Finished picture first
My friend Eric brought a nice Fiskar hatchet on a canoe trip. It’s a beautiful tool, but it has a monstrously ugly plastic sheath, so I offered to make him a new one.
Placeholder axe-head
Eric unfortunately lives in Deep River, so I didn’t have access to the hatchet. I had him take some dimensions then roughed out a 1:1 model in a block of wood. Whenever you’re doing 3D leatherwork it’s very very helpful to have forms to work around.
This was my largest project to date. My cousin requested a lined shoulder bag but was looking for something larger than the messenger bag I made for my sister. Starting from scratch is a difficult thing - most of my other projects are closely based off of existing designs if not direct ripoffs. A good starting point came from watching the movie Marathon Man, where the love interest has a very nice bag that seemed to meet my cousin’s needs.
Is it safe?
This project was my first bag. I had wanted to scale up to larger projects for a while, but the increased complexity and size intimidated me a little. The solution was to follow a pattern, specifically this Nigel Armitage messenger bag how to on Youtube. If you Paypal him $10 he’ll reply with a design document that takes a lot of the stress of your back. I was happy to do so and pleasantly surprised with the result.
The simplest and most popular design I’ve made so far is my little card holder wallet.
The cardholders fit 2-3 cards in each of the two slots and bills in the main body. It is made from four simple pieces and is totally planar, so construction is a breeze. And best of all it’s small and thin enough for someone with larger-than-normal legs like myself to comfortably slip into a front pocket.