean work.

[TomE]

On 11/29/2021 at 1:05 PM, YinTx said:

Probably shouldn't be if you have the tension exactly correct.  Idea is to have the knot land in the middle of the layers of leather, and if the thread is thin enough for the single layer to allow a knot to form in the center, if the tension is correct, you shouldn't see the knot.  I was not so certain I had all the settings right and the thickness of thread small enough for it to do that in a single 5 oz layer.  I am no machine stitching expert, as you can see, since this is one of the few things I've done with the machine, and the first thing I've done since learning the cam that drives the presser feet was 180 degrees out of alignment and correcting it!

YinTx

I don’t have a problem with thread tension when transitioning from 2 to 3 layers of 7-10 oz leather when sewing tack on a Cobra. Pretty much anything from 9-25 oz looks good to me with my tension setting.  This video was very helpful for dialing in the timing on a 441 clone. The author is on the sewing machine forum here. 

 

[JLSleather]

On 12/2/2021 at 10:22 PM, YinTx said:

The aforementioned commercial cover...

 

 

YIKES!

On 12/2/2021 at 10:22 PM, YinTx said:

The aforementioned commercial cover...

 

 

YIKES!

[YinTx]

48 minutes ago, JLSleather said:

YIKES

Right?  Not sure why I have to compete with that, but in the customer's mind, I do.

 

2 hours ago, TomE said:

This video was very helpful for dialing in the timing on a 441 clone.

Thanks.  I actually have an entire thread on this for the machine I used to do this work, including the video you mentioned. @Uwe's contributions have been very useful.

YinTx

machine thread:

 

Edited December 10, 2021 by YinTx

[AzShooter]

As soon as I opened the thread my mind said "I like It".  Very nice work.  Gives me temptation to give it a try.