THIS is Hand Made

This blog is all about "the making". Other things creep in now and then but what follows in this piece is a little visual insight into what lies behind the construction of an old favourite.... even before the hand stitching takes place. I start with the chosen hide and then hand cut it to size, in this case it's working out the best way to cut the 1" strips, then dividing them into the size you see below and use a round strap punch on the ends to make the initial blanks.

This is my biggest manual tool in the workshop, a 3 ton Arbor press which I hang off most of the time to deboss various images/logos into the leather. With the skinnier leather it's a doddle but with this particular veg tanned hide it takes some pressure to get a crisp lasting deboss.
Working in basically the miniature here is very cruel to the maker (these will end up being the Sideburn magazine branded hand stitched leather key fobs) if I'm even 1mm out in placement on the level of the stamp or movement when the press comes down, that's it, in the bin and start again,. No point continuing with some classy hand stitching around a pissed image.

Now I move onto the skive line. This is my marker for the stitching line. It also acts as a perfect home for the waxed thread to sit within and gives the thread some protection instead of sitting "ontop" of the leather. Again, this is something you get a feel for, especially working it around those corner points. The downside of getting this wrong with your line is that you've now scored the leather . If I've gone out of line with the wrong pressure on the tool it's un-recoverable, in the bin it goes.

With these smaller pieces and the 3 cord thread I much prefer working with this hole punch hand tool. My idea behind these hand made key fobs was that they're THICK, something easy to grab hold of in your pocket especially with a gloved hand on your motorbike.
The photo shows one side of the fob with the punched holes ready for hand stitching (You don't sew leather - too thick, you stitch leather with holes prepared) the skill is making sure that the holes I punch on the out of picture side of the leather perfectly match the holes on this side when I feed it through the D ring and fold it over.
When they're folded over, the fobs are about 8-9mm thick. These work well with a 12 hole stitch pattern.

So here they are.
These are the final beauties, tooled and now ready for the final part, the part I love most, the hand stitching which is where it all finally comes together in a truly hand made hand stitched leather piece which will take on a deeper richer patina the more you abuse it.
You really will not find a piece of leather getting more abuse on a daily basis than something as simple as a key fob. Think about it, it spends it's whole existence being abused by sharp metal keys, tossed in bags pockets and all weathers.

The final hand stitching process to follow very soon........