Getting into leather working. Been pretty fun so far. Started because I got tired of leather stuff wearing down (wallets, belts, dog collars) and I got free time. God damn, leather is expensive. Make it right and it lasts basically forever though. Any other anons do leather work? Talk about what you like and don't like about it.
>>2979773BTW saddle stitching is a meme. Mother fuckers use it for tons of shit that outright don't need it. It's a good skill to have for the stuff that does need it because if one stich gets blown all the rest are unaffected, but it mainly should be used for high tension areas that have stitching exposed to wear or fuckton of stretching that might blow a stitch. Dipshits use it for wallets with stitches in a stitch groove when a simple lock stitch from and awl or sewing machine would get the job done fine. Saddle stitching is so commonly used by hobby tards that they don't even learn how to use a sewing awl which is a small tool that can be used to repair torn canvas, split shoes, or heaps of other repairs in the wild in little time with just the tool on hand because the thread and such is usually tucked into its handle.
Just dipped my toe into the world of leather this week! I've always wanted a really nice old fasioned leather work apron. So I bought $250 worth of leather and tools, all kangaroo leather (ausfag) because its thin and strong apparently. Wanted to have some fun with my 90 year old singer sewing machine, it handled 3 layers pretty OK, 2 layers perfect. Did all of the sewing today, very happy so far. The belt blanks I bought to use on it are way too thick (4mm) Thinking I'll make a tool out of some scrap wood to hold a stanley blade at 2mm to try and skive it all down by half.
>>2979793You can usually get a sewing awl for cheap for the belt. Make the holes with pricking irons and use the awl through the holes for sewing. A regular awl just makes holes, a sewing awl runs thread through, Speedy Stitcher is common brand in the states, don't know about Abobo Country. Nice apron. I'm getting my basic technique down before messing around with tooling. That shit is daunting. Hope is to make stuff like pic one day. It's pretty simple to just print a pattern, cover both sides with tape, put on wet leather, and trace it with a stylus. The bitch is getting the bevelling, shading, and initial cuts going the right way and at the right depth. Even knowing everything and being skilled, it's a long ass process.
>>2979773>God damn, leather is expensiveLook for local places that do a lot of leather work, they generally give away or sell their scraps for dirt cheap and will have plenty of scraps big enough for things like belts and wallets and many random projects. One place local sells their scraps for $10 for 20 pounds, a saddle maker gave me a 5 gallon bucket full for free. Both had a good amount of pieces in the 6"x12-24" range, lots of belting tossed because of things like uneven thickness and skiving is just not worth their time or it was not quite thick enough for their needs, etc. Great for learning. >>2979791For the hobbyist who is hand stitching there generally is no advantage to not doing saddle stitch. Once you have the technique down it is not much slower and it is better for the reasons you stated. You sound like you just convinced your mom to buy you a sewing awl.
>>2979804>No advantageSpeed, ease of use, same strength.Honestly saddle stitching is more of a flex or an excuse for a higher price tag.
>>2979818How is the second most basic stitch and the stitch most tolerant of less than perfect execution a flex? Strength in the sense you mean is almost never an issue anywhere a single stitch and simple seam is appropriate, failures in these situations are because a thread breaks or is cut and by the time you notice it with a lock stitch it is often past the point of being a quick and easy repair. Even a running stitch is better in this regard than a lock stitch.Lock stitch is great but is not perfect, who hasn't had a lock stitch fail and run away on them?
Terminology time!Full Grain Leather is outer most layer and sub layer of leather. It's tough as hell and is the best in terms of strength, durability, and functionality. Given it is the outer most layer it is inconsistent in color, pattern, and can be cosmetically inferior if you want uniformity. This is the most expensive type of leather and an example of it would be belt blanks, saddles, and hand tooled stuff. Use some leather conditioner on stuff made out of this every so often and it will last basically forever Top Grain Leather. The next step down. The top most layer of full grain leather is sanded away. The result is less densely packed fibers, however, the surface is uniform allowing for complex color patterns (marble effects, camo effects, solid colors, etc). Still tough and is the go to for designer bags, wallets, purses, etc. you want something that looks nicer but can't take as much abuse as Full Grain but more than the next two leather types, this is your mark. The leather may be cheaper or may not be, depends on how elaborate the color pattern is. Sucks dick for tooling though. You can, but it's more heat transfer or press stuff to get impressions.Genuine Leather. Uses the part of leather left between the previous two leather grades and the flesh of the animal. Outside of that, it is extremely ill-defined as to what it is or isn't. It's still leather, but it's pretty shit in terms of longevity and durability. Any time something brags about being made with Genuine Leather, it's a marketing trick to get you to spend more money on shit goods.Bonded Leather. Take the scraps from the previous three leathers, run them through a shredder, mix it with glue, and roll it flat. It is technically leather in the same way particle board is technically wood. If you ever bought a belt that started cracking? Most likely bonded leather. Might be genuine leather. They SERIOUSLY need to enforce some kind of concrete standard of Genuine Leather.
>>2980391I saw a pattern for a cool bag design and did what I always do for shit like this. I went out and got all the stuff I would need but now I'm scared I am going to fuck it up. No one in my area offers classes or anything like that. The local makerspace got rid of their leatherworking program 8 years ago when the guy that did it retired. Nothing at the local library or college.
>>2980456In my experience these first-time projects turn out way better than they should. Go for it.
>>2980456Just go for it. In my experience once you start you will quickly realize that there Is nothing much to it.Pic related, leather flower "rose" that I've made in two days as an accessory for cosplay, because I've liked a vtuber that has it in her design - I've just looked up 3 videos on YouTube how to make various flowers and went straight into it.
>>2980456Just make it using shit tier leather and count on fucking up. Still try your best so that you will get something functional when finished. You learn more through experience and mistakes than procrastination.
Been doing leatherworking as a hobby for a few years now. 10/10, would recommend. Tools take almost no space, so it’s viable in a small apartment, every step is super easy to do, you can consume other media during the whole process easily and of course the results make for great gift. Nowadays it seems like folks forgot what a nice material leather is. It smells great, tans over time, gets more supple the more you touch it etc. You can 3D print detailed stamps and press them into the leather with a 200€ chink leather press. The actual hard part is designing pattern yourself, so usually i buy a pattern i like online and modify it because I‘m a smoothbrain. Pic rel, bag i made for my MIL.
>>2979773How do you protect your fingers when sewing? Must take alot of pressure on your finger tips to push the needle through leather?
>>2982648Where I live, the leather raw material is hard to source, extremely choice limited and prohibitively expensive. =(
>>2982840First, you make a stitch line or stitch groove. A line is just an indentation on the leather using a wing divider whereas a groove uses a tool to cut a very thin strip of leather away also making a line.Then you pre punch the holes using pricking irons (pic related). Nobody really just shoves needles through leather because that shit is damn near impossible for all but the lightest weights.The benefit of a groove vs a line is that the stitches will be below the top grain of leather meaning nothing should ever rub against the thread causing it to fray. Using a line and just pounding the finished stitch with a hammer usually sets it enough that it isn't an issue though, so either way is fine for most projects with grooves only being necessary for tool bags or other projects using thicker material that is definitely going to be beat to shit routinely.>>2982648Leathercrafting is one of the easiest hobbies on the planet to get into. Women tend to hate it, which is weird. I think it's because it has low fuck up tolerance. It isn't hard to do, can make very useful items, but if you fuck up a single cut or misalign a stitch hole, there is a good chance you have to start the entire thing from scratch and leather isn't cheap.
>>2982976Forgot the pic
>>2982862Damn, that sucks. Here in the USA you can get a whole side of cow at a 3 oz weight (1.2mm or so thick) for about 100 dollars. It's between 10-13 square feet of material.
>>2980391Adding to this.Vintage Leather is leather that has been aged 20-100 years for a real deep brown color (called petina).Also there is zero mandatory guidelines for accurate descriptors on leather goods. Plenty of shit will be listed as real leather but be "vegan" leather meaning it's little more than plastic coating on synthetic fabrics. Tons of shit is sold as leather that just outright isn't. A simple belt, for example, made with mid-grade real leather at a modest weight with basic bitch hardware (buckle and leather keeper) and nothing else done? That's $15 worth of material with a typical 500% markup up for a plain, undyed, untreated, non-burnished, belt? Should be $75 (500% is typical clothing markup). So that nice looking belt you got for $40? No way is that thing real leather. Women's purses and clutches, and such are particularly awful at being made with god awful material but charged an exorbitant fee.
>>2982976Even if you misalign a hole, chances are you can still fix it, like make a new hole right next to it and the thread will lay over the old one, hiding it. I agree with leather work being easy (apart from, as i said, designing patterns, tooling and some other specifics). But i disagree with your other statement: I find that leatherworking is incredibly forgiving. As long as you dont cut too small/remove too much material accidentally, you can fix almost any error. Fucked up the coloring? color it black. Thread broke? Remove and try again. Glued wrong? Even that can often be corrected. Sewn wrong? Continue sewing, normies can never tell. Fucked up attaching hardware? Pry off and try again with new hardware. Especially when you don’t use glue its almost impossible to ruin a project.
>>2979791I'm a weirdo and like to overbuild everything I make, full on bombproof.Could you elaborate as to any downsides to using a saddle stitch when not actually necessary?
I'm into archery and do a bit of this, like wrapping handles and making finger tabs and arm guards. The best source of leather is old furniture
>>2983222No real benefit to doing saddle stitching vs run stitching vs machine stitching etc in my experience.Saddle stitch main benefit is that if a stitch gets blown the rest are fine. If you use a stitch groove on both sides of the piece or just the side exposed to points of wear? The likelihood of stitch being blown is essentially nil, so use whatever stitch is most comfortable or expedient in that case. To be perfectly blunt though, if you REALLY want shit to be indestructible, you should be using a line of rivets instead of stitches if that's and option. Clearly not a choice for wallets and the like though. If you are going make a tool bag or something? Rivets will outperform any stitch you use.
I'm making a jew pouch to carry my silver in (christian pouch?) and I'm having to use nylon thread since I didn't get needles capable of using waxed thread. I also didn't get a stand. I didn't know you needed two needles to sew leather. It's a lot simpler than sewing clothes and the scraps are cheapc
>>2983332Is nylon worse than waxed? I want to learn leather working to make knife sheaths.
>>2984147Leather working is indeed easy. Tool bags, totes, wallets, handbags, belts, etc are all pretty easy to make.It's also pretty cheap to get into and doesn't require a lot of gear.Craft knife, pricking irons, leather hole punch, wing divider, self healing cutting mat, thread, harness needles, square, mallet/maul, bevel, slicker, beeswax, and (optional but HIGHLY recommended) sewing pony is basically all you need. Get mid-tier tools and you might approach $200 (counting the stitching pony).Then just grab some light weight leather from a craft store to learn on. It won't make very nice stuff but it's pretty cheap ($15 to $20 for 6 square feet of material on average). When comfortable with technique, you got a pattern for a project down, and such? THEN you can get some high quality leather to make something premium.
