hello and welcome to the leathercraft masterclass podcast with me Phil and today this podcast is going to be answering some questions that I got recently on the Forum and I'm also going to be discussing uh a couple interesting topics something in the leathercraft news and something that ties in with the previous podcast which in fact I'll just dive straight into that uh interesting interesting remember on the previous podcast I was talking about the infiltration of AI into leathercraft whether it's using AI to make artificial intelligence leathercraft bags sorry I have contact adhesive and a lighter on The Wire there um and how it's kind of infiltrated our craft which is very much a a human very much around a human touch and human creativity and kind of a AR tale be careful what you believe in now I have occasionally get I do get bot comments on the Forum which is really annoying but it's part of having an open Forum where you don't actually have to be a member to read The Forum you need a me to be a member to be uh to post on it which is free to do for anybody um but having an open Forum you are open to bots I mean you see them all the time on things like reddits and and other famous forums but you know you can't get around it recently I've received comments that are very closely resembling a human and what they're doing now instead of just putting spam words that don't make sense and then throwing a link in there from somewhere else because the more your websites linked on on Google the higher the ranking can be that's basically what's happening what they're doing recently is they're using artificial intelligence to answer questions on a forum and they're not posting links or trying to do anything first of all they're like a trojan horse they're making it seem like something real and then later on they're going to start link dumping and it's very subtle and I'm going to read these comments out to you I'm going to read a human one a response to someone's question and I'm going to read an AI one and I'm going to see if you can tell which is which it's very close some of them have been very convincing but it's yeah I'll talk about it afterwards okay so the comments are as follows and I will read I've got both of them open in tabs whichever tab I open first I'll read that one and then uh go to the next one okay so the person's question was the original question a real human being a student in fact I have a question about dying natural leather what should be applied in turn and should the flesh side be died as well okay so that was the human question now I've opened one of the tabs and the first one that I'm going to read I'm not going to tell you if it's human or not put it in the comments below before I actually reveal and see if you got it right okay so Bridget Davies says when dying natural leather start by applying a leather repairer or deglazer to clean and open up the surface then use a leather dye applying thin even layers for consistent color it's not necessary to dye the flesh side unless you want to match the surface color but you can apply a light coat if desired for uniformity okay so AI or human do you think I'm going to read the next comment hello Henry which was the person's name hello Henry If the product you're making doesn't have a lining where you'll see the flesh side you may dye the flesh side too however you will need to seal it well as the contents of the product a bag or a wallet may get some dye rub off the flesh side also absorbs a lot of dye so who do you think of those two replies to the question which one do you think is real and which one do you think is artificial intelligence one of them was me and one of them was AI okay so which do you think was real and which was AI okay so the answer is the second one was me okay so the first one was AI I mean it's since been deleted you can't go and see it obviously when I see see it come up I just get rid of them automatically and you can usually tell because you got a profile picture of this Bridget Davies and they they sign up and then two minutes later they're answering questions with their full name in their Avatar and a a profile picture like a school photo and it's all very there's no mistakes in it it's very a then B then C um and it's subtle but I think a lot of people will be fooled by that but for me I mean it's it it stands out very quickly uh I also in fact I there's a bit that I didn't put in on my one which would give it away which where I said I would start with this blog post I created on dying Leather So I created a blog post called we'll die eventually start today I don't think AI would come up with something like that you know just it just doesn't quite get humor but uh that would have given it away but yeah so I just thought it was interesting I'm not going to go into the matter again I've already discussed this in a previous podcast about the the AI Revolution and its infiltration into leathercraft but uh I just thought that was really interesting it's it's it's actually happening and it's it is fooling people not me okay but just in case anyone is interested in the question about dying leather obviously I have a a Blog um but I I never assumed that somebody would also want to diee the flesh side because I've done it before and it just absorbs all the D is really annoying so I in my mind I sometimes forget that people haven't tried this before but yeah if ever you want to dye the flesh side I wouldn't recommend doing it on natural vegetan in a way it absorbs so much you'll use up the entire bottle it take forever to dry and when it does it usually curls up because the uh especially if you've used solvents or um alcohol based dyes it just dries the leather out something rotten so I would use some kind of lining another leather cloth canvas Etc or or better yet just buy the color that you want directly from the Tannery I know some people like the idea and it is economical at first to buy undyed natural vegetan and then start purchasing dyes to create whatever color you want but you generally are going to need to line it or you know double side it or something to hide the flesh side unless you want to make a feature of that of course but uh yeah I wouldn't I would never put dye on the flesh side because it just absorbs so much and dries it out especially if the leather is thin and if you're using anything to be honest under 1.5 millimet especially close to a millimeter whether you die both sides or one side it usually really dries the leather out it works better on thick Leathers even if you condition it okay so in uh I guess you could say leathercraft news uh Warsaw leather Museum okay not Warsaw which is in Poland uh Warsaw leather leather Museum a mouthful uh is under threat from the local Council so somebody reached out on on uh I think it was Instagram and mentioned that they're closing it down now I'm ashamed to say I live in England but I've never visited the museum before I think it's probably about uh five or six hours away from where I live in the southeast of the UK um so it's a ways away but I've always meant to but finding the time is quite difficult but it's been there for a long time and in fact it was uh a leather factory I believe but waro is probably has more leather making history than any other part of the UK that I can think of so there is a petition on change.org and on YouTube and if I remember to do so in the in the show notes if you're listening on on a podcast I will put in the link to that so that you can sign the petition because the more signatures they get the more chance they have they're not actually going to close it down what they want to do is move it into another building to make use of the building that it's in it's actually a really nice building and large so I can kind of see why the council want to use it for something that's probably more profitable but unfortunately that's wiping out of a lot of history and Heritage and people that absolutely loved the the museum itself and I'm pretty sure they're not going to move it to somewhere just as Grand or just as big or just as good it's probably going to be somewhere that's going to be smaller and not quite live up to the the leather music Museum that is currently in place so if you want to help out change the org I'll link that below I think there's only a few days left from publishing this where you can actually sign it where it can do any good so so I've already done so so if you want to help them out that would that would make a difference okay so moving on to the next question and this is another question from The Forum and in a nutshell it's vegetable tan leather that shows scratches easily and and the I believe the person was asking what they can do about it if there's something that could be done to stop it from scratching the short answer is generally no because if the leather is prone to scratching there's not a lot that you can do other than I don't know sand the surface and then paint it with something there's not really a lot that that can be done for that I mean to begin with vegetable tan leather is more prone to scratches than Chrome tanned leather especially softer Chrome tan Leathers where even if you scratch it with a round all you can rub it out with your finger the same is not true for most vegetan Leathers if you get your nail your thumbnail and run it through the grain layer the likelihood is that's never really going to come out okay unless you know really know what you're doing it's just the nature of the Beast unfortunately now some vegetable tan Leathers are more prone to this I've had some terrible Leathers in the past uh that I bought from A supplier uh in London that I no longer buy from because they they never tell you where they get the leather from so you never actually know this was in the early days now I I can demand to know the Tannery that produced it or I buy it directly from the Tannery just so I know who's responsible for whatever outcome that I get from from the leather in question but I purchased from this supplier in London and then never tell you where it's from but I got this leather and it was very much like Beria leather it was a cal leather had a really fine surface it wasn't shiny but it was very smooth and it was nice to work with and when you're making projects and this was when I produced leather goods to sell rather than teaching you're you generally are quite delicate with what you're making so your chances of finding out whether it's easily scratched is is low if you're careful unless you're actually testing for it which I would now so I was making wallets from this leather and and I was sending them out to people and I only got one complaint from it but one person sent me a complaint with some pictures and said this thing scratches so easily if I put my keys in my pocket when I pull my wallet out it's absolutely covered in scratches it was really scratched up it looked really worn it was only after a few weeks of use so I went to the workshop I got the leather out and I just ran my nail up and down it and sure enough it scratched so easily so I had a couple of sheets of this and I turned over the the second sheet and I noticed that there was a a logo on there I managed to find the company that owned this logo and it was a Tannery in Pakistan now I'm sure there are great tanneries in Pakistan somewhere but I but they're not known like France the UK Italy the United States Germany uh for producing luxury Leathers high quality leathers and this really highlighted the importance of knowing where your leather comes from it's a bit like knowing where your food comes from what were the ingredients who makes it now the issue as I found out wasn't so much the leather but the surface finish that they put on top it almost like a clear coat which obviously wasn't good enough to resist scratches because I managed to get some solvent can't remember what solvent I used and rubed the clear coat off the surface so it dissolved it off the leather looked a lot lighter but it wouldn't scratch in anywhere near the same way so whatever surface finish they decided to put on just wasn't suitable for that leather or wasn't suitable to be a surface finish at all so goodness knows what it was but I learned my lesson from that a always know who's making your leather and B test it first test it does it Sky well does it cut well does it crease well does it scratch easily um is is the D at least you know half a millimeter to a millimeter below the surface so scratches will still be the same color you know all these little kind of tests but you you only learn from your mistakes right you learn in hindsight I mean it's ideal learning from other people's mistakes but but you don't always have the luxury of that so what to do about vegetable tan leather that scratches easily if you're trying to get rid of scratches I would recommend two causes of action that come to mind number one is adding a light layer of wax over the surface a lot of the times that will reduce the look of the scratch considerably it will darken it uh another option if you're using leather that has lots of fats and oils and greases like Bridal leather for example sometimes you can get a hair dryer on a low heat setting or as low as you can get it to get the job done warm the leather and allow the natural oils and waxes within the fibers to equalize again and generally that will remove the the obvious sign of the scratch if you've disrupted the surface in some way like you've scuffed it on a brick wall or the corner of a Sharp table you know you're changing the structure of the surface there's not a lot you can do about that other than carefully iron it out but then again uh there are downsides to doing that as well so using a little bit of wax or a little bit of heat or even a combination of both very carefully using the least amount of wax or the least amount of heat possible to get the job done otherwise you can end up darkening the leather for example which is is not ideal if you're using a lighter leather and that's part of the feature now on to the next subject uh which follows on from the darkening Effect one of the uh students ask burnishing without darkening how do you burnish leather leather edges without darkening so some of you may have realized through practice in your in your own time when you burnish a leather Edge sometimes you get a darkening effect now this isn't so profound if you're using black or dark Browns uh burgundies navies and things like that generally colors that are dark because it was dark to begin with but if you're using a lighter color if you're using uh a natural vegetable leather burnish in the edge you have friction which causes heat and also compression and both of those things can cause the leather to darken in much the same way if ever you've seen those wood Slickers um not wood scker sorry um a wood creaser okay it's used in Saddlery a lot where you crease an edge and it's just wood usually box wood or something like that or Beach and they rub it backwards and forwards and it creates friction and heat and it begins to darken the leather and you get this beautiful long brown line going around the edges it's actually quite nice that's an example of of of what happens when you're using a wood Slicker or canvas and you're rubbing an edge backwards and forwards you're creating that friction you're creating that heat and it can tend to darken another one is if you're using a lot of moisture in the edge as you're using a wood Slicker and you're using a lot of down pressure even if you went slowly enough to not cause any heat to darken the leather you're compressing the fibers considerably and as they compress together they become more dense and leather that becomes more dense usually becomes darker as well so that's another thing so in order to avoid darkening an edge on leather where you don't want it to be dark and you're using a light colored leather my recommendation would be uh to use less pressure and speed okay to lower the friction and use a burnishing compound for example token o if you're using water you might need a bit more speed a bit more friction to get that nice smooth shiny Edge whereas if you were using uh toonol or some kind of gum on the edge you can get to that stage a little bit sooner than just using water alone canvas or wood Slicker that really depends if I'm honest if you're using canvas you have more surface area and you have the chance to become to build up more heat okay so the edge will become darker but you're using less compression overall with a larger surface area if you're using a wood Slicker you might not build up as much heat but you get a lot more compression so I don't know if it matters too much I would probably ER on the side of using canvas but just go real slow so that you don't build up too much heat but that means that you really have to have a good Edge to begin with so beveling the edges light sanding in One Direction moving onto a fine grit of sandpaper gum trag or token all something like that on the edges slowly burnishing in One Direction first of all allowing it to start drying out become get a bit shiny and then going backwards and forwards if that's not acceptable going back to a real fine grit of sandpaper we're talking 2,000 grit or more sand in the edge again again with gum again with the um token all whatever you're using then going back into the burnish and you can eventually build up a really nice Edge that hasn't darkened or very little at the least so in all honesty an edge that you don't want to darken probably involves more sanding than it does burnishing now the last question that I got on the Forum is an interesting one I'm not really going through the the the question too much because it's more the issue that I want to talk about with with you guys somebody posted uh an issue with vadon okay so some some of you know what that is those who don't know what vadon is I believe it's made by a company called freudenberg if I'm pronouncing that correctly it's a German company and they make reinforcements and vadon is very popular for watchstrap reinforcements many high-end brands use this is a very thin piece of reinforcement that goes in the watch strap and it prevents it from stretching and keeps it dimensionally very stable and it usually goes between the outer layer the filler uh the lining on the inside and then the whole lot gets stitched in and the edges are finished or turned or whatever you're using valadon is is very good for that it could be difficult to glue because it's not very it doesn't absorb very well so it you know for example using PVA glue doesn't really work using water-based contact adhesive doesn't really work it's more of a solvent base in fact I use a little bit of fine grit sandpaper just to roughen the surface before putting it on excellent stuff 0.2 mm thick so very very thin doesn't really add a lot of bulk but does add a lot of strength it's nonwoven it's fused it's bonded you can stitch through it you can even Sky it if you need to for whatever reason now the issue is the student came onto the Forum and said I've been trying to use vadon I've been using a Al based contact adhesive and I've put it into onto the vadon but it's soaking in so much that I'm having to use lots of glue and it's taking forever to dry and when it does it's not sticking it's not sticking to the other substrate whether that be other reinforcement or uh leather it's not sticking to it like contact adhesive should do when you apply it to both parts and pair them together now from EXP experience this sounds like the effect you would get if you use waterbase contact adhesive onon say cloth it tends to soak in and move away from the surface very quickly and then you have to use more because it's so absorbent which takes forever to dry but since it's moved away from the surface it then doesn't stick now this doesn't sound like vadon this doesn't sound like what I've used before and it appears that there are two types of vadon unless people are spelling it incorrectly but I've seen it for sale people saying that this is vadon and I'm looking at it in the images and I can see that it's see-through I can see that it's a very porous non-woven fabric-like reinforcement and others are selling something that I recognize as vadon which is more like it's not plastic like but it is is probably more like a plastic sheet if I'm honest that's what it feels like like a firm plastic sheet I actually believe it's is made from uh non-woven polyester but where whatever the case there seemed to be two spellings online v i l e d o n and v l o d o n okay so Von and vadon I know the second one quite well I don't know if they've changed the name I don't know if some suppliers are naming incorrectly I don't know if there are two versions of this but all I would say is if you're ordering from A supplier you want to reinforce watch straps bag handles shoulder straps belts or anything that you want dimensionally stable and non-stretch see if you can get a sample first if it's porous and it absorbs glue and you can you can blow through it okay like a teabag avoid that that's not what to use in those scenarios if it's nonporous you can't see through it you blow at it and no air comes out the other side okay it's not porous um that's the stuff to use it's firm it's strong it's you'll know it instantly so I just thought I'd put it out there because I've never seen that before and I thought maybe the person had got confused but it appears that they haven't and there are several sellers online selling vadon and it's this teabag looking material it's not bonded or or fused in in any appreciable way at least not to the point where you could use it in watch straps uh and it's going to be an absolute nightmare to try and use with adhesives so that's something that I wanted to put out there just to be aware of for those of you that do make R uh like to use reinforcements like that some people like to use it on the exterior of a wallet as well uh makes it very dimensionally stable but it's absolutely Dynamite for watch straps so be aware of that Ask A supplier or a seller for a small sample even if you have to pay the shipping fee just so that you can look at it and feel it and you'll instantly know uh because sometimes images if if if it's not a sharp image if it's not a close-up macro shot it's very difficult to see what you're working with and uh many times no offense but some of these suppliers don't know their ass from their elbow they don't know the technical differences they wouldn't know what it could be used for they just say this is what it's called and we have it in stock do you want it or not that's about the extent of their knowledge so it depends on the supplier of course some are good some are not so great but don't rely on a supplier's description of something request a sample even if you have to pay postage uh and you'll know instantly whether it's the real deal or not if you're not sure you can always take a pick and send it to me or describe it if you can't take a closeup but most phones can take a closeup these days a macro shot so that is it for questions uh some interesting topics uh about AI the infiltration has happened and it's happened to me we have the Warsaw leather Museum under threat from being moved uh somewhere that it probably shouldn't be moved to uh linked below is the link for change.org how to avoid scratches or remove scratches or reduce the chances of scratches on vegan dying natural leather burnishing without darkening and caution when buying vadon guys thank you very much for listening to this if you can if you're watching or listening on YouTube don't forget to give me a like And subscribe and if you're listening to this on a podcast platform other than the leathercraft masterclass don't forget to give me a like or and a follow ladies and gentlemen thank you for listening and I will see you in the next podcast take care

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so recently I was told something that I think quite possibly could have been just an absolute lie to my face or the person that was giving me the information was just completely misinformed I'll let you guys decide when I tell you the story you can let me know in the comments below what you think uh transpired in this situation but it was a recent visit to London which I go there all the time a lot that you guys know I make videos about it I do a lot on Instagram and stories reels it's a great place to go for inspiration I like to visit a lot of the boutiques pick stuff up handle it have a look at it and just kind of mentally break things down it just gives me great inspiration uh for the creation of leather goods for you guys but there's one thing that I noticed when visiting many of these leather goods boutiques and that is with the sales people that work there sales people love to leverage story and information about the product that generates some kind of emotional connection okay that's part of what selling is for they're there to encourage you to buy so they have to say something and they want you to get that connection but when is telling a story that's just based on fallacy or making things up what you know what is going too far to you guys because story is incredibly powerful in sales there's a great book I'll make a book recommendation I'm getting the habit of doing that is uh story brand great book uh one of my favorites and just shows the impact the the power and importance of story but when is it going too far when the person is just making things up just trying to get that sale and it's almost every Boutique that I go to they will talk about their history The Heritage the provenance and even if they don't tell you anything when you walk in like reason I walked into Hermes and they have some of their vintage uh Saddlery attack you know all the hardware and things hanging from the ceilings and also on walls and talking about the history and vintage photographs you know it works they love it people love that history and when they talk about the products they'll tell you the kind of leather and they will tell you where it comes from and who made it and whether or not it was handmade or hand stitched there's one particular instance recently where I went into a leather goods store and it was an English leather goods maker quite well known I won't say the brand um just to cover myself a little bit but they're famous for making typically English leather goods we're talking attache cases doctors bags briefcases all sorts of bridal leather goodies now recently they've come out with a new line of leather goods it doesn't it has the essence of English leather goods but it's a lot more contemporary it looks like something that um Gucci could have come out with or Vuitton it's it's a little bit more modern a little bit more European in style should I say so I was there and the salesperson comes over to me and we get talking about the leather goods and I don't mention that my maker I'm just you know I'm there just to you know possibly buy something even sometimes I do and I asked about the new range that the this brand has come out with and I I can already tell it's not made in the UK it's just a hunch so I said this new line that you have of Handbags and purses and where are they made because I know you make a lot of it in the UK and he said oh no these are made in Italy using leather from Tuscany I said oh that's interesting good quality leather and he said yes um the main difference between the English leather that we use for some of our other goods and this new range is the new range is tanned in Tuscany which creates a softer leather so I just kind of like nodded and thought Oh really it's kind of encouraging to keep talking and he said yes in fact the reason it's soft is because the climate out there is a lot more humid because English leather is just too dry to make these bags and you just can't get it this soft

and it was almost like he was kind of his eyes were wandering trying to kind of bring more stuff out to tell me just to keep the conversation going almost and I he just had the look of I'm making this up as I go along about him it could have been just something that he was told or that he heard it and just completely you know misinterpreted what they were saying of course English leather is is not drier it's you know typically English Bridal leather is is firmer which is ideal for leather cases and if you're making a soft bag that you want to be nice and softer you're going to be using Chrome tan leather it doesn't matter where it's tanned it doesn't not softer because it's from Tuscany in fact when he said that it was more humid I checked out average yearly humidity I'm so sad average yearly humidity for Tuscany was uh 70 humidity and for London it's 71 humidity it doesn't even matter because even if that was true as soon as you bring it into a drier climate it's going to start drying out so you know it's going to match it's going to find an equilibrium with the surrounding moisture anyway obviously we know it's not true but I got to think you know I know that's not true but how often do we get kind of told these stories in shops it doesn't have to be leather goods it could be any luxury store it could be any store for that matter could be a car showroom how often do we get lied to by people that sell leather goods and I got to thinking for those of you out there who like myself in the past sold leather goods we kind of realize that it's really important to talk about the product a little bit you know what kind of leather the fact that we hand Stitch the fact that we we make everything by hand the fact that it takes you know many years of skill to perfect this or that part of this creation that we come out with and I'm not questioning the importance of story what I'm questioning is is whether or not it matters and to me yes the answer is yes it does matter of course and for many of you out there uh I believe you'll be thinking the same absolutely story is important and whether it's true or not definitely matters and I've come across this kind of mentality before of you know does it really matter and this is the first time that I've ever talked about this um many years ago when I was creating leather goods I remember I went on to Instagram there was someone that I followed Who Sold who kind of bought repaired and then sold on um vintage leather cases and Trunks and things like that and on one of them it was a company that I recognized it was a very old English company that was around a very long time ago it hasn't produced since I believe the 40s or something like that could be wrong I think it was around that time and then it's kind of changed hands and kind of started up again and died in the meantime so I don't really consider it a serious container anymore but anyway I remember I left a comment on this particular case on the person's Instagram profile on their post and I said something along the lines of what a wonderful company so much history it's a shame that they aren't still going anymore they do exist in theory the website is terrible I don't think they're still going and I was contacted by the owner of the name of this brand now this brand just to give you a little bit of historical context was said to be the original maker of the flat top trunk which gave Louis Vuitton the inspiration to create their flat top trunk so that they were stackable and there is truth to this this company did actually produce a flat top trunk before Louis Vuitton they even beat Louis Vuitton at some of the uh I think it was the the World's Fair or something like that in Paris several times um putting out their luxury goods and pitting them against each other this brand is also one of the brands said to have inspired Gucci when he worked in London at the Savoy Hotel he would Marvel at some of the the wealthy people that would come in with some of these bags and cases and uh and that inspiration inspired him to start his own brand and I I have to I have to bring up some of the some of the historical um I just don't want to be inaccurate here it was one of the first cases on Mount Everest it had the Royal warrant for the British royal family it was a favorite brand among celebrities such as Theodore Roosevelt won gold at the world exhibition in Paris uh and they were known and probably most famous to have created the world's first luxury handbag Okay so can you imagine like all this history this brand and it's just someone owns its name but it's not going anymore it's it's you know it's it's incredible and this guy instead of coming back at me and saying oh you think our website's terrible blah blah blah he actually came back and said look we we owned the company we realized the the website's terrible we actually want to restart it but we've been looking for the right person to spearhead this for the longest time and we haven't found anyone suitable yet would you like to come to London and we can have lunch and we can talk about it because we like your stuff we've seen your stuff and we would be interested in you being the maker for the brand and potentially bringing on other people later on so I thought to myself

I could be the one creating the sole creator for this brand that inspired the likes of viton Gucci made for the raw family one of the first cases on Everest the first handbag ever and I'm creating for this brand every Stitch I do every cut I make is for this brand with this kind of History it was incredibly powerful it was an honor to be asked

so I went there it wasn't lunch it was dinner and we sat down and we were talking about you know my background what I've been doing the history of the brand what he does as as the owner of this and he owns multiple businesses a very wealthy man very nice guy as well and we got to talking about the history and I had you know my notes all the information that I've collected about this brand and I said one of the issues that I have is I can't find anything to back up anything to you know to show evidence that some of these claims are true some of the references on Wikipedia go to a newspaper article and who knows where they get their references from you know it's it's not any concrete and I've been looking for the longest time just to try and find out more information about this brand and his reply kind of not shocked me but I didn't expect it so me asking you know where's the evidence that all this stuff is definitely true and his reply as quick as you like was does it matter with a straight face and I felt like just going yeah of course it matters I don't want to be creating for a company which is just based on lies and you know half truth now like some of these things are actually known to be true and some of them I believe probably aren't maybe a little bit of embellishment going on but this is a brand it did have a lot of history it did create a flat top trunk before Louboutin um and shortly afterwards Vuitton then came out with it so Vuitton were technically the second you know there is a lot of history associated with this I mean this at the time I think it was I can't remember exactly when it was late 1800s there was a store in Piccadilly I think it was and it was the largest leather goods and luggage store in the world at the time you know and these are unknown things so I'm kind of thinking to myself I would love the opportunity to get started with this brand I can't find information about this and whether or not some of these things are true we're going to be using this story this Heritage this provenance uh in the marketing of the brand but I'm not comfortable that it's true now I'm not going to say that I turned it down because of that situation uh there were a few other things I wasn't happy with the contracts and eventually it just fell through and I just kind of stepped away from it but that was the initial kind of uh maybe this isn't all you know all it could be and is this something I want to go forward with now even if I was really just focused on earning as much money as I could and you know making hay whilst The Sun Shines eventually if you're coming out with things that are not true around your business eventually people are going to Cotton onto that idea and the more successful you become the bigger the brand becomes people can find these things out about you eventually you're making too many waves people thinking okay let's look into that claim and see if that claims true and all it takes is one or two newspaper articles or people sharing things on social media look at the claims that they made there's no truth behind it there's a bare face and the business has ended so even if you were just focused on earnings you know earning money you eventually know you're probably going to get caught out but I was just never comfortable with that example I was expecting him to go oh yeah we've got all these archived information here you can go through it and have a look and you know this shows that when this was that you know and I just didn't get any of that he just you know I half think that the Wikipedia page about them um some of those things are completely made up however if you go and look at uh Gucci's the the man himself guccio Gucci or not if you go on his page you will see this brand there and if you go into Louis Vuitton's Wikipedia page you will see it at the top this brand it's not hard to find but trying to get the information trying to you know Trace back where all this comes from I couldn't find it so you know for me the moral of the story is excuse to pun story is incredibly powerful incredibly powerful but make sure that what you're saying is truth and what you're coming out with is truth like where that your leather came from your background and your history and the skills that you use because if you dig deep enough you will find really interesting information about the most mundane things uh an example one second so I just had to grab this all so if you're watching this in the video you can see it I'm holding the titanium all by Jerome David I got this from Rocky mounted leather Supply for those of you listening on the podcast it's an all with a uh dark brown wooden handle now I didn't mention anything about this in the advertising but eventually when I found a French website that was selling these translated the page and it gave you a little bit more information about uh where it's made and who made it and uh the one thing it said is the guy who creates this drum David uses locally sourced wood from where he lives in the Jura region in France now one of my favorite places in the world is the juror in France it is absolutely beautiful it goes from France across to Switzerland uh around the famous uh well-known watch brands as well Rolex and a few others it's just a beautiful part of the country and sometimes I go there it's well known for skiing but I like to go in the off season because the forests around there and the mountains and the hills is just so beautiful and when I found out that this wood is locally sourced and then turned on a machine to create this all it just gave me that emotional connection to this and I knew I had to have it just from that I mean it's it's for me the best all out there I mean the blades are incredible it's easy to fix at a certain angle there's a number of things well balanced perfectly made like a Swiss watch but that was the thing that really kind of I guess triggered me it just made me want to have the all and it was part of its story that really spoke to me now it's a bit Niche but it just goes to show even in some really kind of everyday items there's always some kind of story associated with it you know right now the audio equipment next to the camera which is connected to all my podcast setup is in a shoe box that was my uncle's which was handed down to him from my grandfather who got it from some somewhere in the second world war don't know when but it's just been handed down no one knows where it came from and I did it up and got it to store all my audio equipment it's just an everyday item but now it has so much history and relevance to me so if you can think about when you're creating leather goods what is interesting about the thing that you're creating or about yourself or the journey to create this product that could be interesting to the customer that is relevant to the customer because there is always some kind of story there's always some kind of History there's always something interesting about where the hardware came from oh I'm using oh these are solid brass rings on my on the bag that I'm making that's great okay where are they from are they from Abbey England who has the Royal warrant to create hardware for by appointment to her majesty formerly the queen now uh Charles but there's always something that you can add about the leather the hardware of you the design you de Havilland travel bag it has handle attachments which are shaped after the tail wings of the de Havilland Comet the um radial Sunburst Chicago Screws four of them represent the four jet turbines of the aircraft the side profile of the bag is the tail Wing itself and you know there's all these little things that you can add into a design as well because the story is so powerful so that is the moral of today's podcast is try and think about the story of you your journey the things that you work with the designs that you come out with what's interesting about that always try and dig a little bit deeper a little bit deeper a little bit deeper and you always find something really fascinating uh even in the most mundane thing so guys thank you for watching again comment below tell me your thoughts on this uh and if you've had a similar experience in your lifetime I'd really be interested whether it's about leather goods or not be really interested to hear about it in the comments below don't forget to give me a like if you enjoyed this or learned something new and as always I will see you in the next podcast

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I discuss embracing unusual leathers for your next project.

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So today's vodcast or podcast if you're listening to the audio on this is all about using different kinds of leather different kinds of leather than what you're normally used to the normal cow the normal calf Etc in the meantime I'm talking to you from Dahab in Egypt um here on a diving holiday it's a very inspiring place and yesterday I was going through the market and I came across a store and as I normally do when I'm on a holiday vacation I like to stop at any store that sells leather products and this one was a little bit different it was a lot of tan bags a lot of Handbags and cases and things like that I'll show some pictures and I asked what leather that they were using in these bags and the man said to me that it was camel leather I've never seen camel leather before I I know of it but I've never seen it in any of the suppliers that I use any of the websites that I buy from and I thought it'd be really awesome to use some Camel leather in a bag because here camels are used for a multitude of different things from uh travel uh some milk to labor and of course meat and camel meat is quite popular here so naturally there is a byproduct of these skins that are going to be discarded or used for leather so I did try and asked the guy if he had any spare skins but these are kind of pre-made bags in Egypt that he sells but the leather was absolutely beautiful it was very soft to the touch not unlike calf if there was a leather that it was quite close to I'd say calf leather it was a very slight you could see pores in some of them that hadn't been finished which is a little bit like pigskin not exactly like it but kind of similar to it and I thought it'd be really cool to try and get hold of some Camel leather but the guy only sold bags pre-made bags in Egypt um he didn't actually sell the leather itself and I didn't really have time to try and find some is relatively small I think in the grand scheme of things I don't know if they would have a Tannery or leather supplier here but I will endeavor to get someone perhaps use it in the leather craft Master Class courses but I think it's really cool to sometimes use another kind of leather that we're not used to and it doesn't have to be exotic um kangaroo leather comes to mind in fact somebody I forget who now uh messaged me the other day and said something along the lines of uh Nike is dropping kangaroo leather in a lot of their products and replacing it with synthetic options now I did look a little into this I don't know if it's their entire line but I know that they were using camel leather on their football boots or their soccer boots and not camel leather sorry kangaroo leather um but also Puma is doing the same so a lot of the supplies of kangaroo leather and tanneries are rightfully worried as well and I think there's one Adelaide Tannery that is closing down because of it so I'm imagining that Nike and Puma collectively were using up a lot of kangaroo leather and keeping it going and again much like camel leather here kangaroo leather is a byproduct of the meat industry of course you can buy kangaroo I've tasted it myself before it's delicious so not only do I think it's good to diversify the kind of leathers that we use but I also think it's a good idea to support the tanneries that produce more unusual Leathers because the vast majority of leathers that we buy and are used in in pre-made products are going to be cowhide calf sheep lamb so for me I I want to try and include if I can some more unusual Leathers because there are benefits as well for example kangaroo leather is extremely strong a very very high tensile strength so if you want to use something that is similar in some ways and from what I've seen to Goat but you really want that extra strength kangaroo leather is fantastic camel leather stronger than cowhide as well I'm not sure I've heard anywhere from three to five times stronger and I don't know how they're measuring that but it seems to be an extremely tough skin which makes sense because it's an extremely durable hard wearing animal itself so I kind of wanted to ask you guys what unusual Leathers have you used before what kind of unusual skins it doesn't have to be exotic have you tried before because variation I think is is one of the key things to understand in leathercraft if you want to improve so yeah camel leather who thought it does I'm going to be honest it does smell a little bit but apparently there are tanneries in Europe Italy I believe that Tan's camel leather and it's just smells like any other leather really but it does have a bit of a a gamey smell to it so if you do get offered somewhere you manage to find some have a little smell first to make sure it's your taste but kangaroo Li that I think another one that really needs our help at the moment if you have access to it and it's not particularly cost prohibitive I think it's really important to support an industry because if you know a lot of the tanneries shut it's going to be a lot harder to get prices are probably going to Skyrocket and availability is going to be difficult um so I think it's it's uh an industry that that really does need our help so variation guys variation is the key uh thank you for joining me on this you know very short podcast here here for Egypt this is the Sofia Resort really nice place uh weather is very hot it's a little overcast today of all the days that I was going to do a a quick chat with you guys it's it's quite overcast still very hot but thank you for joining me and I will see you next time

Is The MOST Copied Bag Actually A COPY? Plus, I share my thoughts on the future of leathercraft, tips for getting better at skiving, the best pattern design tools and much, much more!

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I discuss the 'luxury disconnect' and ask YOU a controversial question.

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Show notes:

So a woman walks into a luxury leather good shop she walks around and Marvels and all the beautiful skins and exotic leather handbags that she sees and while she's walking around the store she looks into the corner of the store and sees the most beautiful leather handbag that she's ever seen exotic leather crocodile skin Gold Hardware the lot the most Exquisite design so she walks over to investigate a little bit further and as she reaches over the table to grab the bag she lets out a loud fart

absolutely mortified she's praying that nobody heard so she looks over to her left and there's nobody there and she looks over to her right and there materializes her worst nightmare a sales assistant who was standing there the entire time now at this point she's oh Beyond praying hoping that he didn't hear what she did so first of all he says hello Madam how can I help you today and she kind of mumbles I I just wanted to to see this handbag and and see how much it cost um Adam I could tell you the price but uh if you farted by merely touching the handle you're gonna [ __ ] when I tell you the price

oh terrible terrible terrible joke um it's the only luxury joke I know so I thought I'd start out with that actually no it's not the only luxury joke I know I do know another one and I you know what I'll tell you closer to the end of the podcast if you're that interested in hearing it okay so what's this podcast about what am I talking about today what am I going to be taking you through so as some of you know on my Instagram and indeed on my YouTube channel if you've been watching my stories and my shorts and things like that you may occasionally see me going up to London which is only about half an hour no about an hour away from me here in Kent and uh I love going doing a little bit of shopping in London but also visiting some of the luxury stores in the high-end stores like Harrods and selfridges and you know walking down new Bond Street and seeing some of the beautiful boutiques that they have there indeed in my last podcast and vodcast I talked about my visit to pick at London and Swain Edney Brigg but something that I get and I'm not there that often maybe you know a handful of times a year but something I get I get a lot of people saying you know it was great to follow you along it's great to see all that stuff and you know all the luxury Brands and all their Glory but there is not a small minority of people that love to how can I put this politely mock the idea of luxury Brands uh expensive Exquisite items and I always talk about how it's not worth the price uh people that can buy those have got more money than cents uh wealthy people can't buy taste and all that kind of thing and I guess this is I guess you could call it kind of a pushback podcast in a sense on on that mentality to some extent yeah there are Brands out there that charge ridiculous prices for what you're getting especially ones that increase their prices a huge amount every year Chanel comes to mind if you look at some of their most famous bags now compared to just a few years ago the prices pretty much doubled but you're getting the same thing you know it's um they're playing a game and it's it's ridiculous but that is an exception to the rule I think there are a lot of great luxury brands that are producing Exquisite items for a very high price and I think sometimes and we can all be guilty of this we can't appreciate what we don't fully understand and this podcast is all about why that is but also how we can understand luxury a little bit better because some of us produce luxury leather goods or find other goods for as a brand as a full-time job as a part-time work to complement your day job and some people have aspirations to produce luxury leather goods in order to to sell so I think it's very good for us all to learn how to appreciate luxury and not just in the sense of leather goods but as a concept so I want to cut I want to start out with a question and I guess it could be seen as a controversial question but I'm going to ask it anyway but if you don't like the answer do remember that it's you that's providing the answer and if you don't like it you created it so this is not really a statement it's just a question and that's all it is but this is the question if you don't appreciate luxury do you have any business creating it if you can't enjoy the Finer Things in life why are you making the Finer Things in life and asking others to enjoy interesting question and this is mostly as as individual Artisans because because of course you might get Craftsman let's just say Ms creating ridiculously expensive handbags and they may not enjoy the Finer Things in life okay probably do but many of them may not who knows this is individual Artisans because the Craftsman there at Hermes they didn't design their famous handbags they didn't design any of their their famous luxury leather goods unlikely but they learn how to create them so they're separate from kind of what we do which is creating it ourselves and many much of the time designing it ourselves as well okay we're choosing the Leathers we're choosing the colors oftentimes into you know choosing the design and the shape of the the finished article so we are at every stage of the production so I think it's more important for us as individual cross people to understand luxury why people like luxury and the more of an appreciation you have the better you will be at creating it so my goal here is to just change your perspective a little bit in helping you to understand that so along the lines of can you truly appreciate what you don't yet understand I'm not asking you to go out and take out a loan and go on a luxury goods spending spree and just buying it because oftentimes when I'm going to London um I'm not up there buying highly expensive luxury leather goods I might be doing a little Christmas shopping I might go up there for the day or stay over in a hotel and sometimes I come back and I haven't really bought much at all even though I've been to some of the more famous watch boutiques or along Savile Row to view the suits um you know visiting John lob and a few other different places that I just really love visiting it's it's inspiring even if it has nothing to do with the craft that I'm involved in um I find it really inspiring and really kind of gives me ideas and and motivates me I guess is is another way of putting it really gives me motivation and brings back that excitement for for the fine details in in luxury and craftsmanship so giving a little pushback on on the first thing I I talked about really was was people saying that oh you know you're only paying for the name you're only paying for the label yes and no and when I say no when we say a name Louis Vuitton is just a mouth Noise Okay we move our vocal chords in a way and then we move our lips in another way and it creates the sound associated with Louis Vuitton but the question really is is what conjures up in your mind what comes to mind when someone says that to you and you might think of their famous monogram you might think of trunks you might think of some of the handbags you might think of some of their silk scarves and other luxury items that the brand is famous for so it's not you're not really paying for a name as such what you're paying for is a reputation what you're paying for is a legacy because the reputation associated with that name connected to that name has sometimes in some of these Brands taken multiple Generations just to gain that reputation that incredible asset that now goes along with the name the name is just the code the link to that heritage to that luxury and every time someone says that name every time we say that name we invoke that reputation when we say Gucci Delvaux Goyard Hermes Louis Vuitton and various other different brands with each of those we have a different a different concept or a different Vision that comes to mind when people say that that name that is what you're really paying for so you're not paying for a name you're paying for a reputation and that's it very important to understand and absolutely people use these as indicators of wealth all the time you walk around you know the Posh areas of any big Metropolitan City and you've seen these people with you know head to toe all these high-end brands because it indicates to other people their social status their value their wealth their power even you know if you go back thousands of years I know it's a prehistoric human times if you came across somebody who's wearing several wolf skins as a coat to stay warm well what does that tell you what does that indicate to you about that individual well obviously he's such a good Hunter he can take the one of the most feared predators and kill them not just once but multiple times and his status within his social group within his tribe is probably going to be very high so we've been doing this for the dawn of man from the beginning of time this isn't something new this isn't a modern concept and although we don't really walk around wolf skins these days the brands the high-end Brands the exclusive items that people buy the handbags the cases the suits the coats the shoes the watches the sunglasses they're all little indicators that communicate without actually saying anything so I guess my message is even if you don't go out and buy the Finer Things in life try and developer an appreciation or an understanding of the Finer Things in life and it starts by gaining more information about these things not just luxury leather goods but the brands behind them the concepts the ideas the Heritage the history because that's really important in order to understand luxury which can help then Translate into the goods the leather goods that we produce as a great book by Stephen Covey The Seven Habits of Highly Effective People there's a quote in there that I really like and I think it is connected to what we're talking about today which is seek first to understand then to be understood okay seek first to understand and then to be understood in other words aim to understand luxury before asking others to view your work as luxurious so how do we understand luxury in a way that helps us to replicate that in our leather work in our craft and I think one of the greatest ways of doing that is going out and buying or even renting books okay go to your local library rent books showing the history around some of the most iconic luxury brands and this doesn't just mean leather goods my recommendation is to embrace luxury categories such as watches old Couture handmade shoes tailoring Fine Art Gastronomy luxury travel and that's just naming a few there's lots of different books on all sorts of luxury goods and experiences that I think are really going to help create an appreciation for luxury itself and another one that I think is really good to add to that list and if you can get these an audiobook is great as well uh luxury strategy the luxury strategy which is a great book that highlights what motivates people who buy the Finer Things in life because the more you understand what buyer's motivations are the more you can create items that capture their attention so that is my message today before we kind of look at Brands and kind of laugh at their prices and or maybe mock the people who are willing to pay those prices try and seek to understand first and understand the history and Heritage behind the brands but also what motivates people to buy from them even if the prices seem ridiculous to us and totally not worth it because perhaps we have a better understanding than the average purchaser of what makes good construction on a bag or what makes fine craftsmanship and we're seeing a lack of that in some of the items that are very expensive from these high-end brands you know it doesn't make sense to us see if you can find a way so that it does okay so I did say that I would finish this with the second only uh luxury joke that I know uh this is a joke about uh Rolls Royce so here we go.

so a Kia driver drives up to the traffic lights and pulls up alongside a beautiful Rolls Royce now the kia Drive is feeling a little bit outdone here so he rolls down his window and indicates nods to the Rolls-Royce driver to do the same and he does and he calls out to the drive and says hey my car has uh air-conditioned seats does your Rolls-Royce have air conditioned seats and the Rolls Royce driver looks over and says uh yeah I got air-conditioned seats so the kia driver thinks himself okay hey I've got champagne flutes in my uh in my Kia do you have champagne flutes in your Rolls-Royce and the Rolls-Royce driver looks over at him in a scoffing manner and said this is a Rolls-Royce it is the finest marque in the world the finest automobiles known to man yes of course my Rolls-Royce has champagne flutes so the kia driver again feeling a bit outdone thinks to himself and then leans over and says hey my kia has a bed does your Rolls-Royce have a bed and the Rolls-Royce driver feeling a bit annoyed simply accelerates away from the lights he's upset he doesn't have a bed and for the rest of the day bothers him so he makes an appointment at Rolls-Royce goes there speaks to them and ask them to put a bed in drives it around the back and leaves it with them and they construct the finest bed ever made for any Rolls-Royce with the most beautiful silks exotic woods and Brass trimmings the lot and they install it into his Rolls-Royce and he picks it up and as he's driving around he really wants to rub it in the face of this Kia driver so he drives around and spends the entire day looking around the city for this kia driver and at the end of the day just before he's about to give up as night's falling he drives past a car park and sees the Kia parked up in the car park so he pulls in and he pulls right up next to the Kia driver he gets out his Rolls-Royce goes over and knocks on the window,

nothing. he notices all the window is completely steamed up so he knocks again but louder

and then all of a sudden the window comes down and the kia driver pops out completely soaking wet and Rolls-Royce driver says look check in the back I've got a bed and the kia driver says, you got me out the shower for that?

ladies and gentlemen it's been absolutely wonderful for you to have me. Don't forget to like this video And subscribe if I made you laugh and I will see you in the next video thanks for listening take it easy laughs

thank you

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hello and welcome to this month's q a session with me phil and in this month like always i'm going to be taking questions from instagram live and i've also been sent through a series of questions which i'll name off in just a second but before i do that don't forget to follow me at leathercraftmasterclass on instagram where there's tons more content that you're missing out on here so don't forget to go over there and give me a follow on there too so what questions do i have in store for you guys today well number one we have a question on stingray skin we also have a question on presenting products to customers in way they understand reverse pricking irons tips for beginners on all use and also how to cut an english point on the end of your belt or strap without using an english point cutter okay like one of these punches here so i'm going to be giving a demonstration on how you can do that in your workshop without having that particular tool where you can get just as good results but also you can change the angles and play around with the shapes so i'm going to give you a demonstration on how to do that but i'm also going to have a little bit of fun and show you how to burnish with nothing more than your hand so without further ado we're gonna go live on instagram take some live questions as well and then we'll be going through these main ones don't forget if you want to get your questions in you guys on youtube on instagram every month i take questions in the stories so you can dm them to me or you can send them through when the story sticker okay so let's go live and take it from there all right so without further ado let's get started on april's q a so question number one is is it possible to skive stingray okay is it possible to skive stingray skin so what is stingray skin it could be of a series of fish even shark could be called stingray at times or shower green but they all possess similar qualities which you have these small circular beads uh almost like bone across the surface it's very distinctive there's nothing else quite like it in the the world of skin and leather and underneath you have a fibrous layer so there's the two main layers is your firm hard layer on the top and a fibrous layer and the top layer is made from enamel and dentine okay very similar to teeth in that sense and you can buy unsanded which is more spherical on the surface very interesting texture and you can buy it sanded which opens up a very different unique look to it and flattens out the surface as well so the person here is asking is it possible to skive stingray now normally skiving you're using something like this skiving skins and leather using a skiving knife now if you've tried to do that with uh stingray skin you would instantly blunt your knife doesn't matter what kind of super steel powdered steel that you're working with it's going to be the edge that you had okay because it's so hard and so tough it just strips the edge of almost anything so it's not possible to really skive stingray you could for example skive the underneath the fibrous layer but that's the foundation for the pearls that sit on top so if you skive that away they're just going to start falling apart and you'll have no strength and that's not what you want now what you can do is use a drum sander now you can use a regular drum sander or if you want a bit more detail you could use a dremel a rotary tool with an extension and a small micro drum sander and you can very carefully sand that down right down and thin out the fibrous layer as well and you can call you can use that for overlaps for example watch straps okay where you're going to have something over the top you can do it for even turned edges but it's going to be very niche areas that you really use that particular technique so it's not it is possible to thin it down not skiving it in the literal sense but it's possible to thin it down with a small drum sander so that's something to uh to consider but if you're attaching the stingray to something else for support then you would probably if you needed to thin the edges for example you would thin that down rather than the stingray itself so i hope that answered that particular question are you guys getting on instagram yeah just double checking we don't have any uh unanswered comments excellent okay so question number two is a little bit more on the side of uh selling your work okay so how do you present your high quality products to a customer without being too technical okay so the person who's asked this question has probably had a little bit of self-awareness perhaps maybe talked about their work or something to a friend and the friend's completely confused or maybe they've seen people talking online using really complex language that most people wouldn't understand but it's an interesting question how do you present your high quality products to a customer without being too technical and we can all to a certain extent be uh accused of doing this where we talk more like an expert using uh the language of leathercraft we have all these weird and wonderful words you know skiving burnishing and saddle stitching and all these uh weird and wonderful filler twos and uh you know the list could go on i'm sure you can come up with many many more but all these words are just not common knowledge really outside of leathercraft or very few other crafts so it's very easy to lose people and confused people don't buy generally you might be familiar with that if you go to buy a product you're not 100 sure what you need it's not evident it's you're having to think really hard to figure out what you need you end up going you know what i'm not i'm just not gonna buy it i'm gonna go i'm gonna leave it or buy something else instead so two things i've identified on how to sew your work without being too technical number one is avoid using terms that they don't understand okay avoid using terms that they don't understand now when you talk with other leather crafters uh you're going online researching leathercraft you're on a leathercraft forum you're on a leathercraft facebook group you follow tons of leather crafters on instagram you watch videos by leather crafters on youtube your kind of circle is constantly using these terms and phrases all the time it becomes your normal so it's very easy to start using that but terms like uh you know stitch with linen okay or stitch with french linen what does that mean to anyone a lot of people might associate linen with bed sheets okay so you stitch that with french bed sheets okay it sounds funny until you don't know what that means not everybody knows what linen is okay uh another one could be uh vegetable tanned leather okay another one of my bug bears i don't actually like the term vegetable tanned leather because not many people are really going to associate you know could link up tanning leather with vegetables okay if you say vegetables to most people or vegetable they're going to be thinking carrots peas broccoli swede sweet corn potatoes etc okay vegetables so it's vegetable tanned that makes no sense to most people unless you explain what that is not everybody's gonna go from okay vegetables vegetation uh oak bark bark twigs sumac ground up into a tea dip leather nine months later vegetable tan leather not many people are going to make that connection i'd much rather it be called barked hand leather okay 80 percent of people are gonna get what that means pretty much it's got bark in it somehow and it's tanned it's natural it's great and 20 might think it's something to do with dogs but bark town leather i think will be more accurate because most of the time that's what it is so uh just be very careful that you're not constantly using phrases you know it's vegetable tanned leather hand-stitched with french linen thread with burnished edges you know shell corder van all this kind of thing a lot of people don't know what that is so you'll need to break down what it is so that they understand what it is and they can understand the next thing kind of ties in with that number two which is don't assume they know why something is better okay don't assume they know why something is better why does uh you know french why is french calf better than calf if they know what cough is okay most people probably do but why is french craft better okay we use french calf made in a tannery in blah blah blah that's been doing it the same way for 150 years great now it's romantic now i can attach some kind of connection to it and i perhaps understand some reason why it's better we use we hand stitch all our leather goods for because it increases strength and maybe put a little diagram in there if you want to or just say because it increases strength it's stronger than a machine stitch so it's more durable lasts longer and you can hand it down to your children you know it's you're giving it some something for them to latch on of why it's better so don't just reel off a lot of terms they don't understand make sure that it's something they can connect to and if you're using a term that describes why it's better just let them know why that thing makes it better okay so how do you present your high quality product to a customer without being too technical think like someone who doesn't quite understand what it is okay don't use technical terms and if you're saying it's vegetable tanned leather because you believe it's superior in some way explain why it is superior okay can you simulate or have a mock conversation on how to sell to a client might as well ask me to sell this pen who can get who can get that film reference uh no that would be very unnatural for me to do right now or something to do with dogs bark tan leather woof yeah question number three and this one is uh to do with pricking irons and the question is do i need reverse pricking irons as well to pre-punch layered pieces from opposite sides now going on from my previous don't talk like you assume people know what you're talking about uh two pricky nines here okay they are different sizes this is number five dixon number five this is addiction number six but we can assume that they're the same now this is a standard pricking iron okay what we call obverse okay just a standard orientation and if i hold it up to the camera the angle is like this okay now a reverse pricking line is essentially when you hold them together a mirror image of that so this one the angle of the prongs that make the marks in the leather that you follow with your awl or your stitching is on the opposite side so they're opposing but what happens when i bring them until they're facing each other okay i know they're different sizes but the angles of the prongs actually match up okay so it's now connected as a mirror image this is opposing this is mirrored all right so if you were to get two obverse two standard ions they're the same side by side end to end would be an x okay they're opposing so where would you use this why would you buy an obverse pricking iron and then eventually we'll talk about uh whether or not we need one where would you use it so for example if you are making a a handle for a briefcase so you'd prick the top part down the side seam okay and then you'd prick the bottom part with your reverse irons okay so opposite side and what you'll do is as you push through with your all because it's very thick uh layered leather you're not gonna go through it with your pricking line when you push through your angle that you're pricking on has set the all at will match on the opposite side now what does that mean that means that your stitching is going to be more accurate okay that's all it means the back seam is going to be nice and accurate angles are going to be on point as well and it's going to look nice and neat now if you didn't use a reverse bricking iron you could push through with an all but you might come a little bit high on one with the all bit low you've got nothing really to aim for and what that can cause is a little bit of a change in the stitching the accuracy can sometimes be lost when you've got that much of leather to go through so it can be handy to use a reverse bricky knife now you may think to yourself the underside of a handle on a briefcase is never really seen and that's true so it really depends on personal preference but another area that i definitely do use this is uh or like to use this is box stitching okay so you have a box thick leather box you have an angle a 90 degree angle and you prick mark a seam on one side and you prick mark a seam with reverse irons on the other side and as you push your all blade through it matches up and gives you a nice accurate scene now there are ways and techniques around that and i discuss that in the courses as well but the area that i really like to use them is on attache cases so the bloomsbury a case course is something i showcased that where i use this with a regular number five iron up on the wall there and that allowed me to really nice accurate seams on both sides and it makes it easy to do as well you just push the oil mate all the way through if the oil is slightly off you'll see it quite quickly because it should be coming through the hole made by the reverse pricking line so you can then just pull it back out and readjust and push it through to keep your stitching accurate i pre punch with my all when i need to go through some something that thick yes and you still can pre-punch if you pre-prick both sides and then pre-punch all the way through you again you'll be more accurate than just going uh with one marking on one side and an awl only okay so do you need reverse breaking eyes do you need them not necessarily it depends on the kind of work that you do they're a little bit niche so it's not always necessary and you can get a way of not needing them but if you require a little bit more accuracy and it's something that you find makes your work a little bit easier a little bit neater then it's something to consider but obviously it's an extra expense because you're ending up buying twice the amount of pricking irons but saying that if you're using it to go through very thick leather um you're probably going to be using thicker threads it's on a bigger project and you maybe only need the larger sizes so you won't need to go through your whole inventory and then double the number of pricking lines to get reverse in there so next question question number four uh other than practice what are some tips for beginner all users are there any common mistakes so this person is obviously either brand new to using an awl or they've been hand stitching for a short period of time and they want to integrate all use maybe they've seen a limitation in what they can do with just going all the way through with the pricking line and they want to start experimenting uh and get a little bit more skill around the pricking answer other than practice what are some tips for beginner oil users are they common mistakes so i've listed a few number one avoid picking up bad habits at the start that will be hard to unlearn later on um i see this a lot in people who eventually pick up the all either through necessity um or they just decide to but you can tell they've got experience hand stitching but it's very awkward to see them use the awl and sometimes there will push the all through and then put it down and then do the stitch and then pick it back up again and do that which really destroys your flow and your consistency because you you lose that feel every single time and the rear side of the stitches will usually pay the price for that i also see um one where people have obviously used the hand stitching without one and then they'll use an awl okay if you can see that my black t-shirt they're using all between their pinky finger their ring finger and they're stitching and then they'll kind of jab it in every so often do their stitch and then jab it in i mean it's all well and good it's a bit of an afterthought technique but i'm sure that would play havoc on my knuckles eventually so health-wise i'm not sure how good that would be for your finger joints but uh accuracy on that and it'd be very easy to accidentally jab the surface of the leather so picking up good techniques uh from the beginning is is ideal so avoid bad habits at the start they'll be hard to unlearn later on so if you think oh i'm going to do it a different way because the the way that most what they consider masters do it is now it's too technical so i'm going to figure out another way and you start getting used to that and further down the line you realize it's a bad technique and it's making your stitching worse so next thing i've picked up on is use a stitching pony until you become proficient enough to use clams so using an awl and using clams kind of go hand in hand because it's a little bit more efficient to do it that way i find but having something upright where you can see the all coming through the other side visually and you've got something visually to see your needle touch the blade and as you pull the blade out the needle sinks in and it makes it much easier once you kind of learn that and you get that mind muscle connection okay the hand eye coordination then you can transition to that to using satellite clams either english or french satellite clams and i've got videos on that as well if you want to watch on my youtube so starting with a stitching pony just to take one of the challenging variable out because on stitching clams you can't actually see the rear side of the stitches is all by feel so you need to pick up that skill first of all so take it in stages and last one there is get proper education from a craftsman you trust okay now you probably know that i do leather craft courses i'm gonna plug my own courses i do have a course on hand stitching hand stitching with a cast without a cast how to use an oil pricking line basically demonstration of french seams and also bind edge binding as well but it's always good to try and find someone who you aspire to be more like or someone who that you would like you know like to pick up their level of skill watch how they do things watch their youtube or instagram ask them questions if necessary but try and get a trusted source where you can then either get your technique critiqued maybe it's an in-person course or you can send a video to someone even myself just to give you a critique and see how you're doing and make any necessary changes so get proper education from a trusted source and lastly i do have a tip for you guys and i i use this in my course the techniques of hand stitching it's called a pinky loop okay it's not something you would use forever consider it training wheels but there's nothing wrong with using it for the rest of your career but it's a loop it's custom designed i have a video for this i can't remember if i just mentioned that but i'll put it in on youtube especially in the description below and what it is is a strip of leather all the way around holds on to your pinky and make sure that it doesn't go anywhere okay so what are the benefits of that well one it's on a pivot okay pivots so as i'm stitching i don't i can actually relax my hand i'm not using these fingers to hold on i can relax them so that i can stitch a little bit easier it's just like almost stitching without one except there's something in your hand there but you can relax it doesn't affect it and when you need it you just bring your thumb back and the oil is back in play again the other thing is you can't drop it on the floor because it's attached to you uh but another big benefit is it's tightened on there i mean there's a layer of pig skin underneath the comfort but if i pull that back i can actually unscrew it with a small screwdriver because it's screwed in to the to the half the handle and rotate it to the exact angle that i'm using with my pricking line so if i'm using a pricking line that's like that and i have another one that's like that well i can just loosen it rotate it tighten it back up and make sure that it matches and that way the the hole that i make with the all blade all the way through is going to match the front so the back will be exactly the same sometimes it's actually very easy to change the angle if you're in experience doing that so it's a good one to start with and eventually you can take it off once you build that habit you build that technique it's a bit of a little bit of a transition but you'll get the idea the general idea so uh video for that it's going to be on when for you guys on instagram when it comes out on youtube um i'm gonna premiere it probably uh in the next few days i'll put a link in there but it's on my youtube account it's one of the earlier ones okay so demonstration coming up guys demonstration coming up it's going to move these out the way so last question is uh how do i get the perfect english point on a strap or a belt without the punch okay without in all block capitals for extra emphasis uh so i'm going to show you rather than tell you so i'm just going to move these out the way

uh you guys on instagram i hope you don't get seasickness give me one second the big camera needs to rotate

and refocus do you sharpen your tiny edge bevelers on your own and if yes then how perhaps i can give a bit of a demo uh another time i did literally a few days ago come out with a course techniques of the blade part two advanced sharpening and in that one i go through how to sharpen from scratch okay so how to sharpen both sides of the edge beveler from scratch and then polish it so i'm not sure if you have access to those courses but that is on there using macro footage as well which is obviously much better what's the best way to use a curved awl through thin leather you know what i don't actually have a curved all uh shoemakers also uh not the best ones probably a shoemaker would be best for that okay so this is a piece of leather this is english bridal leather thickness wise we're looking at about

three yeah about three millimeters thick uh about uh one and a half inches or 38 millimeters so it's gonna be about the same yeah okay so what we're gonna do on this one so instead of using an english point strap cutter which i have here which you would place over there make sure it's centralized of course and then you can whack it on the top and you end up with a cut that mirrors this okay the english point looks like the top of a church window so what i'm going to do is start out by taking a pair of wing dividers now unlock them we're going to find the center here you know you can measure this and use a ruler what i'm going to do is just give it a bit of a guesstimation here how far am i a bit too wide this is where my ocd kicks in oh wow look at that okay so i've made a central point here i'm just going to push through that with a little bit more gusto maybe you can see that now what i'm going to do is open this up to just slightly wider than the width of this piece here

okay and just just kind of loosely tighten it not too much so i'm going to place one side of my wing dividers in here and then the other side i'm going to bring it around and butt it up to the side can you see that okay when it hits the side i'm going to press down so now it's indexed in to the table itself so i can lift up the opposite side bring it over and then

make a scratch okay so be very careful that you're keeping your leather nice and straight so it's not moving about when i've done one side i'm going to lift this side up bring it over to the opposite side again i'm going to butt that up to the side of the leather and press down into the work surface table coming over to the opposite side and i'm making a scratch okay and both sides are coming around and going back into the end that point so what i have here now is a church window style if you can see that you guys on instagram maybe not because the quality is a little bit lower but i have something that mirrors this very very closely so i can take

a round knife and this is the one i sharpened in the recent course as well so some of you might recognize it and i can just place that down and just pull that leather through very carefully

minding fingers so i'm actually moving the leather through the blade on this side and on the other side i won't do that because my fingers are a little bit further forwards now so what i can do is just use the tail end

slowly curving it around moving your fingers making sure at any point if you slip there's no finger in front of it so what you have now bring that to the side is a point okay just like an english point now i can take

my edge beveler like so and starting on one side

take that off

and then do the same thing on the rear side

now you might need to practice this a little bit and you don't have to use a round knife you can use a regular knife if you want to okay such as a craft knife snap off blade indispensable whatever you happen to be using okay and now you can then burnish that okay so luckily you guys can't see because i'm going to lick it

lovely okay you guys on youtube got some sound effects there

all right so uh what should we burst it with uh let's try my hand

so

let's see if we can get that going

so it is possible to actually use your hand to burnish

calluses help

and then to get a final polish on there what i like to do is just get my fingernails

there you go you guys on instagram can hear that in the microphone a little bit closer

okay so there you go you can actually burnish reasonably well with just your hands and your nails so there you go so it's a weird way of finishing it but that's uh the english point uh without having an english point now of course let me give you a quick demo of how much faster that is i'm not going to spend too long centering that up but

once you've got it pretty centered

okay just a quick whack and that's going to give you uh a much quicker option there so uh we'll take a little bit more beveling but apart from that it's much quicker so i'd recommend uh for when you run out of token yeah i do have some somewhere uh incoming new course hand burnishing the technique of the bus furnishing by hand literally yeah yeah asmr i read a book on leather tools warning everyone that if your tool can cut leather it can cut them well i would have thought so um in that fashion no one in their right mind would mess with a good leather crafter i'll see where you went with that that's funny yes it's very true don't don't mess with us okay guys uh so that's the end of it um don't forget if you're brand new to this and you're brand new to the channel on leathercraftmasterclass.com don't forget i'm still offering the free tool buyers guide and free leather selection video which will show you exactly what tools you need to get for your level and also how to identify good quality leather two of the cornerstone uh pieces of information you need to know to start in your journey towards finding the goods so thank you for joining me in today's live if you've got value from any of the information here or at least you're entertained at some point uh don't forget to give me a thumbs up okay so just give me a thumbs up below let me know and if you have any questions uh anything else you'd like to add your own experiences anything you want to share with the community as well and don't forget to comment below and share your thoughts in the meantime thank you for watching and i'll see you in the next q a session

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Hello and welcome to the leathercraftt master class with march's q&a. i have six yes six good hot off the press questions straight from instagram stories and if you're not following me on instagram don't forget @leathercraftmasterclass where if you want to see extra content not seen on youtube don't forget to follow me there as well so i have six new questions that i've gathered all from followers so if you want to get your questions in either comment below so you can put your questions in below this on youtube or you can go to instagram and put it in my stories when requested every month and don't forget if you want your free leather craft and tool guide don't forget to hit the link below leathercraftmasterclass.com and i'll send it straight to your inbox and for this month we have a brand new course and this course is teaching you how to make a jewelry case so this is a very traditional technique or techniques involved in this in creating your very own jewelry case and also an accessories pouch that goes with it this is a travel jewelry case but the techniques learned inside this course can be used on much larger cases should you wish to do so now this is using exotic leathers obviously as you can see but you can use any kind of leather that you want you can use chrome tan you can use vegetable tan use cowhide calf goat whatever you want to use on this i'd recommend goat personally great value great grain and really easy to work with for something like this so as usual i'm going to go live on instagram we're going to take some live questions as well as i'm answering these so six questions yes but there's usually a little bit more as well so let's hit live and we'll take it from there all right we're live we're telling your followers that you've started a live video that's always a good start right so let's start with question number one uh and this is a question i get a lot i get it asked a lot on the master class forum as well um i get it asked in dms i get it asked by email one of the biggest issues with doing custom leather work um is hot foiling okay or even just stamping your own logo into your leather work because a lot of people want to do it especially when they first start another craft they want to go they go okay i've made this wallet i love the way it looks i'm really proud of it i'd love to put my stamp on it my seal of approval i want to put my name on it um and that's what a lot of people want to do when they start improving their work and it's completely understandable so they go online and they put in hot foil machine hot stamping machine and the prices that come up are probably a zero or two more than they bargained for so a hot floor machine can set you back several thousand pounds for a very good one or several thousand dollars for a really good one so people start looking towards places like ebay amazon aliexpress taobao and a few others where they can purchase a much cheaper machine usually a chinese-made machine and that was what this person is asking me here what do you think of inexpensive hot foil machines on amazon around 160 euros so obviously they've gone on to amazon and they've seen the prices of them and there's probably one that's 160 euros the cheaper smaller units from china usually around 100 200 300 mark what do i think of them i've only had well i've only had two experiences with i've had two experiences with them this was a few years ago mind you and i've noticed that china usually starts putting out really low quality stuff and then as market demand increases there's companies in china that start kind of catching up and producing better stuff pricing irons used to be terrible from china they should be all really bad stitching chisels and they still produce those but over time some of the best quality stuff is now coming from china with regards to leathercraft tools really strange i don't know why but that might be happening with hot 4 machines i don't know but my experiences are pretty negative the first machine that i got i can't remember where i got it i bought it online and it was around 200 pounds and i remember after about must have been a few days of using the first unit i was pulling down and i was pressing into some vegetable tan leather to get a nice kind of deep logo in there and i remember just feeling the the lever the ram just give all of a sudden i was thinking that's strange and then it stopped and put it back up open up the machine and what's inside is a rack and pinion okay so you have your i believe the pinion is the circle like a cog with teeth and then you have a rack which is teeth but they're straight and as the cog rotates as you pull the ram down it goes up and down like so now the cog itself the pinion was made of solid steel as it should be and the rack the teeth was made from aluminium okay or aluminum if you're from the states and the last tooth takes all the pressure at that point where you're pressing it into the leather and of course it just snaps so i contacted the company i said look this is what's happened i gave them photos etc and they were nice enough to send a brand new unit to me free delivery everything sorted out that one lasted a bit longer about two to three weeks probably because i was doing it a little bit more gingerly i was being a bit conservative with the pressure and i was avoiding using it for anything that required you know pressing it firmly into vegetarian leather but the same thing happened and i had to try to try and move the rack down to get another and then it happened again it was just absolutely useless so in the end

i contacted a company in colchester called metallic elephant you may have heard of them about an hour hour and 30 minute drive from me so i went up there and they took me into the showroom and allowed me to kind of play with various models the one that i ended up purchasing was actually one of i think it is their cheapest model actually it was about fifteen hundred so one thousand five hundred pounds gonna be around two thousand dollars uh not including type obviously that's about 500 pounds and i remember trying out various ones and having a look at them all and the one that i wanted was just a small unit because i was in a much smaller workshop there as well and it's portable uh so i went with that one and the the difference is night and day i mean it's it's not you know there are a lot of different brands um but things like metallic elephant howard kingsley um quick print you know there's a few decent brands sometimes you'll have to get them second hand sometimes the vintage models and the parts are no longer made so you have to watch out for that but if you can buy from a reputable brand it's worth its weight in gold and i will say one thing if you go for a really good quality hot full machine it tends to hold its value much better than a cheaper chinese-made unit it's very tempting to go that route but right now i haven't seen anything um that tells me that they're producing anything really good there's companies like dream factory where they they produce one that's um what is it now it's it's a hot full machine but it's also a clicker press as well so it kind of like does two jobs in one i think that's around a similar price

haven't used it they've offered it to me but i have one already but that looks pretty nice but i mean i'm sure there's going to be cheaper brands coming along that are still suitable but even if you end up end up not using it and you want to sell it you're going to get a lot of what you paid for it back because these machines they're really designed for life and and hard use and daily use that you would get inside a workshop so there's always a few consumables inside the machine for example some of the electronics might need replacing fuses heating elements might last you you know a decade maybe longer if you're lucky but there's a few things that need to be replaced but generally the machine as a whole cast iron and steel you know you're going to get a lifetime out of it several lifetimes in fact so i always um say uh and i get this from uh an adverse stellar artwork stellar advert reassuringly expensive okay so there are some things especially machinery you want to pay a high price for as long as you can justify it uh there was an advert years ago for stella artois and it was always some kind of comical scene of somebody going through hell and high water to get to the bar to get a pint of stella artois and it was always usually like a from 100 years ago a farmer going doing something common but at the end of it it would always say as he's drinking it and just like oh my god this tastes so good it would always say reassuringly expensive because they were priced as a premium beer it's not good beer but their price is a premium beer and yeah i always think of that reassuringly expensive because when you buy something that is a higher value machine whether it's skyva machine hot full machine whatever um there's a little bit of um security in having something that's just built better and built well so what do i think of uh inexpensive hot for machines on amazon for around 160 euros about as much as i think of laser eye surgery for 160 euros not a lot okay so let's move on to the next question uh the next question is what are the key skills and product characteristics for the fine leather crafts styles i'll read that again what are the key skills and product characteristics for fine leather craft style so what makes something fine leather craft so more towards the luxury side of things versus other styles such as rustic such as minimalist and a few other basic styles so what really sets it apart now i'll start off by saying i did a blog post on pretty much this subject and you can go onto leathercraftmasterhost.com click on the blog if you scroll right down to the bottom because it was one of my early uh blog posts and there's a few now uh you'll see fine leather craft seven signs of luxury uh i won't go through all seven because i don't really have time plus at the end there's a bonus with loads of other small kind of like smaller indicators of luxury but just uh the first three the first indicator of luxury's edge finishing is the quality and the finesse of the edge finishing now edge finishing really does take time it's something that i teach in my courses obviously but it really does require practice and when you practice and you've done meaningful practice and you've incrementally improved it really does show in the quality of your edges and that could be edge burnishing that could be edge paint that could be a turned edge it could be french binding could be regular edge binding whatever it is if you can make it so that it's clean looking there's no lumps or bumps and it's the finest possible it's a consistent edge because consistency is everything in edge finishing then it really does set your work apart from the rest so it's one of the indicators is always looking at the edges if ever i'm in a luxury store you know looking for inspiration from various different high-end brands like harrods for example that some of you know i like to frequent um i really like looking at new releases especially when i can kind of open them up have a look around look at the quality of it one of the first indicators i look for is what are the edges like okay the edges are no good you can tell they've probably paid for another brand to make it a cheaper price for them it's usually because it takes time to to make a really good edge so edge finishing is the first thing i look for another one that i really feel kind of sets work apart is small little details in the aesthetics such as raised detailing so i've written down raised detailing it's where you have a raised area it could be on a watch strap a leather watch strap on a leather belt it could be detailing on a bag and it's a raised area that just adds more visual interest and a little bit more intrigue to the product sometimes it's practical like the raised area in the center of a belt you want the edges to be nice and thin for something a bit more refined but you want that bulk in the center for stiffness when you're putting it through the belt loops but also for strength and stretch resistance so it does form in certain products a practical element but it really does add a 3d look to it where light hits it on one side but there's a shadow on the other it just makes it look a little bit more interesting than something that's just you know plain sheet leather for example so raised detailing also shows the craftsman has really thought about the design and also has the skill to pull it off at the same time so raise detailing is another one the last one that i've got on the list remember there's seven in total but you'll be able to read the rest in the blog is slim edges it's not easy to get a product with nice slim edges you know a really nice wallet for example the slimline coat wallet which is a course that i produce a lot of that was really focusing on getting those thin edges keeping the bulk overall down as well but just having those thin edges shows that you're good at skiving shows that you can layer well and a consistently thin edge as well so if you're perhaps new and you're trying to a really thin edge it can be sometimes inconsistent thicker in parts and thinner another so when you have that really smooth thin edge it makes it look more refined and also shows that the craftsman has really worked on it and remember any anytime that you look at something you can tell the person that worked on this knows what they're doing that's really a sign of good craftsmanship and therefore luxury at the same time so that's just three excellent edge finishing raised detailing and the ability to pull off slim edges so they're three of the seven main signs so don't forget the rest of it is in the blog leathercraftmasterclass.com

this one i like this question i like this question i do and i don't i do and i don't okay here's here's why this question is can leather working make me rich okay specifically hand stitching only can leather working uh make me rich if i'm hand stitching first of all anything can make you rich people do the strangest things and start the strangest companies and it makes them a huge wad of money anything can make you rich it depends on the person it's the person that pulls it off but i will tell you something straight off the bat if that's your main concern and i really hope it's not if your main focus in anything is all about getting to the point where you consider yourself rich your focus is not where it should be which is uh essentially a higher purpose building a brand building a company that serves its customers better than anybody else building the best that you can actually be you know it's it's something that's going to be bigger than just getting to the point where you're can you consider yourself rich

and you're not rich if you're still drinking out of uh mason jars anyway i don't know why i have that everything else needs washing up anyway so can leather working make me rich okay so let's just let's humor this question and break it down so a quick cursory look online it's i've only got 2017 results so the numbers are gonna be a little bit skewed let's say that you consider rich as in the top one percent in uh of earners in your country okay so in the uk the top one percent in 2017 is gonna be higher now but it was 166 000 pounds per year okay would put you in the one percent bracket it's probably close to 200 000 now but anyway 166 000 which is 216 000 or 198 000 euros per year okay obviously that will put you on the one percent range you're you're into super tax at that point so a lot of that is gonna get taken away from you you'd probably be better off earning that in the united states because you guys cap at 37 but anyway okay so uh let's break this down so let's say that in a year you've got what 52 weeks let's say that you make a bag every two weeks so how much would you have to charge so let's uh take 166 000.

this is funny 166 000 divided by or half of 26 equals so you need to sell a bag every two weeks with an average price of three thousand six sorry three though six thousand three hundred and eighty four pounds okay now obviously there's going to be products that are way more expensive and way cheaper but that needs to be your average over that amount of time is it possible yes some people um know how to network some people know how to build a customer base that's very wealthy word of mouth spreads they're very good at marketing they know how to tell a story people like this do exist in all different industries you know i remember seeing some pottery ones that someone created and they were asking over two hundred thousand pounds for it for essentially a what looked like a piece of a glass plate to me it was really strange i was thinking whoever made that as an absolute genius to convince people to make that amount of money there are many artists that do it but remember for every one person that's doing it there's hundreds or thousands who've tried and not succeeded so it really does come down to the individual it comes down to hard work it comes out to persistence it comes down to luck is even in there as well everything into the mix the stars have to align to create your unicorn leather craft business but yes it is possible um if you consider the five percent of earners in your country that would mean you would have to earn 75 000 pounds a year or 98 000 or 90 000 euros so if you consider the five percent rich then it's going to be a little bit easier but is it possible yes is it likely no especially if your main concern is getting rich in the first place i would uh probably look elsewhere

i hear cryptocurrency is good but what do i know okay so next question moving on to the third question i'm going to mark these off actually right so lone wolf here i don't think that's his name i think he's indicating that he works for himself uh loan wolf here mastering craftsmanship skills over managing slash marketing or both so breaking down the question even further the it's really asking as a sole trader for example what's more important to the success of your business your craft skills or your skills in business your skills in marketing and advertising or is it both now some people will say uh it's you know it's 50 50. you know it's 50 50 half and half of each some people say oh it's you know it's 80 craft skill and 20 marketing some people say it's the complete opposite when you when you have your own business obviously this doesn't make sense but you gotta think like it does you need a hundred percent of both okay so 200 that doesn't make sense but you make it work that's running your own business okay you're juggling everything you have to be you have to be really good at a handful of things like two three or four things proficient at 10 reasonable at 20 but at the top at the apex there's certain things that you need to do really well and you need to get right um obviously your craft skills have to set you apart now that could be your designs your finishing uh the type of leathers that you're working with something has to stand out from everybody else you you never want to be comparable as soon as you're comparable people start going hmm which one should i choose between when you can stand out even if you don't appeal to everyone as long as you can stand out above the rest in some way you can start making sales and you can start doing well now that could be standing out in the way you do your marketing that could be standing out in the way that you communicate with your audience of potential customers that could be lots of different things but you always want to stand out and be a little bit different when it comes to marketing that's something else that you need to understand the amount of craftspeople that try and start a leather goods business and they've never read one book on marketing online sales running your own business uh because it's more of an afterthought if you consider those things an afterthought you're really going to struggle unless you get lucky some people get lucky but you really need to educate yourself on certain subjects that are going to help if there's one thing that i can kind of finish this this on is if no one knows you exist you're not going to make any sales and that's what marketing is is letting at the very least letting people know that you exist and here's what i create here's how it can benefit you here's what you need to do next if you want to be part of this or you want to buy this or you want to have this it's essential that that people know you exist in the first place otherwise how are you going to make sales now there's always examples of where this is completely wrong where you know someone gets word of mouth from an influencer or someone who's in a a certain social circle and everybody else wants that as well and then now that person has a waiting list of three years there's always these little as i mentioned before these little unicorn businesses where there's a mixture of a lot of things and luck is up there as well but in general you need to understand marketing so do online courses on marketing as well i mean i'm a huge proponent of online courses why i do this i did online courses on presenting on lives i've done online courses on videography and editing online courses on photography business and marketing you know it takes knowledge to then make these things work so uh it's a little bit of everything unfortunately it would be nice if you could just make something really nice and the work sells itself that's a rare a rare occurrence jose says you are great thank you very much i'm glad you think i'm great right so i'm going to cross that one off okay so uh next question how do you skive chrome tanned leather when it's soft and stretchy now this is um this is one of the reasons why i recommend that when people first start in leathercraft veg tan is your friend okay because it takes a little bit more skill in general to work with chrome tan leathers it's a little bit more difficult a little bit more challenging it doesn't always do as it's told it doesn't hold still when it should do and one of those is skiving as well so if you have a skiving knife for those of you who don't know what skiving is you have a skivving knife and you're trying to thin the edges for whatever reason maybe you're doing a turned edge

maybe you're thinning two parts so that the edge isn't too thick on a wallet or a bag for example on chrometown leather which is quite soft and stretchy if your blade isn't super super sharp then it can start pulling and stretching when you start doing that it's very difficult to get the angle consistent and what tends to happen is you will have some parts on your sky that are deeper than others some are a little bit higher than others and you get this inconsistent skive another issue is it starts stretching and then the fluff holds on on the front and it just kind of folds over and then you're trying to hack away at it trying to peel it off essentially it's just very challenging two things i i noticed that make life easier when you want to try and skive chrome-tanned leather number one have a clean pairing stone so it's a very smooth slick surface i've always preferred over all else a very polished surface of granite marble is fine but granite is harder a nice polished surface really sticks leather onto it so a good clean surface clean it regularly use a scraper if necessary to take off any debris and then just put some alcohol on a rag and rub it over just to clean your surface and you'll find leather sticks a lot better to it as well the second recommendation is going to be make sure you press the leather firmly so the thing with chrome tan is there's more of a gap between the fibers so it insulates quite well which is why you get garment leather which is chrome tanned as well insulated butter but it's very compressible and stretchy so what i like to do is press the knife down into the edge of the leather that tends to firm it up as you compress it and then as you're compressing you're starting to pull along so you want to keep a lot of down pressure whilst you're pulling along slowly you don't need as much down pressure when you're using vegetable tanned leather it's stiff it's firm it doesn't move around as much and as long as you can get a good hold on it it's relatively easy to skive the third and final recommendation is your knife sharpening skills need to be up there to skive chrome tanned leather you can try and skive chromatin leather and it's not quite sharp enough and then you put it on vegetable tanned leather and you're actually able to skive it reasonably well it takes a slightly sharper edge to cut through chrome tan leather well so that's something to work up on and make sure that your knife sharpening skills are really up there so clean pairing stone lots of down pressure as you're pulling along and a scary sharp blade are all going to help you out in doing that jose malura says i got your course online and they're amazing thank you very much welcome to the leathercraft master class thank you for saying that hi from greece mentor hey how's it going constantinos okay so i'm going to cross that one off the list that's done we have a last question last question and it is what is a good all-round all to start with for a beginner leather crafter and that's actually another common question is what's a good all to start with so many people start the craft and they keep the the tools quite simple have a decent pricking line uh stitching iron to go all the way through the leather you know have your basics of your hammer and needles and thread and things like that and then they start seeing people using clams and awls and wondering what they're for and they kind of investigate a little bit further and go yeah i'd like to try that i'd like to explore the possibilities of stitching thicker leather or awkward areas or all the different things that alls are good for so the next question is which one should i go for there's a lot of different companies producing them and they're all different sizes they're different blade lengths and weird and wonderful different you know woods in the handle things like that which one should i really go for i always i recommend that you try if possible to go somewhere where you can actually hold an awl you'll get a very quick idea of what feels good in your hand what feels too diminutive and too small to control well or what feels too big and cumbersome in the hand i prefer alls on the smaller side i find it easier to manipulate between the fingers so i will choose something that i probably should go for a medium but i prefer medium to small just so it moves around in my hand i can flick it back and forth really quickly but it's personal taste but you'll find very quickly failing that you could always it's not ideal but if you're paying for return fees it's not so bad buying a couple of sizes and then returning the one that doesn't feel quite right to you so as long as you're not taking advantage of free returns from small companies i would try as much as you can to go somewhere where you can try them out or you know if you know someone who's a leather crafter who who has different oils ask them do you mind if i come around or just try them out there might be someone in your local area who's might be very happy with you doing that so try and try out the all size the half size yourself which is the handle

okay so the half is this part here okay so that's the handle itself that you hold on to usually with your dominant hand and we have the ferrule here which usually holds the wood together from splitting not so much in the case of this all even though it looks like it but most oils it's just a cylinder that stops the wood from splitting and then at the end we have the blade so that's what you push through the leather and then as you pull it out you chase with the needles okay so what size blade do i recommend i great all-round size

uh i found is about 25 millimeters long 20 to 25 okay it's going to be good for small to medium-sized work for larger stuff you know really big handles and trunk handles and box stitching you know you can go for something that's obviously much larger so this is going to be about

millimeters long 37. so you know you can they can go really large but as an all-rounder i think uh 25 millimeters or an inch for those that use imperial measurements and width-wise something that's around 2.5 millimeters wide so that's going to be good for anywhere from if it's tapered from you know three millimeter to 3.85 in in iron size that's going to be around yeah so 25 millimeters by 2.5 millimeters so the next question is tapered versus non-tapered really tapered awl is like that okay so the deeper the old blade goes in the wider the cut that it makes now there's benefits to that because if you're stitching with thicker thread thicker needles and a thicker project you can push it further in and simulate a larger all or you can keep it shallow for small things but it does require a little bit of uh of hand-eye coordination for making sure that you don't push it too far in because then you have one large slit next to a smaller one and it can throw off your stitching so some people put little layers of leather on there to limit how far it can go in okay so you can get a hole punch a small one just punch push it on punch another one push that on and you can then limit how deep you can go so that's another way of getting around that uh straight sided alt has no taper so it's a sharp front and it's like a straight sword okay that one is not depth sensitive you can push it all the way in or shallow and it makes the same cut it's really up to you which one you choose i reckon that non-tapered is a little bit more uh specialist to a particular pricking iron size but a good all-rounder is a tapered one where you can actually simulate a larger or so you don't need as many alls so that is my recommendation try out the half size if you can always see if you can try something out to see if you like it first and then compare it to another ore and see what works for you but avoid getting an all blade that's too long because that can be cumbersome and you can accidentally scratch your work very easily and uh avoid getting anything that's too small i've seen some like eight millimeters that's a very small specialist work you wouldn't want to try and make a bag with that so

okay just gonna go through just in case i've missed any questions i think there was one from earlier what's your favorite knife for cutting leather there's a lot that i use in various different circumstances but the the knife that i probably use the most is this the italian trincetto knife okay i learned the other day that trincetto in italian means knife so i've been calling it the knife knife it's the trincetto knife but this is it so it's made in italy it's just made from a steel steel tube brass tube this is nickel plated so your hands don't smell and uh inside i've put a little blade i've made it myself from a hacksaw blade but you can use nine millimeter snap-offs like that on the inside of this with no problem and it does come with the blade that you need to sharpen yourself very basic design a lot of the italian pattern makers and shoemakers use it i tried it i think it was about 10 euros or even less and absolutely loved it i love its precision it's got a very flat part to it there and when you put it in your hand you can always make sure that you're upright all the time rather than something that's cylindrical and it could turn in your fingers and you won't notice it and then you've got an edge like that another one that i really like is the the stanley 10-095 so that's the stanley 10-095 i've actually taken out the little slider in there because i don't think it's needed but all you have to do is undo the back end and you can pull out your nine millimeter snap off blades put it back into the depth that you want and then tighten it up you can even take it out and put your blade in there and snap the end off absolutely no problems uh it's a really good one if you like the um the snap off feels great in the hand as well a little bit more thickness on the top so a little bit more down pressure if you need it but it's they're very very cheap and very very effective if you're on the market for one that's a good one uh is there another one as there's an empty cutter that i like as well nt cutter another good brand anti-cutter alpha

i have a a schumer english george barnsley shoe makers i'll get it if i'm talking about it i might as well show you one second so as a clicker knife

with a little hook build blade on the front again i made this from a hacksaw blade this is really really good for thick leather and if you need to cut a very tight curve in something then that little hook blade really makes a difference this is held differently it's not held like a regular blade which is more like a pencil like that so you can index your fingers against the uh the cutting surface this is held in the hand like so and you use your index finger just to identify that it's upright because there's a straight section and then you can cut like so so this is really good for thick heavy heavy hides tight curves and it serves a purpose so i like to have a few different ones on hand snap offs with a 30 degree angle are really great for cutting out patterns as well and thin skins because it's about 0.4 millimeters thick which is very very thin hello from the usa purchased your course courses recently and they are very well made thank you man oh thank you very much i really appreciate that thanks for saying that it's always good uh sorry phil the video was a bit jittery when you spoke about chrome tan skiving uh how would you keep down pressure on okay apologies for that yeah the internet's a little bit weird okay so um obviously on a pairing stand but we'll pretend that this is a pairing stone down pressure is you're using your fingers like so and as you're let's not use my hands i think this is a little bit low for the camera as you're pushing down you're really using your fingers there and you're using your ring finger and your pinky and the side of your thumb to hold the underneath so you're really really pushing down with the pressure here as you're skiving along okay so you don't want to hold it like that too much you really want to kind of choke up on the blade and get nice and close so you can pressurize that leather as you're skiving forwards so that's why i would suggest on that one and you might need to have your hand off the edge of the pairing stone so that you can do that i use a surgical blades yeah i mean i do have a swan morton surgical knife i very rarely use it it's usually for really specialist stuff i probably couldn't even tell you what i'd use it on probably just removing some thickness in a very small area for something like that but it really does allow you to do some fine detailed work so yeah the surgical knives are great the only thing is they don't you know then they're really not designed for going through leather which is mildly abrasive onto a cutting surface which holds a lot of grit which is probably the main reason why your knives wear down as fast as they do scissors what scissors do you use uh vintage scissors i'll show you

so i have a bit of a bit of a collection i've restored a lot of them so these are taylor shears so i use this uh for lots of different things a lot of time i use this for material so if i'm cutting like for the interior of a bag i'm cutting canvas cotton canvas this is really really good for going through long lengths because a lot of the time you buy in like meter lengths and you can make some really quick accurate cuts with this for patterns i have this one this is a dressmaker's scissors that's about 13 inches i think this is 12 yeah 12. and uh yeah so this one's been restored that one's from 1920 i think this is from 1910 wilkinson and co was heavily rusted when i got it but the great thing about the old shears is they've got lined blades so they've got a harder piece of steel on the inside and then softer on the outside for strength otherwise it'll be too brittle but the modern ones don't have that even though they make them very similar so the old ones are definitely the best i've had to replace the bolt on this one i use brass but yeah and i've got knife edge shears for leather as well i've got a whole selection up on the wall there and yeah i collect scissors as much as i collect hammers as well there's loads of different hammers that i have so i do like a tool or two okay so yeah i think my connection is dropping on instagram apologies guys if you've been watching this and it's not been great i appreciate you sticking around for it however so i'm going to cut the live short now and just say thank you very much for joining me uh it's been an absolute pleasure having you here asking me questions and joining in the conversation is always good when you guys get into the conversation as well just makes it a lot more fun as well so a little bit more enjoyable so i hope some of your questions uh have been answered in this month's q a don't forget there's still the offer of the free tool buyers guide and leather selection video if you go to leathercraftmasterclass.com link in buyer for instagram don't forget to go there and grab that as well and in the meantime don't forget for a lot of you who have purchased the courses i've just come out with the jewelry case course which i'll show you here okay i've got some rings in there just to demonstrate what it kind of looks like so that's the latest course release and this one is really teaching you some new skills a lot of them i've been waiting a long time to teach as well um from the days where i used to restore vintage leather goods one of my favorite things was to restore was uh vintage jewellery cases i don't know why i just find them so fascinating with their little ring cushions and partitions and drawers and all little fancy stuff that you just don't see anymore so this has been a really fun course and i hope a lot of you really enjoy it and get some techniques that you can use in other areas of your leather craft as well so thank you for joining me and i will see you again very very soon thanks for watching guys

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Show Notes: In today's live we're going to be talking edge pain how to test for quality how to test for longevity how do you stitch angles in thin or soft vegetable tanned leathers how do you manage your workflow as a leather crafter and many other questions associated with leathercraft that have been sent in via instagram dm now if you're not following me on instagram leathercraftmasterclass and then you can get your questions in every month so i can answer them here live for you on the q a sessions hi my name is philip and welcome to the leathercraft masterclass q a now as usual i'm going to be going live on instagram to take some live questions as well but obviously this is pre-recorded on youtube now if you do have any comments or anything you have to say about some of the answers that i'm giving any further questions or if you want a question for the next q a don't forget to pop it down in the comments below and if you enjoy this video don't forget to give me a thumbs up okay so let's go live on instagram you are now live excellent excellent okay so i'm gonna go straight into it and uh the first question today is uh how to check a new edge paint for quality and durability how do you test the new edge paint for quality and durability interesting question really because there's quite a few edge paints on the market now and quite a few that are very very popular but uh which one is right for you so there's quite a few tests that you can do that i recommend first and foremost how easy is is it to apply so even if it's durable and everything else if it's terrible to apply and when you come to you do your edge paint it's either too thick or too thin for how you apply it or the kind of leather that you're putting it on then you're never going to get the results that you want from your edge paint because it's just not it's just not behaving itself on the edge like you want it to if it's reasonably easy to apply uh if it's reasonably good at self levelling without dripping too much because there's always that compromise self levelling is always good because it kind of flattens itself out but that's usually thinner viscosity edge paints that can tend to drip so it's always kind of a toss-up between smooth application and something that's can be quite drippy especially if you have a curved object very difficult to apply unless you use lots and lots of very thin layers so how easy is it to apply the next thing is how long does it take to dry and does it dry nice and straight does it dry nice and flat do you have any issues with ridges down the centre which a lot of people think is it absorbing in the centre it's not it's along the edges of the dome where it's thinnest it dries faster and it pulls away towards the edge causing a valley down the centre that's just something that dries a little bit too quickly it's not bad quality that some people might think it is it's usually when you're in an atmosphere that's very dry air conditioned for example or high heat the middle of summer you can get that or edges that are very very thick very very wide we're talking five millimetres or more very easy to get ridge down the centre so slow down the drying process and also thinner layers and lots of sanding in between but going back to testing you can also test how well does it hold up to twisting so what i like to do is get a strip of leather and then edge paint on both sides and then let it dry and then i like to twist it and twist it and twist and torture test it usually with a set of pliers just to see if that twisting and stretching will actually start to crack or delaminate the edge paint and sometimes it does and sometimes it doesn't sometimes it holds up very very well giardini is quite tough in that regard uh i think that was the best i tested on that test the poorest was fiebing's edge coat which is not really an edge paint it's more of an edge stain it's designed to kind of be put on once and that's it it's not several layers a lot of people try and use it as an edge paint and it's not very good in that regard but yeah so torture testing it by twisting another one is is delaminating can you actually pick it with your fingernail if you cut it down the centre so you've done a cross-section of your edge paint can you peel that end off with your fingernail if you can that's not good the second test is if you give it a little bit of a slice with a sharp knife to separate the edge paint from the leather can you then gather it and pull it off without the edge paint breaking if the edge paint breaks that's good if it kind of carries on and peels off that's not great but if you're going to do that test again make sure you do it on different leathers as well it might just be you've chosen a very waxy or oily leather and it delaminates quite readily that just might mean that it needs roughing on the edge or a primer for example so do test torture test and also test on different leathers that's very important as well all right a couple comments here uh hello again from northern minnesota hello i think you're on the last live weren't you i'm assuming there's only one person in minnesota

and your sushko handbag says hey i hope you're doing well good to see you around again uh anya and congratulations on the little one i don't think i've had a chance to uh to say that good to see you cool okay so that's edge paint uh the next question any insights on how to consid keep a consistent workflow motivation and inspiration so this is uh i i'm going to assume i didn't check who this was but i'm going to assume that you either have a full-time or part-time leather goods business one one thing that i've found that helps me kind of organize my day helps me manage workflow and keeps things working and flowing throughout the day is organizing good habits to start your day with so sometimes you can have if you're working in leather goes business you can have lots of orders you've got emails to get through you've got customers contacting you and you could have supplies that you need to get in contact with you might have your finances or taxes to deal with there's lots of different things um as leather crafters or people in the leathercraft industry who own a business and run a business you kind of have to wear many many hats social media being one of them video being another one it's you know it's virtually endless especially if you have a podcast as well if you have an internet forum a blog a website that you have to upkeep the list is endless so sometimes it could be very daunting sometimes it could be very overwhelming and it's easy to kind of cherry pick what you want to do that day and do the things that you want to do and avoid the things that you don't want to do so i find starting out with good habits you know what time of day are you checking emails what time of day are you checking dms what time of day are you posting on instagram or what time of day are you actually sitting down and doing the work that you want to be doing in your craft what time of day are you making the phone calls so there's all sorts of things that you can try and organize to make sure that your day starts off correctly and that you're working through it without any issues because it's very easy to get overwhelmed and you know you get brain fog and then it becomes overwhelming and that's that's not a good place to be so creating good habits and starting is so starting with the basics is what i recommend starting with a good morning routine you know what time of day do you wake up what's the first thing you do when you when you wake up and starting with a routine that you can then allow to become a habit over time uh recently last few weeks i've been waking up a little bit earlier well a lot earlier in the morning and what i do is i get my phone and i put it next to the coffee machine and next to the coffee machine is my cups with my pods and the coffee machine is filled with water so literally when the alarm goes off i have to go downstairs to the coffee machine to turn it off and while i'm there i just press the thing and the coffee starts coming out and then i can have that and then i can go and have a shower get changed go straight to the gym come back have another shower if necessary always necessary uh have a shake and then i kind of start my day and then i start with emails or getting back to customers doing my dms and then i have a monthly schedule so i know what i'm doing so if you start with the basics of what you're doing in the morning what time you stop to have something to eat what time you finish at the end of the day because it's very easy just to go over and then it's 10 o'clock at night and you you're still not done so try and structure your day as much as possible to give yourself the best chance and the last thing you talked about was motivation and inspiration i would definitely recommend as i do every month something that i do is i set aside an entire day where i take my laptop i take my phone i take a notepad and pen and i just go to a coffee shop and it might be a different coffee shop every single time it might be one that i'm familiar with but new locations often kind of give you a little bit more inspiration because it's you're in a different environment if you know what i mean you're not kind of doing the same thing all the time and what i do is i just sit there and i come up with new ideas usually it's about what the next course is going to be how i'm going to structure it how what techniques i really want to teach what have i done already what do i need to do can be ideas for social media posts blog ideas is another good one and i sit there for several hours usually get through quite a bit of coffee and uh and just come up with these ideas and i might just go through instagram or pinterest or scroll through google images and just kind of see what's out there and start designing something gaining inspiration but if you can set aside an entire day to sit down and go right i'm looking for new ideas i'm looking to get inspired by new designs new concepts try different leather that i haven't tried before try a new technique that i haven't tried before experiment with something and there's nothing else to distract you that day you're not doing your usual things this is a sacred day that you use to kind of propel you your business your mindset forward uh a little bit further than it was last time all right so how do you slick edges so next question third question how do you slick edges on a project that is non-vegetable tanned leather okay so how do you slick an edge that is not vegetable tanned leather so i'm going to assume uh when you say non-vegetable tanned leather you're probably not talking about alum alum toured leather and kind of brain tanned leather you're probably talking about chrome town leather how do you slick an edge um and when you say slick i'm going to assume that you mean burnish so i'll read that question as how do you burnish crime tan leather the general consensus is that you can't mainly because it's not firm enough it doesn't react with water the same way it's much more water resistant than vegetable tanned leather and add to that it's it's too soft it doesn't hold itself to to be burnished so how do you normally tackle chrome tan leather well first of all an easy one is going to be edge paint so easy a common one is going to be edge paint another one is going to be a turned edge okay alternatively you can leave it raw but chrome tanned leather with raw edges doesn't really age very well so turned edge where you skive the end you thin the edge of the leather and you fold it over itself and usually stitched it to another piece that's folded too that's probably the most elegant way of dealing with it but edge paint is going to be another one there is a way that i sometimes a method that i sometimes use to give chrome 10 leather a burnished look uh and that is to stiffen the edge first so you can use something like uh hold on one second you can use

acrylic resolene red line okay acrylic resolene by fiebings but it's just like a you know like an acrylic paint uh varnish that you uh water-based varnish that you put on wood it's a bit like that but watered down and what i like to do is get a sponge quite well saturated and go along the edge of the chrome tan leather and what that will do is it will soak into it doesn't sit on top it's not like edge paint it's not thick it soaks in and you might need to do that a couple times to get the right effect but what that will do is it will start stiffening up the edge enough so that you can sand it okay and then after sanding if it's still okay you can sand it with a finer grit and a finer grit and finer grit you might need to add a little bit more resaline along the way but it doesn't take long to dry at all and then once you get to a nice smooth edge you can then use a top coat a gloss top coat like uh giadini's top coat is a good one i think uniters make one or alternatively if it's a really fine grit that you've finished it on what you can do is start polishing it with wax okay so you can use a carnuaba wax you can use columbus wax or something like that but essentially you have to stiffen up that edge first you can't burnish it uh some combination tanned leathers uh you can burnish with things like token oil i'm talking re-tanned leather so a combination of chrome tan leathers and vegetable tan double tanned you can so latigo leather things like that it's it has a little bit of stiffness it's not as water resistant as pure chrome and with the right edge compound like tocanol you can give a reasonable burnish to it but it's not going to be as good as pure veg so that's that's one method that you can use but a more elegant method is going to be a turned edge or alternatively uh edge paint uh next question edge paint storage edge paint storage uh temperature longevity etc so temperature longevity etc i would always recommend if you're in high production maybe it's you or a team of people in your workshop or boutique um and you're getting through quite a few products then buying edge paint in liter bottles can make sense if you make one to two projects a month and some of them might be burnished or turned edge so you're not actually getting through edge paint that much you might have several liters of different colors on your shelf for a very very long time some might be a little bit more used than others there is a shelf life sometimes it will be listed on the side of the bottle um but once you've opened it i don't like to keep mine for more than six months before kind of throwing it out some giardini lasts about a year i have some bottles that looks pretty good and they're almost two years old of united's edge paint but it doesn't really get that cold in here so i wouldn't use them unless it was on a prototype but ideally you want to you want to kind of be getting through your edge paint in about six months and if if you still got it at that point i would probably let it go another tip i'll give you is to use smaller bottles of edge paint so if you can buy them in say 250 ml or if you're really not using edge paint very often 100 mil there's a lot of places now smaller shops that will actually sell you that quantity it may not be as as economical as buying you know a large liter bottle but if you have smaller ones it's every time you open it it's a fresh batch okay it's going to last longer if you're not opening it frequently so you might have something that will last well over a year if you haven't opened it on your shelf but if you're constantly opening and dipping it in and there's bacteria getting in there's all sorts of you know bacteria and fungus and yeasts in the atmosphere gonna get inside and want to erode it so that is buying smaller bottles is something that i'd recommend it's what i do um before when i you know produce leather goods for a business and it's what i did for a living i'd buy larger bottles now i buy 250 250 ml bottles and uh i just you know it's only a small quantity if i haven't used it for a while i'll throw it away um so it's it's not a problem uh another thing to consider as well and i get asked this quite often is about edge paint and freezing edge paint if it's been frozen at any point it's it's garbage it's rubbish it's to be thrown away so if you're ordering from a cold country or you're ordering from a country and you live in a cold country and it's the middle of winter that's not the best time to be purchasing edge paint because if you're i know in australia and you're ordering from norway and it's the middle of winter it might be fine when it gets picked up by the delivery company and then when it goes to the warehouse is the warehouse being heated is it heated in the van along the way when it's minus 10 degrees because if it gets frozen at any point uh it's it's degraded it's it's perished it's no good now the person who asked me this question is an airline pilot so he'd probably know more than i would about this but i'm not sure what temperatures the cargo hold and the plane reaches whether it's actually heated in there or um it can go below zero so that's something to think about as well when it goes on the plane but especially ordering edge paint in the in winter the same can go for glue as well by the way a lot of glues will not deal with uh being frozen and thawed out okay it's not like a chocolate cake

all right next question uh so this is i guess this is a personal one not a personal question but a question aim more towards me personally uh what leather craft are you most proud of and what do you think is the hardest project uh to do what's the hardest thing to do in leathercraft so two questions there um what work am i most proud of i i thought about this question earlier and

i have a bit of a bad trait i'm not always that proud of myself very much i constantly get reminded if i reach a milestone or do well on something uh to take a second to en enjoy achieving something um of note uh in business personal anything like that um i really i really do struggle to try and because every time i do good work or i do something really well or there's a course that i put out and it's a huge success i kind of i don't feel proud necessarily i feel like yes that's what's supposed to happen but if it goes wrong then it's battle stations you know so maybe it's not it's difficult to find what i've done that i'm proud of but one thing that is a sure-fire way to feel a sense of pride is when i see students who have created something from the courses especially if it's the first uh i remember uh the first person to create the de havilland travel bag which i think is mike's leather uh the student success post on instagram with him he created it um apologies mike if if i'm wrong i think you're from russia but i remember you were on holiday at the time i think it was thailand and you had a photo shoot done with a bag i remember you sending me through those pictures and it was the first to have lund to come out after the course and of course it takes a few weeks people have to watch the course organize the supplies if they don't have them already and then obviously make the bag but i remember seeing it for the first time and it was a big project right it's not the most technical but it's a very large project i thought are people going to take this are they going to do it are they going to like it is it something people are going to want to make and uh i just remember seeing the first one it was it was quite emotional um more so than many of the other courses for me to see it and i was like man i'm so happy to see that it just really gave me a sense of pride that perhaps is lacking in myself but when i've done a good enough job where somebody can make it on the other side of the world and understand my techniques and not even send me an email asking for clarification on anything but there it is just like that's that i taught that and someone has made it and then it just snowballed after that and so many people i think the only project that has been created more is the turenne luxury handbag but that was a kind of a milestone of like yeah people do like the bigger courses if they're a little bit more technical or challenging there are a lot of people that really love that and i guess that uh that makes me the most proud is when i see students creating and it can be small projects as well it's not the big ones especially people who are brand new to the craft they've just kind of learned how to stitching and you know stitch and then suddenly they make a card wallet that i've put out in one of the courses it's just so encouraging to see people kind of levelling up and building up their skills and and pushing themselves and yeah it gives me a great sense of pride next part the question is uh just checking here what brand of edge paint do you use i use uniter's ep 2000 which is a kind of a satin finish it's not polished it's not matte it's kind of somewhere in between what do you think is the hardest to do so what's the project that i think is the hardest the hardest thing i've ever done oh courses wise i think there's a few challenging products best spoke products probably the most but courses wise something that you guys have known or seen probably the hardest technically is the bloomsbury attache case uh that was that was hard nuts i mean the project is challenging yes but it's teaching it in a way that by the end of the course no one's got any questions uh teaching in a way that by end of the course no one's gonna mess up it was a really difficult one you have to think several chess moves ahead all the time are they going to understand that are they going to remember to do this you know emphasize this point several times to make sure that they understand that they have to allow a margin for the thickness of the lining otherwise the case is not going to close the locks are not going to close the hinge is going to be out of alignment and all sorts of things so that was probably technically the most challenging to teach that was a long time in the making i'd been thinking about that and planning that for about two years so to give people an idea of how long a course takes to create is not one month the prep there's several overlapped with the prep work that goes into to teaching something like that or the the blackwell mini doctors bag that was another another one that took a long time to prepare months and months and getting better at the moment but uh that one was about seven or eight months to prep that course to teach it in a way that people could do it and two people have done that so far that i think that's probably the hardest one for students to do because it involves creating your own metal frame around a form and i provide patterns for the wooden former um yeah so that was uh those those two are probably the most challenging to teach and probably to make as well but a few people have made them now and it's uh encouraging to see okay so final question last one uh do you have any tips on how to keep a decorative angle in thin leather a good question this has been the the bane of many stitch artists over the years of how to keep a decorative angle so when the stitches are kind of zigzagged across they come down at an angle like that i'm sure you understand what i'm saying in hand stitching it's often time oftentimes very difficult to achieve a very steep angle which is indicative of hand stitching so that you can see yes this was hand stitched versus something that was a machine stitch which looks a lot straighter so we always aim for those little high angles because it kind of shows that it's something that's been done by hand and something to be proud of so how do you get that in thin leathers so if you understand the principles behind stitching of how stitching works in leather is if you if you say you take a piece of thread okay i take a length of thread and you mash it up and put it on the table it's all in a twisted mess you grab one end of the thread you grab the other end of the thread and you pull it apart under tension okay what's it going to do as long as there's no knots it's going to straighten out it's going to form a straight line the shortest distance between two points is a straight line so naturally when you're stitching in a project the leather the way it's angled because our pricking irons and our awls are keeping an angle in the leather the hole that we're making is diagonal the leather is telling it to go at an angle so if you're pulling really really tight the thread is saying the more tension you give to me the straighter i want to be the shortest distance between two points is a straight line so on thick leather and firm leather like vegetable tanned leather say for example a bridal leather belt four millimeters thick turn over maybe two two and a half millimeters thick and you're stitching that in you've got six six and a half millimeters of firm vegetable tan leather that leather is the boss at that point okay the thread is not going to dictate where it lies it is gonna do as it's told and stay at nice angles but if you go through thin leather maybe two half millimeter pieces of uh goat skin put together and you're trying to stitch that it's very soft and very thin and it's not going to dictate to the thread where to sit the thread is going to want to straighten out and that's what this individual is trying to avoid so how can we uh get around that well you can either choose a firmer leather or a thicker leather and if that's not an option for you you can reduce the spi okay so the easiest thing to do is reduce the stitches per inch so if you're noticing on a certain thickness and a certain firmness that you're losing that angle and the stitches are going straight reduce the stitches per inch so that might mean if a 3.38 millimeter iron seven spi is not working for you reduce it down to a three millimeter stitch spacing or nine spi and see how that works and if it's still not getting the results reduce it down a little bit more another thing that you can do is reduce the amount of tension that you're giving it as well okay remember especially on a smaller stitch spacing you don't need as much tension or as thick a thread as if you're having a larger stitch space spacing higher spi so that's something else to uh to think about as well now if you're laminating two pieces of leather together what can you put in between if you if it's not necessarily going to thicken it out too much what can you put in between that's going to stiffen it okay to allow it to dictate what the thread should be doing you can add very thin reinforcement so that could be a thin bonded leather 0.25 millimeters a very thin piece of vegetable tan leather or a simple way of thickening or thickening a simple way of stiffening two pieces of leather glued together is to use pva glue instead of say contact adhesive which doesn't add much stiffness at all pva soaks into the leather and hardens and gives a very mild fiberglass effect if you know what i mean so when you use pva you generally end up with something that's stiffer compared to something that you would use say solvent-based contact adhesive or especially water-based contact adhesive solvent-free so that's something else to be aware of i appreciate your video explaining how to hand sew canvas uh you're welcome to be completely truthful i can't remember doing that maybe i have at some point i've made a lot of videos i was like uh have i i must have at some point maybe it was stitching canvas to leather damn okay too many videos there okay so i hope that has uh answered some of the questions guys now uh don't forget right now and i'm not going to be doing it for that much longer okay i'm going to be coming out with a different offer but right now there is a guide on leathercraftmasterclass.com which is a 20-page article on how to choose tools there's also a leather guide on how to choose the right leather for you and your work so don't forget to go there leathercraftmasterclass.com which will be linked below on you guys for you guys on youtube and get your free guides i'm going to be changing that up soon so i'm not sure what i'm going to do with the guides at the moment but uh who knows so make sure you get yours so thank you for joining me and if you enjoyed this video don't forget to give me a thumbs up below to let me know if you have any questions again about anything that i've talked about or if you have some questions that you want for the next q a don't forget to put them below in the comments section and of course join me on instagram leathercraftmasterclass where you can put your questions in on the stories when i start asking for monthly questions and that way you can double your chances of getting your questions answered but thank you for joining me and i will see you in the next Q&A cheers guys

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Show Notes: it loses that it loses something there's a little bit of magic with some inconsistencies i don't know what it is uh i know it's a very personal thing but i think a lot of us can agree on the leather part at the very least we don't want something that looks the same colour all the way across or has no life to it or has no depth to it is just completely uniform almost robotic and lifeless hello and welcome to the leathercraft masterclass with me Phil and in this q a session I'm going to be going through some questions that have been submitted by you guys on Instagram now if you're not on Instagram and you want to see me go live or you want to join me for a chat at some point then go on there at leathercraftmasterclass and give me a follow and if you do enjoy this video and you gain some value or gain some new knowledge then don't forget to let me know in the comments below and also give me a thumbs up to let me know that you enjoy the video so without further ado let's go live and then start getting through these questions checking the connection you are now live hey guys how you doing people have started joining that's good to see and literally within a split second there's 38 people on here that's crazy hello hello how's it going and i have selected one two three four five six seven eight nine questions an odd number okay so let's go straight into the q and a questions uh and the first question that i've chosen is about pricking irons okay so pricking lines a common uh common tool to get questions about which pricking line what size and all that kind of thing a lot of the craft revolves around it especially if you're in hand stitching of course so re-sharpening a pricking iron so resharpening a European-style pricking iron with a dented tooth now it does happen sometimes people damage the teeth on pricking irons either from being dropped on the floor or perhaps you thought uh you would have a go at you know marking your leather on a pairing stone but you've hit it with a little bit too much gusto and uh and you've you've gone through and you've hit the granite or the marble underneath or whatever you're using and you've chipped a tooth usually if it's very hard steel chip rather than deform or you could have had something underneath your leather there's a million different reasons but it does happen from time to time so how do you deal with that outside of obviously buying a new set of pricing lines or a new pricing line what i have done in the past because you may have noticed if you guys can see i enjoy collecting vintage pricking irons it's kind of a thing of mine and many times they will come in let's just say not the best condition especially if they're near 100 years old so sometimes the teeth need a little bit of repairing and you can do this on brand new pricking irons as well modern ones what it involves is essentially grinding down all the teeth until the mark the dent whatever it is the chip has gone and it's levelled off so you would get say for example a diamond plate and you with the teeth placed down on there as if you're going to prick mark the diamond plate and you would just move it backwards and forwards say 10 times turn all the way around do 10 times again and keep going just to mitigate any bias you have on on each side just keep twisting it moving it backwards and forwards and grinding it down until you've basically got flat spots on all of them but it's a consistent flat spot then what you can do is set it up in a vise like a hobby vise at the right angle and then you can take a file okay a diamond file if it's a very hard steel and then just go backwards and forwards and you're creating a bevel on each side of the tooth okay so you have the tooth instead of going to a point like it used to it's now going to look a little bit more like this okay so it is repairable it's easier on vintage styles pricking irons because the steel is generally softer so you know that's one way of doing it it's a little bit complicated a little bit fiddly most times i would recommend actually getting a new set uh however if it's driving you that that crazy but even if you chip a tooth sometimes just double check that it actually makes a blind bit of difference to your leather work because sometimes it doesn't make any difference whatsoever or instead of prick mark you know pricking through until it hits the surface pricking through until it goes beyond the leather underneath so it kind of protrudes a little bit more so everything has gone through and you've got consistent holes in your leather so that's another way of doing it as well okay so next question moving on to the next question uh i'm going to cross that off to make sure i don't get lost easily happens which size pricking are another one for brickingham's which size pricking lines for watch straps so that's a good question um a lot of it depends on personal taste i don't think there's a particular right or wrong when it comes to selecting a size for watch straps but generally speaking it's going to be less than things like bags clutches large wallets so i tend to pursue 2.7 millimeters or below that's my personal preference can do three millimeters but that's getting a little large and do remember that generally not always generally when the spi of stitches per inch or the stitch spacing goes up your pricking iron gets thicker and thicker prongs because it's usually you're going wider so you can have thicker thread so sometimes if you're creating a very fine watch trap where you've got filler in the center and then there's only a small space between the filler and the crease line you know you haven't got a lot of room so you can't really use a large pricking arm with wide prongs on there without cutting into the filler or indeed the the crease line itself so that's something to be aware of but it also depends on the watch strap that you're using if you've got something that's a little bit more formal um to pair with a watch that's say like a jlc reverso or you know a dress watch is what i'm basically saying then you don't want anything with a large chunky stitch that's going to distract from the aesthetic of the watch itself so you never want the watch strap to be louder than the watch itself ideally if you've got a very conservative watch a finely made watch high horology watch you don't want a very shouty strap that distracts attention because all it's doing is one retaining the watch on your wrist but it's also simply a frame for the watch itself okay but that's personal preference if you have a very loud shouty watch with a lot of complications and colors you can get a little bit more overt with your styling and use bigger bigger stitches something that's a little bit louder perhaps contrast stitches and things like that so uh generally speaking i like a smaller pricking line for watch straps and it's also easier to stitch with a smaller pricking iron because it just takes up less space so that would be my recommendation 2.7 and under but it also depends on your style watches that are large you know like panerai um very masculine style watches tend to have tend to favor something that is you know like a chunkier watch strap no filler larger stitches things like that so it really depends on the style okay so third question so moving away from pricking irons uh how do you set yourself apart in the world of leathercraft how do you set yourself apart in the world of leathercraft interesting question um there tends to be you know if you if you look on social media and you look online sometimes you'll see a lot of people having a very very similar style and it can be quite difficult difficult to differentiate different where's my words going it can be quite difficult to differentiate yourself sometimes especially if you look on etsy for example put in handmade watch strap or handmade card leather card holder or you know handmade wallet or something like that and you'll see a lot of very similar styles but then look at what really stands out to you is is there something that stands out from the pages and pages and pages of of people making something very similar what was it about that that stood out to you was it the color was it the photography was it the the way they advertised it was it the design was it something that you would never have thought of and perhaps make notes on what it is about that particular artisan that stood out to you and maybe learn from that but i would always say identify a strong sense of style or personal design uh an indicator that's different from everybody else what you would like to aim for would be say if you're on instagram and you're scrolling through pictures and you see a picture of someone's work and you go i know exactly who that is i don't need to look at the name i know who that is and it's not the photography style it's not the the color of the leather for example it's not that i saw their name but i know who that is instantly and you all know just like creators designers artisans who you could you just know who they are just by looking at the picture that's something you really want to emulate because when you have a very strong sense of personal style and people can identify you immediately it's going to be very difficult for people to copy your work and you're standing out quite easily for just being yourself so of course when you're starting out in the beginning you're either taking inspiration from other people's designs and you're kind of finding yourself a little bit uh or you're following tutorials like the leathercraft masterclass and you're following exactly how i teach it but eventually you want to start going through a phase of experimentation there's a great book by robert greene called mastery that talks about that of doing things by the book then you go through a phase like your adolescence of experimenting and rebelling a little bit and testing to see what works and what doesn't work and what's true and what's not true and then eventually once you discover that personal style you begin to embody the sense of mastery so i would always say try and get your personal design if you're new to the craft other ways of hacking that are making uh making use of a very of a particular color for example some people make leather goods and they are always green or they are always yellow or there's always a funky combination or there's always like a one red seam somewhere on the design a good example of that would be christian lebouton shoes if you've never heard of christian louboutin shoes most famous for heels but if i say red souls even if you don't know the name you'd probably recognize shoes stilettos being worn and the soles are red underneath now that's not really a real you know sense of finding your style and all that kind of thing it's literally just making them red it stood out they have their own design aesthetic they're very unique they're very feminine designs they're very french designs so they do stand out in there in that way but just by changing the soul to red now they stand out so sometimes it can be just changing something quite obvious about what you do so that you can stand out from the crowd and be different and get noticed which is what you want to do especially if you sell your leather work question number four is what thickness of leather do you need for box making so what thickness of leather do you need for box making so leather box making actually i did a tutorial solid leather box makings essentially where you have stiff thick vegetable tan leather and you create a solid structure box with a lid okay so obviously you can't use soft chrome town leather or thin skins or anything like that except for a lining it needs to be made from very firm leather and it's the firmness that is really the most important part of that not just the thickness it just needs to be thick enough to stitch through as long as it's firm enough that's the most important thing so if you're making a very small box you can get away with um between two and three millimeters depending on how how finely you can stitch but if you're making a larger box you're going to be wanting to move into four or five or beyond and in order to do that you're going to need to laminate layers so gluing layers of leather uh two to three if necessary pretty much like plywood really and that will help to stiffen it so it really depends on the size of the box it depends uh on the firmness of the leather and uh also your spi so you know if you're gonna have a thinner leather um you need a smaller amount of stitches per inch so something that's gonna be much finer as well so yeah solid leather box making is of course on leathercraft masterclass if you're looking to learn how to do that so the next question is uh how important is digital marketing for a leather business how important is digital marketing for a leather business well i think very very important if uh if you're looking to sell online now if you're going to trade shows if you're selling through word of mouth uh if you go to markets to sell on market stalls and things like that then digital marketing if that's you know if you run on if you've got like a two year wait list and all you use is word of mouth if you're in a very lucky situation then digital marketing really isn't going to be that important for you but if you want to run a business an online business through social media through email through your website then of course digital marketing is marketing is extremely important from the photography making use of video making use of the correct platforms where you believe your customers are going to be how to get in touch with your customers how to be in front of them where their attention is going how your business can be there so a lot of people make the mistake of thinking that if you make just really good leather goods and you want to sell online all you have to do is just make really good stuff photograph it nicely and it will sell itself if only it were that simple you obviously your work has to stand out it has to be of a good quality standard to match the price point that you're charging for your customers but you really do have to do your homework on how to learn and improve and master digital marketing and marketing in general really so how important is it very important if you're looking to run an online business so i'm going to scroll down because i did see a question there oh god we're scrolling down quite a bit here all right hi Phil you mentioned a while ago that you'd be reshaping the German round knife at some point any plans of of getting to that soon no

i don't i had an idea of a great video it's just uh i will get around to it at some point uh it's just a really big job

and uh the challenge the real challenge of that is teaching it in a way where a beginner who thinks they're better than they actually are won't cut their fingers off and then blame me so it's really really difficult to uh to come up with a video that i could put out and it would be like a YouTube video uh where someone's not going to copy it and injure themselves so it's got to be idiot proof and that's not saying that people are idiots but it has to be you know so safety forward and i need some more ideas on how to do that because when you put it out into the world if anything bad happens it comes back on you so i would love to get it out but time and difficulty making it safe i know i teach how to use the round knife in a lot of my courses for example uh techniques of the trunk handle there's been so many courses handle making for the long set rolled handle on how to use it in the terrain luxury handbag the ostrich skin handbag i use the round knife and i always teach safety in that but it's within a more controlled environment it's not put out to the entire world it's students who we know are interested in leathercraft who are looking for more advanced techniques so it's a little bit easier on that platform obviously next question what's your thoughts on unstitched or minimally stitched watched wraps okay so another question about watch straps last one was about what prick 9 to use this one is about minimally stitched watch straps I'll try and find an example to show for you guys on on YouTube it's usually minimally stitched watch straps are usually where say for example someone's using shar green or stingray okay very difficult and challenging to stitch at least well um it's usually where the watch strap where the lugs are near where the lugs are there's a stitch going around there and usually a v-stitch at the very bottom the tip of the uh of the watch strap and on the other side there will be something similar in the lugs and the other end near the buckle or deploying clasp so there's no essentially there's no stitching along the sides because it's very difficult to do and it kind of ruins the aesthetic sometimes depending on the type of charging it is what do i think of it it's born out of necessity in in something like shagreen because it's difficult when it comes to regular leather leaving it unstitched and relying solely on the mercy of the glue that you're using it can work if you're using uh a watch brand like younguns uh or another brand like i don't know mundane uh you know something very simple in design something very uh Nordic and aesthetic think deta rams brawn that kind of thing that kind of look it kind of works really really well and i don't look at what straps as you know something like no one ever gets handed down a watchstrap from their great great grandfather you know here's your watchdog from a great grandpa is it's just never gonna happen right it's a consumable item unless they never used it the next generation didn't use it and this generation doesn't use it it's a semi-consumable item uh due to the wear and tear that it goes through wallets very similar uh due to the wear and tear that they go through so it's not an everlasting item it's not like an attaché case that can be over 100 years old and still useful and repairable so is it absolutely necessary to have a stitch not really it adds the aesthetic definitely adds the durability because it can come apart if you're using the wrong glues for example so if you guys have watched techniques of adhesion on the leathercraft masterclass you know all about that but edge paint is definitely something i would probably have on the side as well because at least it covers the seams so they can't get as much wear to start coming apart and it has a little mild effect of holding everything together so i definitely use edge paint if i was not using a stitch along the sides so watch your glue technique and use edge paint as well

okay copperhead soft goods says what lever or thickness do you recommend for nato straps so what leather or thickness do you recommend for nato straps so Instagram live question there first of all you'll need to get your your watch your donor watch and you'll need some uh some callipers there dial callipers and then just measure the distance between the case of the watch and the spring bar okay so that's your that's your absolute maximum and you might have like 1.5 millimetres let's say for argument's sake that's the thickest strip of leather that could fit through there but it also has to bend um and if it's too tight it doesn't want to bend very well and you'll have it bowing at the top so you might want to switch to like 1.2 so it depends on the strap if you've got a little bit more room you can go thicker especially if it's a larger watch a more rugged looking watch a more masculine watch then you can use a thicker leather as far as what type of leather i mean your world your oyster usually i would go for something like a vegetable tan leather maybe re-tanned but more vegetable town leather and you want to cut the strip uh in line up the back ideally of uh of the hide and make sure that there's no stretch in it because if you cut it with ways or from a shoulder for example where the grain is looser the person will put it on at a certain point and within a few days or weeks of wearing it they're having to go up to the next one and the next one until until it eventually settles down that's sometimes why if i'm creating a nato strap out of leather for say a 20 millimetre lug width i'll make it at 21 and then i will stretch it on the table at least overnight so i'm taking some of the stretch out of it and then when it relaxes it hardly relaxes at all and it's taking a new length and makes it more stretch resistant and then you measure it and it's nearer 20 millimetres which is what you need so you make it oversized pre-stretch it you can wet it if you want to do that as well that's another way of doing it so a little technique there what can i use for inner supports to give a specific form in a bag straps in bag straps what can i use for inner supports not 100 i understand the question before i go down that route unfortunately what's the best technique for creasing a turned edge is the next question so this was submitted on Instagram stories the best technique for creasing a turned edge i think they were also specifically talking about a screw crease or adjustable creaser but it's the same for both typically you don't okay typically you don't crease a folded edge so a turned edge or folded edge for those who don't know instead of having two pieces of leather put together and then you stitch it along the top on a cut edge which you can burnish or edge paint a turned edge is where you thin the edge on one side and you can fold it over and then stitch across that fold to hold it in place so the leather the grain never ends okay so the the edge is the grain as well so a turned edge my favourite technique for edges typically you don't because it's a crease is more associated with a cut edge and if you want to differentiate your turned edge which requires more technique and skill to do you don't want to make it look like a cut edge because originally in saddlery it was designed for practical reasons as well as decoration where you'd use that line and the compression of the crease to compress the leather reduces the amount of moisture absorbed from the side from the from the edge but it also helps prevent fraying as it were and the leather becoming more fibrous through wear so you can press it down especially with wax finishing on the edge and it gives a more durable edge but when it comes to turned edge you typically don't do that i have done in the past i think i've done that in the course probably at some point but generally i don't but if i do a crease line on a turned edge i don't do it between the thread and the turned edge i do it on the opposite side of the thread so it really frames the stitches well but it allows the turned edge to still say hey guys i'm a turned edge ain't no cut edge so it's a little bit more of a flex in that sense because it's not easy to do a turned edge requires more skill so don't make it look like something that requires less skill but that's personal preference so historically it wasn't such a thing to crease a turned edge but if you do here's a tip keep your eye on the guide because when it's rounded much like if you've edge beveled leather and then gone to crease it it's you know a 90 degree cut edge is the easiest one to crease when it's rounded it's very easy for that guy to actually start coming onto the leather and then you've marked it and there's not much you can do after that so uh if you do like the aesthetic of it and you want to do that that's absolutely fine but just be aware of that that guide on the side accidentally coming on especially with the hot creases very little that you are going to do about that

okay so one of my favourites one of my favourites um that I'm going to answer here i really love this question is there space for inconsistencies and imperfections in fine leather handcrafting okay so when we do our craft in fine leather craft we are trying to elevate our skills and create something truly beautiful that showcases craftsmanship history heritage and and luxury okay so within that realm is there space for inconsistency and imperfection yes and no okay so let me explain a little bit by what i mean when it comes to materials that we use okay so if you if you think of the most common materials that we use such as leather and thread uh most often or not you will choose or we as crafters love working with leather where you can see a little bit of variation where you can see a little bit of inconsistency where you can see where the leather is maybe there's growth rings on the leather for the shoulder on a hide for example or you can see that the leather is dyed in some places a little bit darker and a little bit lighter and there's some variation there and then some depth mother nature gives us these inconsistencies and we kind of applaud her for it we we celebrate the inconsistencies of leather much like you know this table that i'm working on is made of mdf okay uh it's practically all wood it's made of wood fibers pressed compressed together under pressure with resins and adhesives to create something that's that's quite durable and useful it looks like wood it's got the same color as wood it's like a dark brownish but it's not beautiful is it but if you look at the wood behind me on this beam here's 300 years old okay it's got inconsistencies it's got cracks in there there's knots from where there was branches uh there's all sorts of imperfections going along it's as wood goes if i went to a lumber yard to pick up a piece and i saw that i'd laugh but when people come in and they look at all the woodwork in here that's 300 years old and they go oh my god look at that the natural grain is all this traditional you know if i painted over that I'd probably be arrested actually but if i painted over that it wouldn't be as beautiful because we like the inconsistencies so when it comes to things like uh thread even like there are more consistent threads than finishing one which is what I use a French linen thread it's very old traditional machines that they use 200 years old some of them made in France I actually don't mind a little bit of variation a little bit mind you but you know because sometimes when you use a really consistent thread especially synthetic threads it loses that it loses something there's a little bit of magic with some inconsistencies I don't know what it is uh I know it's a very personal thing but I think a lot of us can agree on the leather part at the very least we don't want something that looks the same colour all the way across or has no life to it or has no depth to it is just completely uniform almost robotic and lifeless so when it comes to materials yes there is place for inconsistencies and imperfections it's not like I'm you know I still avoid marks in the leather and you know where the animal was scratched or something or a bite mark I still go around those ones I still choose the nice parts but I celebrate the inconsistencies so that we've got that beautiful richness of something that's truly natural when it comes to the personal side of the craft and the question was asked about me do I think there's space for inconsistencies in my work and imperfections in my work I always strive for perfection with the absolute knowledge that I will never retain it because I am from nature I am imperfect which means I cannot possibly create absolute perfection it's not possible for me but it's the pursuit of it of constantly getting better and better and better and better and always looking for little tiny things I could have done better or could have changed or adapted or done something different to improve upon next time that's something I'm always striving for and that really comes down to standards because if somebody has you know average standards they'll create average work and go that's good enough that's perfect for me I'm happy with that and if people are happy with that that's fine then you might have someone who has a slightly higher standard and they hold themselves to a higher degree of work and then you might have someone who's an absolute master of the craft in your in your estimation and that person may have no reachable standard whatsoever in fact every year upon year upon year they're constantly improving constantly getting better because they are always able to find these little inconsistencies and little imperfections and go ha I wonder how i could get around that I wonder how I could have improved that and done something a little bit different and that's what kind of like if you can enjoy that if you can kind of hold on to that and understand that it's part of the process and it's the journey towards perfection that is perfection you know so that's the way i look at it and I enjoy looking at things objectively and going if i can still see a problem there I can still find a solution and it's those little solutions and adaptations that I can then employ next time that gives me true joy so that's the way I look at it so is there space for inconsistencies and imperfections yes in the materials we use but no not in the mindset but no one's perfect but it's the pursuit of perfection which I really enjoy okay so that's my favourite question this one's a fun one how hard would it be for you to make a lady Dior handbag so how hard would it be to make a lady do your handbag the lady Dior handbag is a famous design iconic design I believe it was probably made most famous by when the f I think was the first lady of France gifted one to lady lady Diana I think it was called something different before but it's now the lady Dior uh how difficult would it be difficulty wise I don't think it would be overly difficult but it will be time consuming more than anything because if you think about the amount of stitching that goes into the quilting and it's not just like diamond stitching like you see with chanel it's uh stitching that's supposedly trying to emulate like a wicket the back of a wicker chair if you look closely you'll probably recognize the design like those straw chairs as wicked chairs and it's that a volume of quilting going on if you were to try and hand stitch that at the very least it would take a long time not to mention the amount of turned edges on there so i don't believe there's any raw edges on the bag itself and it's made around a wooden form so the amount of time that would be consumed trying to make it i mean you'd end up putting 120 hours in it after prototyping after creating forms after testing and after all that stitching and you'd still end up with a fake lady to your back if that's if that's something you don't mind then go for it but um yeah it'd be it'll be quite challenging at the very least okay so um a couple questions here mason mason anderson says uh

a refer cable thread versus flat braided which poly cable thread do you think is the best

which is the best be there I mean a lot the top brands they're all kind of very similar um I know there's some by my side uh that I've tried they're about the same as Wuta Leather I fractionally and it's probably just all in my head artisan soul don't know why it's not particularly expensive but I've never had uh any problems with it uh I know on my side I know on uh water leather in stitching I do get sometimes when one of the little threads breaks you get this twisting and unravelling going along and you have to change your thread I've never had that with artisan sole

but i don't really use uh polyester that often it really is a if it's a necessity for example uh if I'm making something that's going to see high wear or something for the outdoors then I will possibly switch to polyester thread but it's not my preferred with regards I think your question might also be asking cabled versus flat braided I don't use flat braided thread like tiger thread don't really use that in my work I don't like the aesthetic of it but if I was making something for myself that required extreme toughness then I'd at least consider it uh Jeremy says when lining leather in a folded position how do you accurately trim to final size uh well what i would do is I would I would get the lining leather and make it oversized okay or at least longer or sometimes shorter depending on which way you're bending it um but just oversize and then you can bend and glue in the right position and then you trim up afterwards it might be a little awkward to trim it especially if it's in a very curved position so you might need to find something like a wooden form that's curved and then you can cut it over it so that's one way of doing that all right uh so that was the last question guys don't forget right now leathercraftmasterclass.com you can get a free tool guide and a free leather guide so make sure you get onto the link below if you're on Instagram it's going to be the link in bio so all you have to do is put your email in and you'll get an instant link to a toolbar's guide 20 page article which is going to give you all the information you need to know which tools to buy which tools probably a waste of money depending on what point in your craft you're at and of course the leather selection video which has helped so many people identify good quality leather from poor quality leather which is one of the essential skills in embarking on your journey in leathercraft especially finder the craft when you know what good quality is you can identify it and you know what tests to do on samples then you know exactly what you need to buy before even spending a dime so that is the idea behind it so it's a time saver and a money saver as well alright guys thank you for joining me on Instagram uh if you do have any questions don't forget to comment below on YouTube or shoot me a dm on Instagram that's another way to contact me if you want to have a conversation or you have questions about leathercraft or you're interested in the courses and you want to know more information but until next time I'll see you in the next video thanks for watching guys.

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Show Notes: Tool buying is an addiction with no known cure uh it never ends and you will never have enough tools like i'll be buying tools to the day i die i'll be on my death bed just having a look online seeing what else there is us an interesting skivving knife i've never seen that shape put that in my cart it's a it's a disease definitely

hello and welcome to the leathercraft master class with me phil and in this episode of q a we're going to be taking some live questions as well as some pre-prepared questions which i've obtained from instagram stories now if you're not following me on instagram you're missing some great content and the ability to ask some of these questions so if you have burning questions about leathercraft that you want answering make sure you're following me @leathercraftmasterclass on instagram so that you can get those in every single month now this is on premiere so we should have a live chat next to us so if you're watching this um you can talk to another version of me in real time uh you know hi phil hopefully it's that side of the screen uh and so you can ask me questions there so this is obviously pre-recorded uh the day before but you can talk to me live while i'm chatting behind my keyboard in the side there so without further ado we're going to go live on instagram now in this q a session i'm going to tell you a little bit about some of the questions coming up uh in no particular order we're going to be talking about sharpening english point punches uh how to charge the appropriate amount for your work what kind of glue to use water-based versus solvent-based and contact adhesives sewing machines if uh if you're looking to join the leathercraft masterclass what kind of tools would you need beforehand what a bell skiving machine is good for how do you handle mistakes what some of the mistakes you see other craftsmen making how to get the most out of your time if you have a busy schedule and if you're looking at starting leathercraft what's a good selection of tools for a beginner okay as well as live questions and right now i have no idea what they're going to be so let's see how that goes so let's go live and take some questions as well from here if i do miss your question which is highly likely because i'm talking a lot please forgive me okay so let's dive straight into the q a so these questions i got yesterday uh and last night from instagram stories so i'll put up a sticker getting questions and uh these are some of the questions uh which kind of haven't been asked before in the previous q a so i i kind of want to avoid repeating uh this you know the same questions and the same answers all the time because there's obviously some very common questions which have been tackled in the previous q a's which are available on instagram tv or youtube uh anytime you want them so that's always available so i always try and kind of keep new content coming so this is 11 questions normally it's 10 questions but we have 11 questions we've turned it up to 11. some people will get that reference okay so diving straight into question number one and this is a question an interesting one about sewing machines if you do non-visible portions of a project by sewing machine is it still fine leather craft okay so if you're using a sewing machine for parts of your of your project in this case they're saying non-visible is it still fine leathercraft now some people might note that i exclusively hand stitch i've got nothing against sewing machines it's mainly because i enjoy the craft and the art you could arguably say of hand stitching i find it enjoyable i find it therapeutic but i won't deny that there are times where a sewing machine would be much faster and possibly just as good as a hand stitch and what i mean by that is if you're sewing leather to fabric or perhaps you're sewing in certain zips like zip tape things like that if you're doing uh french bindings or if you're doing parts that don't come under a lot of stress or high wear then a sewing machine is absolutely fine to use i personally like to hand stitch everything but it's more of a personal preference but i would say absolutely i mean there's some people out there who do absolutely phenomenal work and use a sewing machine in most of their work made by nicholls as i put in a previous story does exceptional work in the uk and he's using a sewing machine a lot he also hand stitches especially you know some of his broad leather cases those parts that he does but even on the birkin for example you're going to see hand stitching in high stress areas and then you know seams around the top or the sides or you know over the strap a lot of those are actually machine stitches but they use i can't remember the name of the needle but it gives an angled stitch so it looks just like the hand stitching so it keeps it consistent in that regard but yes i would say that if you are machine stitching part of your projects it would still be considered fine leather craft because you know fine leather craft is all about craftsmanship attention to detail uh in my opinion historical content and there's so many different aspects of it design you know exclusive or rare materials used as well or perhaps rare techniques that not many people can do or expensive leathers and skins that are quite rare or difficult to obtain there's so many aspects of of creating luxury or fine leather craft and you know just hand stitching is just a one very small part of that i think i think it's a very important part don't get me wrong but uh yeah absolutely you can create fine work with uh machine stitch

cool right nice pen oh thank you very much this was my father's uh i think it's uh i keep getting asked about this pen all the time i think it's a parker 65 in gold it's from like the 60s or something like that okay so back to the questions question number two when to use water-based glue and when to use solvent-based glue my recommendation would be use whatever you enjoy using and that's a bit of a cop-out it's a bit of a boring answer use whatever you want um yes you can use whatever you want but the question is which is best it depends on what you're gluing to now water-based glue the benefits of water blaze glue have and always have been they're much less toxic and also you don't get a strong smell there's no strong fumes coming off because they're water-based or at least solvent-free depending on the type that you're using now they're both usually most commonly near neoprene based glues or adhesives uh if you're sticking leather to leather or at least porous to porous and if you're not sure whether something's porous is it does it have a rough texture does water is water able to soak into it that that's kind of like porous is it permeable if you're sticking leather to leather there's not a lot of difference in strength between a very good quality water-based or solvent-free contact adhesive versus a solvent contact adhesive the real benefits of a solvent come in to when you're trying to stick leather onto a non-porous surface so if i wanted to i don't know wrap this pen or something like that in in leather say i wanted to do a strip of alligator around the top i would much more likely use solvent adhesive on this one okay so solvent contacted adhesive or cement as some people call it uh because this is non-porous okay it's a gold surface which means the leather is not really gonna stick to it if i use a solvent-free contact adhesive because solvent-free just doesn't stick to non-porous surfaces very well there are some reinforcements especially watch wrap reinforcements that don't have that are non-porous so non-stretched reinforcements the non-porous and water-based contact adhesive just does not do very well sticking to it where a solvent has no issue at all so it really depends i use solvent contact adhesive most of the time because it's i trust it i'm familiar with that particular brand as well how it dries when it's ready to stick i've been using it for years you know i'm in a big workshop and i have plenty of ventilation so it's not so much of an issue with it and uh it's very very strong but it really depends on what you prefer a lot of people do really well using a good quality water-based contact adhesive so if you're sticking to non-porous especially plastics wood certain woods especially varnished wood metals then definitely solvent because solvent also has another ability is it it soaks into an anchors into leather a little bit better a little bit better than water because of the solvents it draws that adhesive in so it anchors very well so i'm used to it i trust it i use solvent but it really depends on the project

uh live question by lyle live live wild love what about glue coming through with your needle what's gucci philip what about glue coming through of your needle that tends to happen when you're using too much glue and that could be not because you're paste trying to paste too much down to make it stick better it could be that your solvent adhesive is actually starting to dry out the solvent is evaporating and it can happen to solvent free as well but when your solvent starts to evaporate it gets thicker so you've got a higher concentration of solids so you can't put it down as thinly when it's really thick so when you do finally glue them together you prick and you're stitching with your oil or even without an oil sometimes as you're pushing it through it could be the needle or it could be the thread and it starts pulling through these little kind of glue boogers or bogeys if you're from the uk which you know you can get rid of just with a pair of uh tweezers just plug them off but uh there they can be a bit of a pain is a bit annoying but yeah it's usually too much glue or your glue is starting to get too thick you might need to add a little bit more water if you're using water-based contact adhesive or specific solvent if you're using solvent based just to thin it down a little bit greetings from costa rica thank you and thank you for your brilliant coffee hi phil hello nice to meet you right before we go on to question number three it's the end of my day i'm gonna have a drinky poos with you guys you're welcome to join me and i'm having dalwhinnie winter's gold i've made a dent in it already it's actually pretty good stuff i normally drink they're 15. it doesn't really taste much different right so question number three so let me just cross these off so i know exactly where i am at any one time just keeping an eye on the time as well talking of time we're 11 minutes in that's fine how do you charge an appropriate amount for an item how do you charge an appropriate amount for an item and that's a really interesting question and it's a question i get asked a lot you know is up there with questions about edge paint gussets glue stitching things like that

and i would say there's a common misconception that it's all about this special equation cheers thank you very much cheers um a lot of people think that there's some kind of like uh equation you need or a method where you go okay sure your time plus materials plus the cost of the electricity and and the heating and various other factors minus this plus that and and then your you arrive at a number and that's what you charge for your wallet for your bag for your watch trap that has never worked for me uh i don't see that as a sustainable model and i think for a lot of people it's it ends up they and they start under charging because then you go you're asking how much you should charge okay you're factoring in your time how much do you want how much are you paying yourself well then that's the next big question how much should i pay for myself well if i get 15 pounds and or 25 pounds an hour working as a carpenter then i should get 25 pounds an hour working for this or doing this and selling my work well you know it then becomes really subjective and you have another issue to think about and then you think okay so it takes me 11 hours to make a wallet okay so in six months when it only takes you six and you're more experienced so you can make a better wallet are you going to charge less because you took less time doing it you know i i think i don't think it's a bad idea for for everybody i just think it's a bit of a flawed system in my opinion the most appropriate amount is whatever your customers are willing to pay for that product essentially let your customers decide how much it's worth so thinking okay how do i let my customers decide do i call them up and say hello i remember you bought a card holder for me how much would you pay for a wallet i'll hold you know you're not going to do that you have to test the market you have to kind of test the waters it's a little bit like you know if ever you've tried to design uh your own leather goods and you want to make a bag and you want to make it to your own design it's an unknown entity at that point you don't know what it's going to look like it's a concept in your mind maybe you've got some drawings but you know that you're going to go through a period of fine tuning you know that you're going to make your first uh edition of that bag and then you you might make it out of cheap leather for example and you go okay no it's it's not closing properly here it's too soft it's not rigid enough i don't like the lining there's too many creases in it and there's all sorts of problems that you're going to pick up and then you make another version you take what you've learned you put it into that and it's a it's a process of incremental improvements and it's very much like your pricing so one way is to look at the market and go this is how much similar crafters are charging so you can start there as a base price but just be aware that they might be under charging as well so i would always go on the higher end but make sure that you have craftsmanship to back that up and quality to back that up go on the higher end and if you're not getting sales that's good initial quick sales are not a good sign that you got the price right that might be a sign that you got the price too low okay and then you're going to be working really hard and then what you're going to do raise your prices that then becomes quite difficult to do it's a whole nother thing to think about but putting uh putting out there at a higher price it might mean that you're actually you're not doing other things that you should be doing have you got a good website going do you know how to sell your work do you need do you know how to talk about your story and your craft are you showing you know you and your workshop making it so you've like proof that it's actually made by a person are you have do you have a social media account do you have email capture do you have you know all these different things and then you realize that your price was correct you just your marketing wasn't very good so it does because people aren't buying at a higher price doesn't mean you need to start lowering it until they do you just might need to come up to your price rather than your price come down to you and essentially what i'm saying is if you're stuck about to charge for your products and you're not sure what you're doing and most of what i said doesn't really make sense to you it means you need to start buying some books on marketing how to sell your craft how to advertise your product organically and paid if necessary uh it just means that there's there's a whole nother aspect outside of leathercraft if you're going to sell you need to become good at that too so something to be aware of as well so while i haven't given you a proven system a mathematical equation of what to charge it's really not up to you what you charge is up to your market right so question number four how do you sharpen an english point punch so this is uh

this is an english point punch oh that's good this is an english point punch here it's like a church window okay so you can see that and what you do is you have a strap usually under the size of the width of it at the base there like a belt you place it over the end so when you've measured how long you want your belt or your strap to be then place it over the end accurately centralize and you whack you go through it and you have a nice pointed end to your strap or to your belt and then you can edge paint it you can burnish it or do whatever you want to it how do you sharpen one it's very interesting they don't have to be mega sharp okay reasonably sharp this one would probably cut paper if i pressed firm enough but it's not gonna you know shave me you don't need it to be as sharp as a a leather cutting knife or a leather skiving knife for example but you will notice that most of the time there will be a large bevel on on one side and a small micro bevel on the inside and sometimes it's completely flat like a skiving knife only one bevel um what i like to do is just place it into a vise and use a very very fine file just file downwards at a shallow angle angle i usually like to put a little bit of marker pen around the top so i can see where i'm actually removing okay so try and follow the bevel that was set at the factory and you should be you know a little bit sticky sharp i can feel it and that's enough make sure there's no burrs on there so you can polish it on a little strop if you want to but again you don't need it to be shaving sharp and that's that's pretty much it so yeah i like to use a small file you could use a piece of sandpaper stuck to a thin piece of mdf or something like that you could use uh you know like a diamond abrasive sheet or a block a diamond hone and just very gently just sharpen it in one direction usually going inward so you're not pulling the metal up you're pushing downwards right so that is how to sharpen an english point punch there are many ways to skin a cat as they say so that's just the way i do it cool uh if i want to join the leathercraft masterclass should i get more tools before or after purchasing okay so this one is specific to the uh online leather courses that i do easy one to answer really it's as long as you've got the basics you're okay to get started if you haven't got any tools obviously it's it's a good idea to have a few of them or at least order them and then start watching so at least you've got them coming and that's going to make a difference but if you're not sure what tools you're going to need to start the courses or leather craft in general there's a free tool buyers guide along with a free leather guide on my website leathercraftmasterclass.com link below obviously and you can get that absolutely free and i'll send it to your inbox and it's going to give you a list of tools from beginner intermediate to advanced that you absolutely need at that particular stage or recommended at the very least so is it essential to get all the tools beforehand i can tell you now and a lot of you guys will understand this as well uh tool buying is an addiction with no known cure it never ends and you will never have enough tools like i'll be buying tools to the day i die i'll be on my death bed just having a look online seeing what else there is us an interesting skiving knife i've never seen that shape put that in my cart it's a it's a disease definitely

so just something to be aware of but as long as you've got the basics um then i would recommend so if you want to join the leathercraft masterclass courses then yeah make sure you have the basics and then purchase as and when you need them that's you know it's frustrating not you know to have to stop a project because you don't have a tool that you need to kind of do the next stage but it is also an effective way of making sure that you don't really buy tools that you don't need because the worst thing is is spending you know hundreds of thousands on loads of tools and then you don't end up using most of them so it can be a little bit slow going to kind of buy tools as you as you go along but it's an effective way of doing it definitely so uh haha so true on the tools yeah copperhead says i've definitely bought more tools since joining the master class i'm sorry about that i know it's uh it's but it's fun right that's the thing but you know what nowadays i really have this thing where i'm so trigger-happy when it comes to buying tools i always stop for a second and then put it in my cart and then come back to it the next day because there's so many times i'm like oh yeah i really want to buy it put it in the cart give it 24 hours if you still want it you're always going to want it if you don't want it you're like actually i don't really need it um because it's so it can get a little bit expensive and a little bit unnecessary to be honest because you know although this is the the kind of behind me is is the 10 or 20 of my tools that i use the most there's probably again another 10 of these which i use vastly more like one skiving knife that i use 90 of the time uh one round knife that i use ninety percent of the time um you know it's just the same could be said for a lot of other things so you have to really kind of like ground yourself sometimes to go you know do i do i need this is it gonna be helpful is it gonna make my life easier is it gonna make my life better or am i just bored because it's covered right now there's nothing else going on so which is probably yeah okay so uh a less expensive linen thread alternative for sajou fil au chinois there's not really many i mean linen is expensive to make that's the thing is you can get cheaper but it's not really much cheaper it's probably best to shop around for finishing one which is one of my favorites i have seen a i forget the name now it's a german brand uh they're pretty good they're about a quarter less expensive than fil au chinois but i don't know what colors they come in and i don't remember the brand name which is not helping anybody i mean there are alternatives there's barber's linen thread um which i think is is kind of on par with fil au chinois in a lot of ways but they don't have the best selection uh for colors and things like that that finishing wise uh there's crawfords uh and there's a few other smaller ones from northern ireland as well there's coats in the uk but they're not going to be a lot cheaper it's not a cheap thread a cheaper alternative would be probably polyester but you get what you pay for a lot of the time

i love how you've packed your tools behind you oh thank you very much yes it's it's it's more due to laziness i'm organized due to my laziness so i become hyper organized in everything i do to make sure everything's efficient so i just have to kind of reach over and grab it makes my life a lot easier okay so question number six so this is a good one now a lot of you might know all this so apologies uh if you're aware of what a bell knife skiving machine is and what it does a bell knife skiver machine is um basically a machine that you're going to be using to thin the edges of your leather okay so if you want to stitch two pieces of leather and they're both three millimeters thick say when you stitch them together that's going to give you a six millimeter edge now if you want something that is a little bit more streamlined a little bit finer um perhaps a little bit more classic looking you want a thinner edge which gives a much more desirable look a nicer aesthetic to it then it's a good idea to thin those edges down so that when you stitch them together there's not so much bulk so that's one reason another reason is if you want to do a turned edge so you have a piece of leather that's this thick you trim the edge so it's thinner okay and now you can glue and then fold over your edge and then stitch it through okay so that's your turned edge it's it's doing the same thing essentially is using a skiving knife to thin your edges but it's much faster and it's very very accurate and it's very very repeatable as well so if you're in a setting where you're producing leather goods quite often um then you know if it if it makes sense for your business absolutely um it's yeah it can be a bit of an investment so i mean i do have a course on a technique called techniques for the bell skiver which was designed for people with a bell skiving machine that want to know more about it people with a bell skiving don't know how to use it which is the worst case scenario people who are unsure whether they need one at all so the idea of the course was to educate people on getting the most out of their machine or maybe they don't need the machine at all and then it saved them a lot of money so that was the idea so there is a course on how to use it but that is essentially what it is uh it's just the thinning part

how do show us how to make that all sheath all sheath you mean like

like this is that what you're talking about uh i do i have do i have a course on that somewhere i think i did a a youtube no i didn't do a youtube video i did a post on that once yeah well like there is another one i'll show you another one hold on uh two versions so this is just a piece of four millimeter hide that we have here so it's four millimeter height and what i've done is just taken a square of hide and then just pushed very carefully with your fingers out the way push the all through the side of the leather and that's what you end up with and then i just cut it into a v and then edge paint to the side so it kind of tells me which all it is so it's kind of color coded this one is an interesting one so you know i've um you've probably seen me make bag handles before and i use like a leather core well this is eight millimeter leather core

and then all you have to do is kind of very carefully with your fingers out the way again place the old blade in there and just kind of like push it through making sure that it's not coming out towards the sides like that okay and it just protects it and then i've just kind of dipped it in some kind of rust-colored edge paint just to color code it again it just stops you from stabbing yourself and you can leave them on the table and they've got their little sheath on there and it just makes life a little bit easier for you okay so question number seven now this is an interesting one this is all about mistakes handling mistakes and how i how i personally yes i make mistakes how i personally deal with mistakes is not necessarily how i recommend other people deal with mistakes and let me explain what i mean i'll read the question in its entirety from the person who submitted it how do you handle mistakes for example imperfect cuts a blown stitch edge paint drips is it important to finish so there's two questions there how do i handle mistakes and is it important to finish and what they mean is if you're at the beginning stage of your project let's say you're making a wallet you're at the beginning of the wallet halfway through or near the end and you make a rather large faux pas you know or a rather large mistake okay do you continue the project to the very end or do you just stop and then start again start fresh with new leather i will say if you're a beginner if you're still learning always finish your project because there will be things on that project that you're still learning about which you can use on the second one so even if you finish your project doesn't mean you don't need to make a second one but occasionally occasionally you'll find that whatever the mistake you think you made that was a catastrophe that's oh it's it's done it's there's no way i can use this or gift this or sell this or keep this it's not good sometimes you'll get to the end of your project and realize that you can actually rectify or it didn't matter in the first place or that little tiny mistake isn't actually seen it's on a hidden part you you know you totally forgot that it was going to be folded and tucked in and stitched oh yeah that's gone so there are oftentimes the mistake will turn out to be not a mistake unimportant or even if you scrap the whole thing finish it because there's always something to learn so that's just something to be aware of

uh life moroccan says i'm the queen of cash monsieur i don't actually know what that word means unfortunately but i'm sure it's not great so um how do i deal with a mistake so if you're a beginner or you're still learning novice i would say always finish it as long as you have time like if you if the order is supposed to go out the next day like no like stop make it a fresh and then go back to it afterwards the original one and finish off so you've got something to learn on but um if you've if you've been doing this for some years what i like to do is no matter how far i'm in the project i grab a round knife

and i cut the whole thing in half and i throw it in the bin

dramatic yes it's it's i guess you could say it's a form of self-punishment might some people might think it's a bit extreme but the heartache of doing that is something that stays with you and you'll remember it the next time you do something delicate and you're like if i mess this up i know exactly where that round life is and it's something i still do today it doesn't happen very often and the more experienced you you become but there are times and there's a little thing at the back of my mind that says ah it's fine it doesn't matter it doesn't matter before you ever compromise your leather craft integrity and you think ah it's no one's gonna notice cut it in half it's dramatic it uses up leather but it works that's all i'm gonna say um it's it's made a difference to my work especially early on when i thought i should know better i should do better cut it in half and then i used to actually put it where i can see it so it reminded me a bit extreme some people might find that a bit much but it works for me so it may work for you but don't get upset if you cut it in half and regret it all right uh cash cash ms yeah oh yeah cash hiding yeah hiding mistakes ah that's the translation okay so nelson 79 says which leather edge creaser would you recommend for marking stitching lines the fn series or the n series or another

it it really depends on the kind of work that you're doing i like f for veg tan where you're not really gonna round the edge anyway an fn for chrome tan which gives you that kind of the rounded edge as well as giving you a crease uh it really depends sometimes i even like to take a scrap of leather that i'm going to be using on a project and test out different creases manual or electric and just see which one gives the most pleasing effect along with the stitches so i always like to have a little bit of a test on everything even if i'm using a certain type of thread or a certain type of edge finish or a certain type of crease i always like to try on scrap just to see if the combination works and if it looks looks right sometimes what i think is going to look right ends up not looking quite right and something else is a better alternative so if you have different size creasing tips i would recommend just taking a scrap piece of leather or like a square and just try different ones on each and then just mark them with pen and then look at them objectively and go which one looks the best to my eye for this project and then go with that one so rather than saying use that one always test you can never go wrong with testing never go wrong uh somerville leather says i've done that as well cutting in half uh and you learn very quickly yeah yeah there's you tend to learn quite well when there's a form of punishment even if it's self-punishment okay so that is question number seven handling mistakes if you're a beginner finish the project if you should know better finish the project with a round knife question number eight uh what is the biggest mistake you see other crafters make this is an interesting one isn't it uh what is the biggest mistake you see other crafters uh make

i mean you know what's a mistake to one person is not necessarily a mistake to another person so i could say oh that's a mistake but for what they want to do that's not a mistake it's very subjective uh what a mistake is things that i see that i don't do personally for certain reasons is probably more of a like yeah okay i wouldn't do that but you have and if you're happy with the result then that's absolutely fine it's not a mistake so i'm cautious with the word mistake but things that i wouldn't recommend people do one thing that i came up with that i see is a common problem is selling too early uh now if you're an amateur leather crafter and you're absolutely happy um just doing on the side making things for yourself friends family uh you're not interested in making money in it it's just like a little bit of an escape from your daily job perhaps uh it helps to kind of ground you and makes you relax and it's it's a nice hobby that's absolutely fine this this answer isn't for you but um there are a lot of people out there who really want to sell they get excited they learn how to make a card holder they maybe they find a pattern on youtube someone made a little tutorial with a pattern they download that they make it they really like it they do it again and make it a little bit better and then someone says you know what you should sell those you can make make some money on etsy or ebay or wherever or the market i think yeah it's a really good idea i think that's a great idea the worst thing that can happen to an early crafter is they start making sales because as soon as you start making sales the creating process takes up or made the making up of process takes up a lot of your time that you could have spent learning and discovering new techniques and new breakthroughs so i see so a lot of crafters they've just discovered leather craft and they within two or three months they want to start selling their leather goods online and they haven't reached anywhere near their peak on what they could learn their techniques their methods their accuracy their skill is still in the in the infancy stage they haven't really kind of blossomed as a craftsman yet and you know selling leather goes the best thing that can happen is that no one buys your stuff so you keep making new products hopefully putting them out there and taking pictures and putting them out no one's buying that right let's try this one that's the best case scenario because then you end up actually making a lot of stuff a lot of different stuff and you're still learning um but trying to sell too early it's a bit like if you go looking in the hills for gold and you come across a gold nugget you know you would probably keep looking and keep looking and find other gold nuggets and keep going keep going and eventually there's just a little flecks of gold here and there and you're like okay right let's take all this horde and go and cash that in it's a little bit like selling your leather work on on leather craft you you have a breakthrough on something you can make a card wallet you can make a simple watch strap and and you feel ready to start selling but it really does kind of hamper your your your learning your your discovering of new skills which is going to allow you to sell better products more exciting products that you could be making bespoke items that you would need confidence to complete items that you could charge a higher amount for so you're not having to make so many uh small items you can make less but better items which is a much better scenario in my mind so you know wait until you haven't you're not still having an aha moment every few days if you not you just discovered how to finish edges you've just discovered how to stitch neatly you've just discovered what glue is best you've just discovered edge paint if you keep if you're still discovering big things all the time if you're having big breakthroughs don't start selling yet wait until you've got some experience you've experimented you've come up with your own style what makes you different and you you've elevated your craft so you're a top tier craftsman that is what i recommend that is going to give you the best start in your journey to selling goods so that's question number eight when can we expect your own tool line oh

one day one day uh 101 says you're so right i didn't sell for a year but still i get swamped making orders and don't have time to develop and experiment with new things and that is exactly what i experienced at a certain point

it's just eventually orders after order after order and you're using all your spare time to go through this and you know it's it's really difficult to not only improve your craft but develop new items to add to the line to sell because it'd be great you know but you're too busy to add the bag because that's going to take ages to produce and then you know photography and then put it up there and it's and you you'd much rather the bigger orders but if you're bogged down with so many smaller orders watched wraps wallets long wallets belts and all that kind of thing it's it really does sometimes kind of hamper that that learning experience so yeah you're absolutely right okay question number nine um i don't get and this is a common one as well i don't get much time due to work and family commitments how do i make time for my craft so i don't get much time for work or family commitments how do i make time for my craft

that's an interesting one and uh court leather he's probably he's probably not here uh sent me a dm about that one because she picked up on it and she said uh get the family involved i thought that's a brilliant idea if you have a family and you know anybody shows an interest in your craft it's a great idea to actually get them involved in your craft because then you're spending quality time with your family doing what you like to do they may enjoy it too hopefully and you're still doing your craft and you're also creating memories you know some people might have great memories from you know like for me working with my grandfather uh making projects out of wood and he would make aeroplanes out of tin cans and all that kind of thing and he'd make miniature steam engines that worked and we'd put them over the fire and get them going and all that kind of thing it's like wonderful memories of working with my hands and it's like so important to development of of young people in general uh in my opinion so if you can get your family involved then you're kind of killing two birds with one stone you're spending quality time with the family and you're also uh involved in the craft now not you know you might have teenage kids they're really not interested in leathercraft they're more busy going out and doing their own thing or tick-tocking or whatever showing my age now um but you know that that's an ideal world but if that you know that isn't your world then what i recommend is and i've done this to myself before and you'd be surprised how much time you waste and that is audit your day even if you think you're really efficient with your time have a diary okay just for a week seven days write down exactly what you did and for how long each and every day just to give you an idea and even if you you never do it again you'll always have that awareness of what am i doing how long is it taking and all that kind of thing because if you have a busy lifestyle you've got work commitments you've got family commitments you might not have time for things you really enjoy and if leathercraft is one of those it's important so you might find that you're spending time watching netflix or you're spending time after work standing around talking nonsense with the guys for half an hour 45 minutes before saying goodbye or going there's all sorts of things you you don't pick up on it's like people sometimes when they audit their diet they realize that they keep they're picking whilst they're cooking food it's all extra calories and you just don't think about it because it's not a real event it's not a big happening so there's all these little tiny clumps of time throughout the day that we might be using up uh which are wasting our time and not good use of our time so it's all about time efficiency and one of the ways of finding out whether you're being efficient with your time is actually auditing your day for like seven days on a normal week shall we say so find out what you're doing with your time and find out if you have spare pockets that you could be doing things that that make you happy that make you excited okay because life is short do things you enjoy uh right uh i tried i'm assuming you're talking about getting the family involved but i was shunned to my garage that's not a good scenario

okay so question number 10 so hopefully we've got enough time apologies if i'm rambling and this cuts out guys because i wish lives would actually have a timer on there which gives you an indication it gives you a 10 second you're about to die timer and that's it okay so question number 10 just looking at starting leather crafting what are some of the tools you recommend for a beginner to buy okay so they're just starting in their leather craft journey what are some of the tools that they that they want okay what are some of the tools i recommend for a beginner to buy i could sit here and go okay a brick line wall work surface to cut on a mallet there's always something that like some significant thing like a ruler that i i miss out or a pairing stone or something so what i did is i compiled a list of tools and a lot of you in here have already heard this but for those who haven't there is a free tool guide on my website it's in the main menu it's a leather and tool guy absolutely free and i'll send it to you on email and it will give you a full list of recommendations which is a much simpler way okay so is there anything on the live on instagram anything anybody wants to crack in my thumbs not a good habit uh anything anyone wants to ask me before i go it's been a good life guys it's been enjoyable uh it could be the whiskey could be the conversation i think it's a little bit of both uh the rolled handle you don't show us the formula only a pattern uh it's there isn't a formula necessarily for a rolled handle so if you want to make one there there isn't necessarily a formula that you need to follow because there's a lot of different factors a lot of it is the look it's functionality uh the size of the bag that it's going on so there's a ratio for the handle height versus the bag so that that would be a formula in some ways uh but there is it there isn't really a formula that i can kind of convey that you can then go and make your own that would then you know of course a lot of people have modified the landsat rolled handle for example or they've used the rolled handle from the turren luxury handbag and they've successfully changed it and modified it um they're they're quite modifiable especially for length and size remember you can change the pattern ratio to be larger so there's all sorts of things but um with the lancette rolled handle actually taught the the pattern creating process on that so it's not a pdf it's actually teaching you how to make the pattern using graph paper is it ivo says is it right to store edge paint in glass jars if they're clean and they don't have too much surface area i'm i mean i'm not big fan of these wide mouth jars with these lids that come off with a rubber seal because there's still a lot of air on the inside and that allows for a lot of bacteria build up mold is another issue with that but also just the surface area you get like a skin forming around the sides and sometimes you're putting it on and there's a piece of that half dried edge paint and it can mess up your edge so i much prefer having smaller bottles like the largest bottle i buy is like 250 mil and i just buy lots of that in the same color so i'm i've got a smaller bottle and i pour it out as much as i need uh if i need more i'll pour a little bit more if i don't need any more then you know it's probably a small amount i'll throw that away um but i i i'm not a big fan of big bottles or wide mouth jars to store them in but if you do store them in a jar uh try not to open them too often or leave them open rather for too long and another thing would be to get some pure alcohol inside close the lid shake it up and then let it dry out naturally so at least you've killed the bacteria or any yeasts on the inside or things like that before you put your edge paint in a course on pattern making course on pattern making especially working out how to size gussets and other tricky parts that is something in the works but my thing with gusset courses and it's so requested is i will only put out a course when i think that what i'm teaching is achievable by the people watching the course so if i put out the way that i design gussets which involves no measurement and no mathematics at all uh it i don't i'm not confident right now although i'm working on a solution for that the if people to watch it they'd be able to go away and design their own bags with intricate gussets of obscure shapes and they'd be and i'd change the industry that is something that i want to achieve and it's something i've been working on for over a year and just to give you an example um the bloomsbury attaché case took about two to two and a half years to produce to a level where i thought that it would be achievable by people with some level of experience in leather crafts so in order to it's not just about showing you how i do it i need to make sure that i'm confident that the way i show it can be achievable by people because my success is only your success so if you're successful then i'm successful if i'm successful and you're not then i'm not successful at all so i can only produce that kind of course when i'm confident that people will be able to take that concept and run with it themselves and right now i could i could select three different gussets five different gussets and the majority of people come back to me goes thank you for that gusset course but that's not the gusset that i wanted because there's an infinite number of gussets there is literally you know if if i showed you a course with two and a half billion gussets you wouldn't be scratching the surface because there's literally an infinite number of gussets or a number of shapes and lengths and sizes and there's so many variables involved leather thickness leather temper uh the tightness that you stitch uh there's so many different things um that i'm i'm waiting for the right time where i can put a course out where people can go yes that's changed the game but until i find that game changing formula i'm still working on it so thank you for your patience everyone who keeps asking about gusset courses but i'm not i'm just not going to put out a gusset course and then no one can replicate what i'm doing because that would be the worst case scenario uh and that's not what i'm looking for gussets i found to be trial and error yeah it's it's uh it's it it's a challenging one it's very very difficult to teach that because it does involve a lot of creativity uh it does involve a type of uh in an iq called visual spatial intelligence the idea of mentally being able to create concept in your mind and then recreating it in in real life uh that's something you can google but uh yeah gussets are a challenging one to teach a real challenging one thanks for your time and all the tips good thank you very much for joining me guys i really appreciate it don't forget tomorrow this is going to be live so if you have more questions you can come back you'll be watching the same video as this but of course uh i'll be in the live chat on youtube so youtube premiere so make sure you subscribe to youtube premiere turn on your notifications and you'll get a notification uh i think it's an hour before i go live so you know i'm going live with the premiere and i'll be able to talk to you in the comments section as well so thank you for watching me and i will see you next month in the next q a and thank you again for all your questions guys i will see you soon take it easy

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Show Notes: And i mentioned in my life this is the only sentence where you can seriously put the word butt and puckering in the same sentence school glue glue that you probably ate as a kid which would be wonderful but nobody would know what i do for a living really hello and welcome to the leathercraft master class in this month february q a with questions taken from instagram stories now if you're new to the leathercraft masterclass new to this channel click the link below and get your free guide for selecting tools selecting leather what to look out for and everything you need to know to get started in luxury leather goods so if you're interested in going from basic leather work to luxury leather goods check out leathercraftmasterclass.com where we have a series of courses starting with your basics of hand stitching skiving sharpening what adhesives to use different edge finishing techniques etc before moving on to the smaller mid-level and large leather craft projects so check out leathercraftmasterclass.com and get started with your free guide for selecting leather selecting tools and then we can move on to the knowledge so in today's q a as i mentioned i've taken 10 questions this month which i've been gathering yesterday um so if you're not following me on instagram and you're interested in putting some questions in there go to instagram at leathercraftmasterclass start following me and turn on your live notifications so you can set your notifications so that you get a little dingaling when i go live to make sure that you don't miss out okay now this will also be available as a podcast leathercraftmasterclass.com click on the podcast and you can actually get an audio version of this so if you don't have time to watch it all you can download it onto your phone head to the gym when gyms are open again or when you're driving or doing whatever you need to be doing you can actually have me in your ear whispering at sweet nothings so we'll see how that goes right so i'm going to go live right now on instagram so i can take some live questions which you're welcome to join in uh next month when you're ready so checking connection you are now live all right so a few people joining 43 people already wow only a few seconds in that's encouraging to see so the first question is about tooling leather so this individual wants me to talk a little bit about tooling leather now i did actually start my personal leather craft journey in canada okay and canadian leathercraft is generally quite heavily influenced by its neighboring country which is the united states and tooling leather is very very popular there especially in western style leatherwork so that's where i learned so originally the shop that i used to buy leather from did courses there and my main interest was case making rifle cases and things like that knife sheets which i did there in a few lessons but it was very heavily towards the tooling side so i did start experimenting with tooling leather so casing leather wetting it tooling it decoration and all that kind of thing but it was never um it wasn't that i wasn't particularly good at it it wasn't my main interest my main interest was the cutting the skiving the stitching the edge finishing things like that i guess maybe the the kind of leather goods that i grew up with uh from my grandfathers and fathers with their attache cases and luggage and things that i was always fascinated with as a kid that kind of thing was more my interest so i have had a little bit of a dabble in in tooling leather um but i don't have a lot of experience with it it's just not my it's just not my main interest some people are very very good at that kind of thing and i can really appreciate the designs and the patterns and things like that it's just not my personal thing you know not everybody's going to be into everything there's nothing wrong with it obviously and i can appreciate beautiful tooling work absolutely i marvel at some of the uh the top artisans who can do that kind of thing um but in i think one of the main differences between that style of leather work and i won't say american because american is quite varied um in the types of leather work it's not like all americans do tooling leather obviously not it's actually more varied than most countries i think uh in their style but the the that kind of western style i think the focus is a lot more on the artisan skill and the artistry where the focus in europe is a little bit more on kind of putting the leather itself as the centerpiece rather than the art if you know what i mean so if you imagine the leather is the picture and the craftsmanship and the finish is the frame that brings it all together that's the european style whereas i think in tooling the the leather is the canvas itself and that's where the the artisan expresses their art so it's just a different look and a different take on it uh maybe a different philosophy if you will but uh that is my experiences with it i enjoyed it don't get me wrong um it's just not my not my jazz not my not my thing i guess but uh but i do enjoy it uh hi maybe a silly question but i'm very new to leathercraft what kind and what thickness of thread do you choose forward slash use it depends on the project and also depends on the thickness of leather the look that i'm going for but also the size of the pricking line that i'm using now i do have a series of courses which i'll plug for you uh the techniques of hand stitching is actually the first video that i ever came out with and i have a chart so and it's it's by no means there's no general rule but it's kind of like a guide where you can go this pricking iron size goes with this thickness of thread this with this this with this and then obviously you can then break those rules and uh and and do your own thing with your own experiences i think as picasso said first you must learn the rules uh before you can then break them so uh i have do have a guide on there which will uh explain everything you need to know about that and then you can experiment but it is down mainly down to experience and personal preference but the type of use that it's going to get if it's a heavy high wear item or an area on a project for example then you know thicker thread is going to be a little bit better on that

how is your business going on there in your country yeah businesses good thank you very much thank you for asking okay so that's uh tooling leather and my opinions on it i must say my uneducated opinions on it because i don't have a lot of experience with tooling leather okay so how to work with chrome 10 leather and how is it different to vegetable tan leather now i have talked a little bit about chrome tanned leather on these q a's before and what i you know where i would use it where i wouldn't use it what it's good for what it's not good for and to be honest i i love working with vegetable tanned leather and at a push it's probably closer to my heart if you know what i mean it's more therapeutic to work with because much like a dog it's more obedient versus chrome town which is a bit more like a cat kind of wants to do its own thing very difficult to train him but you know vertical tan leather it's it's very easy to work with it's great for beginners as well doesn't mean it's a beginner's leather obviously it's not but vegetable tan leather is good for beginners because it just it's easier to skive is easier to mold it's you know it can be quite delicate so it's easy to mess up but it's uh it's a good one for people who are new to the craft as well chrome tan leather in my opinion takes a little bit more skill overall because it's more resistant to skiving easily it's more resistant to uh edge you know edge finishing it won't burnish for example so your options are a little bit more limited it is a bit more flexible um so you will have to have to add stiffeners to it if you want a more structured item for example a bag so there's more things you have to think about when it comes to chrome tan so it is if you want to make fine leather craft with chrome tan it is a bit more of an experienced craftsman's leather to work with especially the very soft thin skins but how do you work with it virtually the same way i mean it's going to be it's more softer and more pliable so it's good for flipped bags for example so that it doesn't crease anywhere near as much as a vegetable tan wood it's more difficult to skive and cut by hand for sure because it can actually change dimensions if you're not pressing hard enough down on the ruler or straighter straight edge that you're using it can stretch so that's one of the characteristics of it so you have to think about that but the pros are it is stronger and so it has a higher tensile strength than vegetable 10 leather it's more abrasion resistant for sure if you want something that's scratch resistant that's going to avoid scuffs the most then definitely chrome tan it's more heat resistant so it's less likely to burn if you get the wrong temperature with a creaser for example and it's obviously more water resistant than vegetable tan leather it's less affected by that so that's definitely um one of the good things about that so how to work with chrome 10 leather and how is it different to vegetable 10 leather hopefully that's explained a little bit more about that so question on here vegetan leather shape firming wet wet and let it dry or wet and heat it in the oven definitely do not heat uh add any heat when you've added water to vegetable tan leather uh as an experiment get a creaser hot enough that it makes a brown line in undyed vegetable tan leather so get it you know hot enough that you're making a dark line then take a little bit of water and just dab it where you're about to crease okay and without stopping go across it where the water is you'd think you'd actually cool it down it doesn't it transfers heat much faster and it will burn it virtually instantly you actually dig into the leather sometimes so when you add heat to vegetable tan leather it will darken but when you've got water content in there it's probably going to shrink if you tried that but the slower that you allow vegetable tan leather to dry the less it's going to shrink and the less it's going to lose its natural oils as well so that's another thing so you know allow things to gradually come up to normal humidity levels vinimo thread your thoughts anything that really looks overly synthetic i'm not really a big fan of but that's just personal preference i generally i prefer a more natural look to it but if you think that it goes well with your projects it's a very strong thread it's a filament polyester which means it doesn't have a strand length each strand is you know if you have two thousand meters of vinimo each strand is two thousand meters long um whereas on uh natural fibers obviously with the exception of filament silk i think uh you have lengths of fiber that start and stop and then they're all bunched together and then twist tightly for friction so they don't come apart but that short fiber length um means that it i guess refracts the light a little bit more than refract reflects it if my terminology is correct um so it has a more of a matte look to it which is my preference so that's how i would what i would say hello hi from norway cheers from england okay so next question moving on is and i mentioned in my life this is the only sentence where you can seriously put the word but and puckering in the same sentence uh how to prevent the 14 year old coming out of me how to prevent a butt stitched seam from puckering so for those of you on youtube i'll put in a little short video clip of me butt stitching um it's basically where you usually it's where you wrap leather around say a cylinder or a handle say a hammer handle which says a course i recently did uh on uh well not recently uh maybe over a year ago now wow time's flying so fast but uh i will link it up here and so you can go and click on that if you want to and watch the free butt stitching tutorial which is butt stitching alligator skin i think it's alligator not crocodile yeah alligator skin onto a hammer handle so i'll link it up there for you but but it's where you wrap it around and then you have two raw edges that come in contact and the idea is you stitch and your thread goes underneath through one hole underneath the join and then up the other side and then you have your stitches flanking the join now sometimes it will pucker which means you get a rippling effect as you're adding tension in certain areas and pulling your stitchings tight you'll notice you'll get a bit of a wave forming now i've written down a few uh possible reasons for that um or ways that you can avoid it one is is using stiffer leather the softer leather is the more it's going to pucker the more it's going to yield to the added stresses which are at intervals with your stitching so if you have a longer stitch as in four millimeters you're probably going to see more puckering compared to using say a three millimeter perking iron or stitching chisel or round dent iron is is probably one of the best for that but uh yeah you're gonna you're gonna see less rippling with a smaller iron so stiffer leather can help with that so avoiding leather is too soft using thicker leather okay so thin leather is going to yield more as well so even if it's stiff leather if it's very thin you're going to see that and you're going to see the thickness of the thread underneath pushing through less tension so if you're adding too much tension then you're going to see the leather being pulled tight in certain areas and you're gonna see that puckering effect uh using thinner thread so thicker thread is gonna take up more room underneath so as the thread goes underneath it's pushing the leather above it upwards and then that could worsen the effect and also finishing so when you've finished your seam that's not the end of it you want to hammer down your thread to get it nice and level to avoid friction and prolong use but at the same time it's good to hammer down the seam the join that you're actually pulling together with the stitch now for those of you who don't know what i'm talking about on instagram and or on the podcast if you're listening to this if you're not visualizing what i'm saying head to uh leathercraft masterclass on youtube i will link it for you guys on youtube but i have a video there on how to butt stitch leather so if you watch that you'll know exactly what i'm talking about and you can see me finishing it and finally how to prevent the seam from puckering if it has puckered and you're using leather that is you know relatively heat resistant you can add some heat with electric edge creaser with an ironing tip or whatever you need to heat up to just flatten it down uh billionaire brother says hello philip hello billy and our brother okay hopefully you're getting some of those billions from a brother uh how to edge coloring for synthetic product uh not 100 sure what you mean by edge coloring for synthetic product are you talking about applying edge finishing to non-leather items such as fabrics if so let me know without further ado i'll move on so the next question is which should you complete first the seam or the edge okay so this is the the leather craft equivalent of the chicken and egg uh question which came first the chicken or the egg the egg or the chicken or the chicken or the egg it really depends on a lot of things and i'll explain what i mean generally it's better to finish an edge after stitching where possible but there are some scenarios where you need to stitch the uh finish the edge before you stitch okay because when you when you stitch two pieces of leather together which is generally what stitching is for sometimes the tension can add a ripple in the top if your stitch is very close to the top and if you've just finished your edge you've got to refinish it again so generally you know after stitching if you can cut and trim your edges after stitching that's probably about the best platform to then begin your edge finishing process the only downside to that is if you accidentally get dye on your stitches or edge paint on your stitches you may have to undo this stitching and restitch but it's not going to be a common problem in my opinion so generally you know in my opinion it's better to finish the edge afterwards but it's really up to you it doesn't make a whole lot of difference um sometimes i like to finish an edge and then stitch depending on the project and then if the edge needs a little bit more attention then i might give it another final sanding another coat maybe another polish if it's a burnished edge for example so it really depends a turned edge for example would be complete before stitching so that's an example of an edge that you would really have much of a say in it it's going to be complete leather going around hardware so that's another one so if you for example you have a bag handle and the end of your handle wraps around hardware so let's say this is a cross section of a piece of hardware the leather goes around it wraps and then gets stitched in it's going to be very difficult to finish that edge if it's wrapped around a piece of hardware so you would want to finish that edge first and then you can focus on the stitching so that could be a briefcase handle could be a handle on a handbag for example so there are always variations so there's no black and white you should stitch then edge finish sometimes you need to edge finish and then stitch and then sometimes there's a turned edge your edge is already finished before you stitch if you have to stitch after we can't hammer or use the pliers on the seam right it really depends what you've done with the edge you know edge paint is quite resilient in that in that sense because it's synthetic and it's flexible it doesn't you know you can hammer it doesn't have a problem if you've really heavily waxed and polished a burnish for example um on on a part that's not particularly flexible then hammering it could compress the leather enough that you actually see cracking so you might need to reheat the wax in there next question is what types of glue do you use and when do you use of one variety over another okay so what types of glue do you use and when would you choose to use one type over another type of glue okay most commonly for ninety percent of what i do it's going to be a mixture of contact adhesive and pva glue pva glue a lot of people outside of the uk don't know what pva glue polyvinyl acetate which makes even less sense white glue elmer's glue school glue glue that you probably ate as a kid you know that kind of thing that white sticky glue comes over a number of different names essentially it's the same thing it is not wood glue wood glue is generally pva with resin additives that makes for a higher attack on wood it's usually also a little bit less flexible more brittle to avoid creep in woodworking so uh you know when i say pva i don't mean wood glue similar similar in a lot of ways but pva glue is is a really good glue to use it's water-based easy to clean up there's a lot of benefits to it but it doesn't have initial stick if you put pva on two pieces of leather or even one put them together you can still take it apart you've got some open time some some working time that you can play around with but there are some things where you need clamping force with you know say for example you want to make a handle and you've wrapped leather around a core and you're using pva well you're going to have to put a load of clips along the top to hold it in together and then some parts are going to be heavily clipped and it's you know it's not going to be ideal in that situation instead of using external clamping force the internal clamping force could be um salt like this which is solvent-based contact adhesive okay you can use water-based or solvent-free contact adhesive more accurately i tend to use solvent because it's faster stronger and it works on non-porous materials whereas water-based is more for porous so you know leather on leather or leather on material but it won't do leather on steel or leather on plastic like uh solvent will but yeah generally contact adhesive where i need something to press together and hold okay so recently when i made this watch strap there's a turnover at the back that goes around the spring bar when it comes down and i've used contact adhesive it stays there and then i can hammer it in and i can put the lining in and then i can stitch it etc with pva i would have to then fold it over and try and make sure it's evenly clamped over the area that i want to stick it'll be very complicated to do or very annoying to do whereas contact adhesive it's an instant bond which means it's it's it's clamping everything and holding everything together with a very very tight force usually about 80 percent of full strength is in the initial contact um so about 48 hours later you'll get 100 your strength so yeah so contact adhesive for the convenience and the instant bond uh and pva is probably where i would use uh i would use it more for larger areas so if you're doing a really large area where you know they would just cause too much too many fumes i would probably use pva or water-based contact adhesive solvent-free contact adhesive uh and pva is also gonna add stiffness as well in your leather so it works even in in fabric sometimes people when they're making fabric projects and crafts if you mix water and pva and dip your fabric in it it actually works as a fabric stiffener it has a very similar effect on leather as well so if you want something to be slightly stiffer then pva can do that for you as well and finally pva i have two types i have waterproof which means it will be highly resistant or waterproof you could submerge it and the bond won't undo and then i have uh what you call washable pva which is very strong but it can be reversible so for some things where like the internal lining of a natasha case or a few other projects where over time you might want to replace the lining or you might want to replace parts you get a damp sponge dampen it not till it's soaking wet but damp enough that after about half an hour you can begin peeling it back like a sticky label now if it gets wet it doesn't all fall apart it's not as sensitive to water as that but it just makes it easier to repair and on some projects you know i think that's it really adds something to the design into the luxury design i think it was one of the chief designers at hermes that once said was told by his grandfather i believe that luxury is that which can be repaired which is interesting because if it can't be repaired like if you create a wallet and it's completely bonded what happens if you need to change one of the compartments in there would would it be possible to do that is something and this is an interesting thing to think about is something truly luxurious if it can't be repaired because technically that makes it a throwaway item have you ever used tallow and pearl glue for edge finishing bridal i'm struggling with that lovely shine using token on beeswax you know tallow and pearl glue you know very old traditional bridal leather and and case making techniques yeah pearl glue and rabbit skin glue with dye and all that kind of thing very very old school i haven't ex you know worked with it too much pearl glue is you know you've got the smell you've got to keep it hot while you're using it and all that kind of thing so it's it's not really convenient if you're getting great results from token on beeswax i mean they're they're they're pretty standard now i think it's just the next generation of edge finishing but back in the day when they didn't have uh you know things like toconol or other edge finishing compounds then you know they probably would have been using token all had they had it so you know personal preference really handy says hello philip hello gennady um one more what the differences between indian leather and american leather i have used neither so um i don't exactly know okay so the next question i'll move on is i've never heard of a turned edge watch strap please tell us more okay so the latest course which came out a few days ago is the turned edge watch strap now not everybody is going to know what a turned edge watch trap is okay i probably could have done a better job explaining what it is but there is a video on instagram and on youtube with a preview of the course but it's it's making this okay so this is a turned edge and as you can see the surface which is alligator simply turns around the edge it's as simple as that and then once it turns around and it's on the edge and then it folds in underneath the lining before it is then stitched through which means that the edge that you're looking in there is the grain layer the surface that is also here that is also on the other side of the watch strap so it's technically a little a little bit more it is more challenging than simply dying and burnishing or adding a layer of edge paint uh each one of those has their own technical skill but the turned edge just adds a little bit more finesse because technically it doesn't have an edge in itself it's just completely all the way around so it gives a little bit more flow to the design i find uh and just gives more of a a seamless look to it which is a little bit more luxurious it also takes certain skills to be able to do it which which i find just adds something more to the luxurious element of the technique itself now back in the day in the uk decades and decades ago you would have different categories of leather goods you would have fancy leather goods okay fancy so fancy leather goods and you would have cut edge leather good so there are two grades of leather goods today we would call it or you would call it high leather craft fine leather craft luxury leather goods but back in the day the official term was fancy leather goods which would probably sound a bit odd today if she said do you have any fancy leather goods in stock but fancy leather goods would be the best grades of leather the best designs the most expensive types of leather but also one of the characteristics that defined the grade was the edges were always turned okay grade number two the second tier of luxury was always a cut edge and that cut edge might be then burnished and polished using various techniques and then i think around the 70s i believe it was the italians that started developing what we know today as edge paint it was something to speed up the process to make it quicker so you could instead of finishing an edge just run it through a machine or use a stick to play place it on there and it just finished off the edge and made the whole process much faster it was never really designed as something luxurious it was a time-saving effort to make an acceptable edge and that's always been one of my main reasons for preferring the turned edge over using edge paint now today edge paint has become a little bit more advanced so it's easier to get done well and it's also become a little bit of a niche art within leathercraft like a subculture of people who really love and want to get that beautiful perfect perfect edge with edge pen and some people just absolutely love that it's like a sub niche within leathercraft which is quite interesting really um but my my heart has always been with the turned edge it's very traditionally english and it always represented the top tier now today you'd see really expensive bags like the birkin for example has like an eight millimeter cut edge with multiple layers of edge paint i think if the birkin was designed today they would definitely not have done that i don't think it was necessarily put out as like an apex predator of luxury um but it became so iconic and so wanted the prices were driven up with the demand but they can't really change the design now because it will almost be like admitting that they didn't make it as good as they could have um i always think it looks odd with this massive thing of edge paint over the top um but that's just me personally but i think if they were to realize that it would have been their crown uh of the brand i think they would have done a turned edge on it and they do a turned edge on the kelly i think which came out later could be wrong uh so yeah i've never heard of a turn dishwasher please tell us more it's essentially just where you're you're turning an edge then you have a lining that lining can also be turned edge and then it is stitched through and it just makes a much nicer looking and there's nothing to peel off as well so that's the course on how to make this watch strap itself so it has a stitched in keeper along the top as you can see there and we don't have any stitches that go across the line of pull at the top or at the bottom okay because when you perforate across the line of pull it's a bit like i don't know pulling apart toilet tissue to give a derogatory reference uh it's a perforation it's where it's going to break most likely uh now it doesn't always break but it's uh it's a good idea to avoid stitching across the line of pull when you can so that's one of the things i teach in this course so that course is available now guys if you want to check out the preview for it it's on instagram it's on youtube or you can go onto leathercraftmastercast.com and check out the preview for that course okay part two is coming soon so it's a two-part course um so it will be coming out shortly

sean says totally agree it's so thick yeah i'm talking about the top of the birkin yes that's way too much real estate to be using on edge paint i think they use a ridiculous number of layers to get there and from the berkins that i've seen it's they're i mean they they're decent edges they're not perfect it's a very it would be you would have to spend so much time getting a real perfect edge on something that thick because you know you can if it's 90 their absolute best that they can do to get to 95 requires two times more you know the length of time that you've already spent on it to get to 97.5 requires four times the amount of time and just like to try and get you know closer to 100 you're spending so much time it would just be impossible to do it must be a nightmare knowing that you could just put leather over the top of it with no problem at all and it would even look better but they've got to keep doing this edge painting thing okay nice i'm ready for part two of the watchtrap course good i'm glad you're looking forward to it thanks looking forward to part two with the turndev watch strap oh good uh what type of leather do you use as a watch strap lining i do ex go into different things that you can use in the course which i don't have time for now but there are a lot of different things that you can use but there are definitely leathers that you shouldn't be using to avoid the creasing when it goes around a curve on this one i'm using zermatt calf uh which is uh by tanneries or i don't know how you pronounce it hearts i think it is which doesn't sound french sounds dutch but anyway um yeah it's uh zermatt's calf it's designed for watch straps because one of the issues with watch straps is you can't really use chrome tan leather because some people are to have an allergic reaction to it now zermatt is is chrome and vegetable tan but they treat it so that it's hypoallergenic so it's you know one of those special things but there are leathers are just as good if not better that are widely available but i explain that more in the course itself holland leathercraft watchtop lining zermatt yes that's the one which is i believe named after a mountain is it in switzerland zermatt or am i tripping i think it's switzerland i can envision it because i know i've been there all right so uh moving on from the turned edge watch strap the pros and cons okay so the next question is the pros and cons of wallet jigs why you should or shouldn't buy one so the pros and cons of wallet jigs and why you should or shouldn't buy one okay so for those of you who don't know what a wallet jig is essentially a wallet jig is like a gingerbread house for whatever better words if you've ever seen those gingerbread houses at christmas uh christmas time it's like that so it's like a roof like a wooden roof so it's two planks essentially at 45 degrees with the corner running across the top it's usually rounded okay and the idea is when you create a wallet you have two parts so you have the lining the internal part and the external if you just glue them together on a flat okay so the the internal the external glue together on a flat when you come to use the wallet you don't use the wallet fully open all the time okay you close the wallet obviously when you put your cash and your cards on the inside you close the wallet long wallet double card holder uh you know bi-fold etc that's the kind of thing i'm talking about when you fold it in in half to put it in your pocket if you have a glue a wallet that glued on the flat you have all these creases down the middle so when you open the wallet again you'll see all these crease lines you call it rocking in the industry but it's just creases on the inside and one of the benefits of gluing these two parts on that 45 degree angle is because it's half open and half closed isn't it 45 degrees it's not 180 degrees when it's fully open or zero where it's fully closed it's you know that halfway in between so or 90 degrees essentially would be wouldn't it um it's that halfway point so that is essentially what they're for and one of the main pros which you've asked here the pros and cons of wallet jigs why you shouldn't or shouldn't so we're starting with the way you should is it helps to keep that center fold linear running down the wallet so if you try to get two parts and glue them on a fold with your fingers you know it just wouldn't be very consistent so the idea of one of these jigs is it keeps that fold line from the you know the center of one side to the center of the other so you have that perfect fold so it helps to keep things a bit more accurate another pro that i've written down is it's easier to tape down on a lining so if you struggle getting the external on with covered in glue and the internal lining covered in glue and you know you need to move things around what you can do is create a lining that's oversized so you can tape down the edges and then it's stuck down and it's you know on that curve and it's not moving and then you can take your time putting the external over before you flatten it down and glue it in place whether you're using pva or whether you're using a contact adhesive of some kind now so those are the pros it helps to keep the center line linear it's easier to tape down the lining but one of the cons is that not all folds should be set at 45 degrees so if you have a particular soft wallet sometimes it's better it's instead of 90 keep saying 45 90 degrees if you have it set at 90 degrees sometimes it's better on a softer wallet to have a steeper angle okay even like this and the reason is sometimes on a soft wall it could be difficult to get the cards out okay especially if the cars are coming out sideways so if you have a wallet so this is wallet this isn't the jig this is my fingers are a wallet right now and it's folded down the center if it's glued on an extreme fold it wants to resist that fold so when you open out like that it doesn't want to fully open and what that does is it kind of pushes the lip of the cards out a lot which makes them easier to extract this kind of thing is is what you find out from prototyping a lot where you create a wallet from a particular type of leather or a particular design with particular dimensions and you go i'm really struggling to pull the cards out on the sideways slots that's quite difficult how can i tackle that and you know how can i change that and sometimes as simple as gluing on a more extreme curve to make them stick out a little bit more it's it's something that i i demonstrate in the stingray card holder course okay so that's one of the courses that i have is how not only how to work with stingray how to stitch stingray which is like doing the impossible but elegantly but how to stitch it but also i demonstrate how to glue at the correct angle using those types of skins so that you can extract cards easily and i go into much greater depth on how to do that on there so that's something to check out so not all folds should be at 45 degrees another another thing to note is another con is as far as i know i haven't gone looking and i haven't come across it but not all jigs are adjustable so if you want something that's glued on 90 degrees that's great but if you want it glued a different angle more acute or closer to flat then it doesn't really offer adjustment they might be out there i'm not sure so but as far as i know they're not widely available as an adjustable size so moving on tips on using different types of leather in the same project and how to integrate non-leather now i have gone into a little bit of this on some of my other q a so i won't go too in depth on that because it's i've said it more than once but using different types of leather on different projects an example would be like the de havilland travel bag and i've talked about that many times because it's actually a good example to to work from when explaining things but there are certain parts of that project that where i use vegetable tan leather and there are certain parts of the project where i use chrome tan leather and that is because some parts need to be firmer and some parts need to be softer so for example the zip i have on the outside of the zip i have a reinforcement of leather so it's stiffer which means if i try and pull on the zip and it starts binding a little bit or it gets a little bit more worn out or for whatever reason there's a little bit more stiffness um instead of the soft leather just kind of like moving with the zip as i'm pulling it because it's flanked by something that's firm and holding steady it allows it to to move more freely and feels a little bit more smooth that's why whenever i'm making something with a zip i like to have something surrounding it a technique or you know some kind of stiffener reinforcement that i've employed to make sure that that zip runs nice and smooth if it's too soft and and floppy then it should be easy for the zip to catch and you know it's uh it's not smooth it doesn't feel as nice so that area will be vegetable tan leather the handles are vegetable tan leather so you know they have that uh you know much more meaty feel in the hand as it were so it molds to the hand it feels more solid over time it's going to feel better in the hands so the more you use it the better it will feel because it starts to take the shape of your hand and how you hold it and how you handle it whereas chrome town leather doesn't really have that benefit so much so that's something to uh to be aware of as well but the external part of the bag where it's been flipped inside out i've used chrome town leather because it's more forgiving for being flipped without having too many creases in the corners especially the lining on the inside is chrome tan leather because you want something soft and that feels luxurious on the inside the lining of the pocket again is chrome 10 leather for the same reason very strong very abrasion resistant so there's benefits to that as well so tips on using different types of leather another one would be don't try and necessarily always try and have different colors so you might use different kinds of leather from a different animal for example or a different tannage different types of of tanning but you could play around with having you know a heavy texture on one part and a smooth texture on the other part even though the colors are matching or monochromatic so uh you know play around a little bit more with with with texture to add contrast rather than just color which is a bit more obvious and it just adds something to the design that i think is um you know it's a little detail that just kind of stands out now if you do want to know more information about playing around colors i have a blog obviously it's free you can go and check it out right now and i'll link it below in fact where i talk about how to match colors properly now in the industry there really hasn't been anything um about what colors work well with other colors um how to match different shades and different tones different hues saturation there hasn't been really anything in depth on that or anything that i could ever find there's been you know quite a bit about it in in style in fashion in art but there really hasn't been a transfer to leathercroft so i did a blog created a blog for you guys so that if you want to go outside the box a little bit with colors so if you're tired of using the kind of like browns tans natural undyed and black which is probably 80 to 90 percent of what you see in leathercraft and you want to not just go with the green wallet but you want to play around with other colors as well like green and red in the same wallet but you don't want it to look like a christmas tree how do you adjust it so that the colors work together and there's all sorts of things you know it's quite an in-depth read but i definitely recommend you look at it because even if you think to yourself i don't need any anybody telling me what colors to work with i do what i feel is right sometimes it's better to kind of understand the rules and as i mentioned earlier understand the rules before you break them so at least you're educated on what works so you can go the complete opposite if you know what i mean rather than you put something together that nearly worked but it's like it's like photography if you take a sideways shot it looks really dynamic like something's moving like this action but if you make it very slightly off it just looks like you can't take a picture and it's a little bit like that when choosing colors if you go for something completely wacky and strange you know that it was purposely built into the design whereas if you do something that's just slightly off it just likes yeah doesn't really work so knowing what works so you can break those rules or you can follow them is really up to you on color matching what works well with what what doesn't work with what colors don't work well together so go and check that out so that's tips on using different colors and the same projects so the next one is ideal lighting setup for pricking irons interesting one i did talk about this in another blog building up these blogs now it's a lot of these questions like it's in the blog but this is one uh one of them in the blog in i think it's called are you making these five prick nine mistakes i actually mentioned it in the previous q a remember that so uh i have a pricker nine here now if you're right-handed and i'm right-handed okay so this is my right hand if you're right-handed ideally you want light coming from all around you so right now i have light coming from above in front of me from here from here from all different directions so it's great okay but your main light your strongest light should be kind of the one or two o'clock position on your right so if you're right-handed the one or two o'clock position so in front of you slightly to your right this is your leather edge this is all your way all your leather is say this is your panel right now if there's light coming in from this side i can see all the teeth all the prongs on the pricking line but the shadow of the pricking line is going this way this way away from the line right behind it which i'm following so i could be following the crease line that i've put in i could be following the line that i've put in with the wing dividers if they're like if the light is straight ahead where you are it's casting a shadow that comes out over the line that i'm trying to follow so i can't see it properly which means i could go off very easily so if you're the light if i turn it this way so the light is hitting here i can see that the shadow is coming this way and i can see the line that i'm following clearly if you're left-handed you turn the piece of leather around you've got your edge here got all your leather over there the light now is coming from the 10 to 11 o'clock position okay so that kind of air sorry in front to my left so i can clearly see it the rule of thumb is can you see the prongs can you see the line that you're following if the answer to that is yes you've got the lighting correct okay so it depends on how complex you want to go so if you're right-handed catch light the main light from the one to two o'clock position if you're left-handed the 10 to 11 o'clock position so last question now um why do you think the terren handbag has been so popular this is a really great great question and it's something that i've noticed too and i think there's a number of reasons but this these are my thoughts so the terrain handbag for those of you who don't know um was a course that i recently came out with to help people to understand how to create a luxury handbag how to install gussets how to install a bag base how to install a lining uh how to install a zip tubular handles uh reinforcements where to use them stitching everything's included it's a multi-part course um it's you know by far the best course like the best response from students at the moment in fact there's so many people that have actually successfully made it that i started putting up all the people who have made it and now it's just getting more and more numerous my feed on instagram would just be all student success stories which would be wonderful but nobody would know what i do for a living really it would just be other people's handbags so i've had to stop doing that but it has been very successful a number of reasons one i i think i'll give myself some props here i think i'm i'm trying to get more and more feedback from students all the time i'm always trying to learn always trying to improve that's something that's kind of inbuilt into me and and why i've kind of done well with leathercraft in general is i'm never satisfied i'm always but i'm happy being unsatisfied i'm happy but unsatisfied and that dissatisfaction always gets me trying to improve so i'm always trying to make it better so that i can take what i know and then transfer that to the student's mind with the least loss of information possible so that's the kind of lenses that i view everything through when creating courses i want to make sure that i can transfer skills effectively through a camera without actually having to be there so that the person that who's receiving the information understands it processes it and is able to then use that information to successfully complete a bag so i'm always looking for student feedback were you know what they liked what they didn't like about it what they thought was great what what they thought they you know i could do to make it a better experience for them it's something that i'm always trying to work on and i enjoy doing that i enjoy like trying to incrementally improve constantly uh whether it's you know the videography whether it's lighting whether it's explanations whether it's the sequences i'm always trying to look at what i'm doing with if i was a student what questions would i have in my mind right now and then aim to answer those questions how can i do it without over explaining and boring people and how can i do it without being too brief that they don't fully understand and grasp so there's always that fine balance so that you know it's incrementally better courses but um something that i built into the design was a little bit more forgiveness i wanted this to be that beautiful classic clean line bag very elegant very sleek which really had that that finesse that could hold the title of a luxury handbag and that other people even if they didn't have a lot of experience maybe they've only made a card holder or a wallet that they could make and what i did was create a design that could add a little bit more forgiveness and what do i mean by forgiveness well if the gusset was five millimeters too high and you cut it wrong it would still work if it was a few millimeters too wide it would still work uh if the panels were too high it would still work if you made the panels and the the base a couple of millimeters too wide it would still work the flaps at the top the handles the attachments it would still work and you probably wouldn't be able to to tell you might find out afterwards by measuring it but it would be very difficult to tell and that kind of forgiveness built into the design has allowed more people to be able to do it and it's not giving people a false sense of craftsmanship and where their levels are actually out and they go and make that and then they can't replicate it because the amount that you're going to learn by going from step one to finally cleaning and polishing the bag and then presenting it to the world or yourself or a friend or a customer and the amount that you're going to know at the end of it you're not going to be the same person you were at the beginning of the journey like you're going to you're going to go through a series of things but i take you through it step by step explaining every single process if there's something you're familiar with you can skip ahead but there's a lot of new things in there new techniques for stitching the gussets in for example so the stitches on the inside exactly match the stitches on the outside you can't tell which one is the face side which one is the rear side so there's been some new techniques and new developments i've actually integrated in there but in a way that people can understand and replicate and it's still blown me away the the level of skill that some of these some of my students have had um where they've come from and where they are now after the terrain handbag is absolutely incredible it blows me away um but another one outside of the forgiveness of the design is the pdf template so in some of my earlier courses like the de havilland travel bag i actually teach how to make the pattern so you can then take those design elements of pattern making and then take what you've come up with your own uh designs in your mind and then use the pattern making skills so i've actually taught that for the de havilland travel bag so it doesn't come with a pdf my idea behind that was to teach people the pattern making side of things if i just supply pdfs on every course then people just become reliant so i want people to be a bit more self-reliant in that sense so they can literally make their visions come to life but in this course to simplify things and to allow people who previously wouldn't be able to do that to make this bag uh and and elevate themselves i created a pdf pattern they can print out paste it onto card cut it out and then just cut out your templates from that so it even though the design is very forgiving it just it's a lot more difficult to get wrong when you have the pattern that you can print out as well but people have successfully shrunk down the pattern on their printing machine like printed a half size and made these little mini bags it's just so cool that's uh yeah it really surprised me like how people have really made the design their own and they've still managed to finish it and complete it without any issues and it's uh it's good design but that concludes the q a session guys thank you for listening in now remember if you want to get your questions in for next month don't forget to follow me on instagram at leathercraftmasterclass turn on your notifications for live so that when i go live you get a little dingaling so that you know that i've gone live but also the day before i start collecting all the questions that people have all the burning questions that they've been holding onto in their mind they can just throw them at me and then you know i can bring them into here i usually select around 10 and obviously as you've seen i'm doing some live questions as well so that i can talk to people in real time but you can be one of those people in real time uh by following me on instagram and don't forget there will be an audio version of this where i can talk to you in your ear rolls and whisper sweet nothings about leather crap okay so don't forget there is that now on leathercraftmastclass.com right now is a guide on how to select leather and how to buy tools correctly so there's a video course on how to select the best leathers for you so that you know what to choose from through a series of different tests that i'm going to teach you how to do so that you can get samples of leather do your tests and then you can make your decisions before you even have to park with your money so the idea is to give you this information to educate you on what to look out for what to avoid tannery tricks all that kind of thing get your samples in do your tests and then you can go i like this leather it passed all the tests i can then buy that so it just saves you so much money because there's nothing worse than buying expensive leather and it turns out to be absolute rubbish it does happen the other is the tool buyer's guide which is 20 page article which teaches you what tools you need as well as what tools you've done so again it's a money saving technique is to go through the tool buyers guide 20 page article and depending on where you are beginner intermediate or advanced you know which tools you're going to need so that you can get started and if you want to elevate your techniques and you want to go from basic leather work to luxury leather goods then i have a series of courses for you on leathercraftmasterclass.com linked below where we start with the techniques on hand stitching skiving sharpening edge finishing edge paint burnishing and all different techniques then we move on to the smaller projects intermediate and more advanced so you can then grow with the master class at the same time and elevate your skills so if you want to go from basic to advanced and learn in hours what some people take years to understand then the leathercraft masterclass courses are exactly what you need so don't forget to like subscribe and i will see you again next month same time thank you for watching and i'll see you soon

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Show Notes: Hello and welcome to the leathercraft masterclass with me phil and in this question and answer session i'm going to be tackling all the followers questions sent through on instagram stories and there is a fresh batch of 10 questions today and i'm also going to be going live on instagram right now so if you're not on instagram or you're not following me on instagram at leathercraftmasterclass so there's always fresh content on there that's not on youtube so make sure you follow me on instagram as well and that is where you will catch me live as well so this is pre-recorded obviously but if you do want to follow me live then leathercraftmasterclass on instagram now right now there's a free course that you can get on how to select the correct leather there's also a 20 page tool list which will help you to decide what tools you need and what tools you don't depending on where you are in your journey so click the little icon above go to leathercraftmasterclass.com sign up and i'm going to send you absolutely free a free video and a free 20-page tool guide absolutely indispensable stuff guys so make sure you have that now i'm going to be going live on instagram so if i do get any live questions i'm going to be tackling them as well but i have a list of 10 questions right here so let's get started cool all right lots of people joining 53 people already okay that's pretty good so starting with question number one so i've printed it out this time i've also bullet pointed my answers so i guess they're a little less impromptu than i've done before question number one starting at the top is what projects should i tackle to make me a better craftsman now i actually like this question this is a question i don't think i've had before but i was actually talking to someone on instagram dms today who was asking me about what straps specifically and getting started in what straps how long it takes to make and that kind of thing and one thing i did mention and one thing i've said in the past before is i've always thought that watchtrap making really is one of those projects that will up your game you're never quite the same craftsman or cross person or craftsman technically as uh male or female as like human so craftsman it's everybody uh it makes you a better craftsman because you focus so much on the on the details and everything's so much smaller it's a lot more fiddly to make a watch strap but it's one of those projects that really kind of makes you focus on being accurate with your work because let's say for example you make a large bag and you want it to be 612 millimeters long okay if you make it and you flip it inside out and you know you've got your piping and you've hammered everything down and your seams look great you've made it and you've put it on your table instead of 612 it's 613 millimeters you know one millimeter it's not really going to make any difference to the functionality of the bag the look of the bag it doesn't really make a lot of difference but if you're a millimeter out on a watch trap then you know especially a width of a watch strap either it's not going to fit or it's going to be completely loose it has to be accurate and if you're if your seam on your watch strap is a millimeter out it will be all you can see or you can notice it will just every time you look at it something's wrong if you make a slight mistake with you know going around putting your crease on there with your creaser and you slip off it's all you'll ever see so it's one of those things that really makes you slow down and focus on the details so in answering your question what project should i tackle to make me a better craftsman i would say watch straps is definitely up there another one i would say is bag making and the reason i say bag making is it's when you go from small projects watch wraps included watch wraps wallets key chains pouches and any kind of kind of small to medium sized pocket pen pouch which is available on instagram tv guys if you want to watch that. All these small projects are absolutely fantastic but when you start going into the larger bags you start tackling something which you didn't really have to think about before and that is is larger scale pre like construction construction is probably how i think about it because you know you've got to tackle things on a much larger scale you have to have a base like a foundation of a house you have the panels of the walls the zip the doors you know you've got pockets on the inside you've got attachments you've got handles you've got bag feet you've got all these different things you've got linings you've got reinforcements and stuff that you haven't really had to think about up until now so bag making is definitely going to challenge your brain and takes you out of your comfort zone especially if you're used to making small scale items so bag making really gets you thinking bigger and a little bit more about the overall build of something the last thing that i've written down is hard sided cases and yes it does come under construction a little bit but it kind of blends the accuracy of watch strap making and the construction of large bags because when you're making a hard sided case like an attache case a trunk a jewelry case things like that if you're out by a millimeter that means the case doesn't close so you have to be constantly thinking about allowances for your seam allowances for the lining allowances for the hinge mechanism and the lock it gets you thinking a lot more moves ahead so i liken hard sided case making to chess you can't just think about what you're making right now you have to be thinking several moves ahead if i do this now will i be able to do that afterwards if i install the locks now will i be able to get the lining on if i get the lining on now will i be able to stitch in the hinge if i stitch in the hinge now will i be able to get the feet on and you have to be thinking several moves in advance in order to kind of tackle that so what project should i tackle to make me a better craftsman the answer would be watch straps for detail bag making for overall construction and hard sided cases to make you start thinking several moves ahead like a good craftsman can so those are the three things that i recommend all right just making sure a lot of people saying hello and hi i know i've missed questions that have gone up sorry guys i will do my absolute best okay so question number two uh can you talk or provide tips on improving the back side of the stitch okay so just so that you guys know what this person is asking me uh which is the front which is the back uh i think that's a good problem to have at the out so that's the front of the stitches sorry these are gray stitches on black so i know if you can see them and there's the back so if you guys are fix focus i don't know why i'm doing that this is a little pen pouch now this is thin leather we'll be working with an overall of two and a half millimeters there or something like that thinner leather is generally going to have you stitching a little bit neater thicker leather is going to provide you with a little bit more of a challenge when it comes to a neat back stitches on the rear side because the thicker the leather the more chance your pricking iron or your awl has to go off think of it like a rifleman shooting at a range and he's pointing at a target 200 yards downrange if he's off by half a degree on his sights that means he's not even hitting the target down range but if you bring that target to 10 yards in front of him it might be half an inch to the right okay so the further the the target is the more you're going to be off if you're slightly off at the at the rifle itself and the same is when you're going through thick leather if you're slightly off at the top your pricking iron is at an angle it's really off on the rear side same with your all as you're penetrating through so consistency of all use and consistency of pricking iron use is definitely something that i recommend you working on which means if you're using an awl you want to make sure that if you're always using a stitching pony don't keep switching from a stitching pony to saddler's clams and if you're stitching saddler's clamps upright you know don't keep switching between upright and an angle try and find a preference and keep it as consistent as you can if you keep changing variables you're going to notice a difference especially on the rear side because you're coming in at a different angle because you're kind of retraining your brain every truck every time you change something that you do another thing is when you're if say for example you're not using an awl let's get a piece of leather here a bit small but here we go if you have a pricking iron and you have a flat piece of leather your pricking iron should be always vertical okay if it's not if it's very slightly out the rear side is going to be affected okay and the thicker the leather the worse it is so you always want to make sure let's get a pricking line so you can actually see what's going on i wish we had number six and a mallet

all right so taking a seat again if your pricking iron is very slightly off to one side it's going to make a profound difference on the rear but not only that sometimes and it's very difficult to notice because you probably need a high speed camera when you have your pricking iron very close to the edge okay if i press down firmly now you can't really see it if i was to hit that you would notice on a high speed camera that this side of the leather would actually come up okay so it would come up on impact and because the leather comes up and the pricking line is going straight down that means it's going to come out on the rear side a slightly different angle so you might be going in two millimeters from the edge but on the rear side it's right next to the edge or maybe one millimeter away so that's something to be aware of now i have done a blog or i think it's called are you making these five are you making these seven bricking eye mistakes uh i wrote it some time ago now so if you go on to leathercraftmasterclass.com click on blog and scroll down and you'll see it and it just kind of goes into detail of all the different mistakes you can possibly make even as far as if you're not hitting straight down with the mallet and you're hitting slightly at an angle it's very difficult to tell sometimes but on striking it moves the pricking iron across and again it can cause an issue and if you're not doing everything consistently and you're changing the way you do things all the time you look at the rear stitches and you're wondering why why it's going wrong why it doesn't look as neat as it could do and sometimes it's not your stitching technique that you're you know you're using the wrong technique is the foundation and the accuracy in which you began the stitches from using the pricking iron to using the all to how you're stitching it to being consistent makes such a big difference so it's something to uh to focus on but yeah check out that blog that i did absolutely free guys obviously um another thing going too close to the edge avoid making a stitch too close to the edge which causes the pricking iron to travel sideways okay because there's more mass on one side and not enough on the other so it will go it'll follow the path of least resistance and that's another another problem right

the old design says that happened to me

they said what about a hand press are you talking about when you chuck one of these into like an arbor press if that's what you're referring to that can be very accurate it's a little bit more challenging going around corners but i guess you can switch to a two-tooth by hand but yeah i do know a lot of people that do that quite successfully using an arbor press and pressing the pricking line through that keeps things consistent but you always want to make sure it's again it's not too close to the edge because the pricking iron wants to go towards the edge but it can't because it's in a press and it means the leather wants to move backwards so you've got to push it against the stop it's a little bit more complex but yeah it can be quite successful especially if you uh if you're an apartment dweller and you can't make too much noise because of the neighbors and it's something to consider okay so that's question number two uh question number three now question number three was uh an older question from a few months back uh you promised somebody that i would tackle the question back then because i didn't have time what do you think of copying famous brands or other people's work what do you think of copying famous brands or other people's work um

copying other people's work is is definitely a no-no to me um it's not fair and it shows i want to be polite but there's no better way of saying it shows a lack of imagination if you're copying other people's work especially other individual artisans out there if you're directly copying their work it's not something i would advise because you learn so much more by trying to come up with your own ideas and you won't always get it right and that's absolutely fine because there's so much to learn from getting it wrong and as long as you you can accept that then you know trying to come up with your own designs i'd rather people paid a designer i don't think there's anything wrong with going online and you can pay designers to design bags and leather goods for you there's a a terrible stigma i think in the leathercraft community that you absolutely have to design everything yourself and i think that's false because no one's gonna have a go a i don't know an Hermes craftsman or a Dunhill craftsmen because he didn't or she didn't design the case or the bag that they're currently working on no one would ever think of insulting them saying you know that works crap because you didn't design it of course you didn't design it was designed 50 years ago that's just what they do for a living but somehow just because you make leather goods by hand you have to be some kind of whiz-bang designer and you've also got to be a good salesperson and you've also got to be good at making your own website you've also got to be good at customer customer services and you've also got to be you know there's so many things that it's sometimes better to delegate a particular thing to a professional and i think there's nothing wrong with people who go to a professional designer and pay them to design their leather goods that they can then make by hand and make their patterns it's a thing personally i enjoy that part of the process so i don't do that but it's just because i like designing i like coming up with my own creations i'm a creative person naturally so it's a good outlet for me but if it wasn't and i just love the craft i love the the techniques and the craftsmanship and and designing wasn't my thing i'd outsource absolutely i don't think there's anything wrong with that because it's not copying you're having something made by someone who just specializes in that and if you're a great craftsman and they're a great designer you're going to have a better product than if you just had a go at designing so i think that that's one stigma that i wish would just die in the leathercraft community is that you you absolutely have to design everything yourself um but but copying someone and trying to make their same product without their permission i think is is an insulting thing to do it's not flattery it really isn't uh it's not something i would advise but saying that uh taking inspiration is something very different now for example i've made an attache case before that case design that style has been going over 100 years well over 100 years i'm not the first person to make a belt i'm not the first person to make a watch strap i'm not the first person to make rolled handles that's been done for a long time so it's you know we take other people's ideas and then adapt them and that's the whole idea of the leathercraft master class courses that i produce is you take my techniques the way i do things and then you can adapt it and try and improve on it or change it the to make it more yours you know it's like you can take that and then make this so you kind of own that technique now and that's the idea behind everything that i do is teaching people to do something and then take it their own direction i think that's wonderful but you know a direct copy i don't think is a good idea but taking inspiration absolutely and if you're not sure ask the person i really love the way you did this would you be insulted if i did my version of it i love the technique i've seen how you've done it i'd like to adapt it my way but you know i don't want to make it obvious that i've copied you how do you feel about that nine times out of ten people are going to say is absolutely fine and you can do it with their blessing and it just takes a dm just to ask them so i don't think it's a bad thing now uh copying famous brands that's not so bad because you're not directly impacting an individual but i i think i still i mean i could i could never do it personally i don't have a good uh connection with things that aren't uh original it probably stems back from my youth actually you know what i'll i'll tell you i'll tell you a story my first experience with fakes okay and this is not an homage it's uh it's a fake okay this is my story and probably why i don't like copying or why i don't like fakes not that i talk about it very much but i remember growing up um came back i came from quite humble beginnings my dad worked for a roofing company my mom was a housewife and four kids in the family and so i i never really had anything designer i never had anything that was expensive and you know the nike jacket the reeboks uh you know i just didn't have that i mean i had food in my belly an education and a roof over my head so that you know puts me ahead of 90 of people in the world so i'm very grateful for that but we weren't affluent we didn't have a lot growing up so i didn't get any any kind of designer gear if you know what i mean but anyway my mum my older brother went on holiday once to visit relatives and they came back and while they they were gone they picked up some gifts so they came back they were presenting gifts they'd been to italy they crossed over on the board and they bought some stuff and i got given a gift i got given a bag and when i opened the bag inside was a levi's belt levi strauss belt and i had a thing for levi's always want a pair of levi's jeans they're too expensive but i just loved it so they bought me the belt and it was this this black belt had the levi's logo on it and it was tooled all the way along which was awesome i had a roller buckle on the end it was a silver roller buckle absolutely loved it and i just wore that all the time i tucked every t-shirt into my jeans through my supermarket jeans i had so i could put this levi's belt on the outside showing all my friends yeah check this out says levi's i wore that thing i was so proud i loved it i loved that bell i was the only like designer if levi's even designer it's the only designer thing i had only design anything that i owned and i remember one day my my sister said to me that logo is weird i said what do you mean she goes look i have a levi's t-shirt i don't know where she got it from and it was two horses and then they're like two shy horses and they're both being whipped in opposite directions and they're both attached by a rope or a chain to these levi's jeans and they're trying to pull them apart and they can't it was kind of a stunt that levi's had and became their logo that the horses couldn't pull the jeans apart because they were so tough and uh i remember looking at my belt and there was no jeans in the middle it was just like two shy horses and a tug of war against each other which was weird and then i looked at the official logo and i looked back and looked it suddenly dawned on me that this was a fake so my mom my brother picked it up a local market invented emilia in italy for probably nothing and it was nothing but a copy and i just felt so disheartened i felt so bad about the whole thing i just i felt it felt like i was lied to i was duped i was made a fool of because i telling everyone i got these levi's and it was just like this one thing that i had that i loved so much because it was the only designer thing that i had turned out to be a fake and ever since then i've just had this disdain for anything that's that's fake it's not real and homage even if a design is by a designer but it looks like something from another designer i just can't i can't so my association with things that are fake or copies is probably a little bit different to the average person because i got burned at a young age when my mind was developing perhaps i don't know but i just can't deal with folks so that is uh that is my story so what do i think of copying famous brands or other people's work i do not agree with it and i do not recommend it because it sends a message to you yourself as a craftsman more than anything else and that's more damaging okay so question number four okay so how to avoid edge paint from gathering to the ends or the center of a radius cut edge okay so i'll say that again how to avoid edge paint from gathering at the end or at the center of a radius cut edge now what does that person mean what do they mean okay so let's take this little stopwatch and as an example imagine this was just a cylinder of leather okay so just a circle of leather if you put edge paint around the sides here gravity is going to want to pull it right down to the bottom okay and if you put edge paint on the other side it's going to want to come down to the bottom any time that you have a curve in something is going to want to pull it to its lowest point okay so how do you get around that if you have an intricate shape perhaps you have the the top of a bag let's see hold on one second guys i'm going to get my bag over here now this is not edge paint

this is the bag that i walked here with today with all my camera equipment this is the de havilland travel bag i'm using this constantly now but to give you a more accurate example say that this wasn't piped on the edges and it was a cut edge okay so let's pretend it wasn't a flipped bag i put edge paint along the top when it comes to the side and i start edge painting down here it wants to drip down to the bottom curve okay and if i turn it this way it want to drip and it it's constantly following gravity so the first two obvious ways of dealing with that is try if you can when you have an intricate design where the edge paint can flow try and use thinner edge paint okay as or apply less is which is what i'm trying to say so don't apply a big dollop of edge paint so that it wants to drip try and put a small amount of edge paint on there and then pull it along the edge okay that's all you have to do to make it thinner now another way of tackling that is to thicken up the edge paint so uniter's edge paint for example comes with or doesn't come with but they do provide a thickener where you can add between one and three percent to thicken the edge paint okay so the more you apply the thicker it becomes not to the point where it's like putting gel on the edge it still needs to flow so that it can self level but it just thickens it up so that by the time it does start migrating it's starting to dry on the surface and it's it's formed a skin on the surface which should hold it in as it dries nicely so thinner layers but also using edge paint that's generally thicker another one that i've noted down is which is much easier really if it's possible if your design isn't too intricate is if you have a curve and you've edge painted it if you let it dry it'll just want to fall to the bottom and perhaps even drip off but if you turn it to its side then it hasn't got any point that it drops off it might kind of dry a little bit more to one side but once you've sanded it and applied a second layer you can let it dry this way and alternate and uh and come up with something that's going to be a bit more smooth so if you can let it dry on its side especially if you're using a thinner amount or a smaller amount and you've thickened it too then you're probably not going to have too much of a pro okay so we're definitely over half an hour so we're okay so have you ever made your own improvised tools if so what were they and why okay so have you ever made your own improvised tools if so what were they and why now improvise kind of means off the cuff as you were in the middle of something quickly make something as an improvised tool not really um i've made tools but not improvised to well i guess something like this which is what i use sometimes for edge paint if i need to apply it more like for a long seam or something or a thick edge this holds quite a bit this is just a bamboo skewer and i've just wrapped a linen thread around one end so i can grip it properly and i rub it with beeswax put it over a flame and the beeswax melts in and waxes the wood that way i can just wipe edge paint off very easily so it's like a non-stick uh i guess you could say that's improvised other tools that i've made

this one here so this is uh actually adapted from a pre-made all that i've reshaped taken off the end put in a collet so i can actually undo it and then take out he says i can actually take out the all blade and then change it for another one why did i do it as the question is asking so that i can use anything from one millimeter all blades for really really intricate stitching like the recent um leather wrapped belt course i produced all the way up to the trunk handle that i've made which is a three millimeter wide all blade so it becomes more modular becomes more adaptable uh what else have i made i made this which is a skivving knife why did i make it i like the 50 degree angle which is very uncommon i find it the best for the way i skive i like having a thin skiving knife that way i can get nice and low it's made of high speed steel which is a really really good steel about a 61 rockwell 16 162 i think this is and i like having a 13 degree angle gives a really nice clean and in this kind of steel long lasting edge so i couldn't find anything especially not with a nice wrap on the handle which is goat skin i couldn't find anything uh that fit my needs as well as that and it's now my favorite skivving knife because it's made for me by me so uh yeah so improvised perhaps not but yeah i do like to make my own tools i mean i made my previous workshop i made this table that we're on which is there's two of them is an eight foot by four foot two of those there's one in the corner for the hot foil and skiving machine so i made those as well so i kind of like i like making things that are custom for me uh rather than kind of like you know most things i will buy but there's a lot of things i i'm very particular about so i'll make them myself

leather says i use untreated vegetarian for a lot of my products i just dye it whatever color and then hit it with tallow bomb what your thoughts on that um yeah i mean it's absolutely fine it's definitely a more economical way of making leather goods if you can uh buy undyed untreated veg tan and then diet and treat it yourself then you can you know especially if you want a really custom color or perhaps you want to apply a patina or especially if you want to tool the leather then absolutely that's a good way of doing it to be honest with you though nothing will ever beat the dye and finish that comes from well tanned leather at the factory especially a dye that goes all the way through the leather because you know if it ever gets a deep scratch it's still the same color underneath so struck through leather so there are there are pros and cons i mean you've got more creative freedom when you do it yourself but it also takes more time and sometimes it can make the leather stiff and inflexible because it hasn't been part of the tanning process it's something that's done afterwards especially with alcohol dyes so there are pros and cons but if it works for you then absolutely keep doing it personally if i have a choice i would rather is the color that i want from the tannery um rather than having to do it myself it's a lot less messy first of all but yeah it really depends on whether it's working for you or not if you're struggling with it then you know perhaps uh consider working with uh pre-dyed pre-finished leathers what's your thoughts on novo nova napa leather is it worth it uh it's very good i mean uh nova napa i've got a bit of a brain file that's uh what amez called uh berenia right which comes under many names i don't know why but yeah i mean it's a combination tanned leather struck through died through casts minor correction on the surface i believe so top grain uh semi-pigmented yeah i mean there's a lot of leathers that are just as good out there that aren't heard of especially from italy very very similar just as good i think it's it's got legendary uh status because it's it's used in uh in top end bags that people have heard of so it gets that reputation but is it the best not necessarily it's still very good absolutely

thank you so yeah no worries all right so improvised tools we've done that so we have one two three four five to go uh how to sharpen a round or oval punch now i do if you go on my instagram um if you scroll down you should see uh some images oh you can't really see them behind me you can kind of for you guys on instagram and for you guys on youtube these uh punches there i do have a post where i show me spinning the uh the round punches in a chuck in a drill press while i use a little bit of sandpaper fine grit sandpaper uh just to sharpen the sides and that just kind of like cleans out up the outside so we've got a nice uh sharp um hole punch to work with for oval punches i tend to add a little bit of permanent marker around the outside put it in a vise and then just use a needle file just to flatten the sides a little bit more because a lot of them come like you know the edges like that i like them a little bit lower so they go through the leather a bit easier i find that doing that in a vise just helps it should last a very long time it's not something you need to do very often it might be many many years before you need to really sharpen it i have seen sharpeners which are like a cone that goes on the inside i would avoid those at all cost the reason being the inside hole on a hole punch is not straight walled it actually tapers out like this so that as you your leather gets punched it goes through and it can fall out easily when you sharpen the inside with the cone you actually start doing this you put a bevel on the inside which means your leather is going to start getting stuck and it also cuts slightly larger so always attack it from the outside not the inside that would be my recommendation moving on to the next question

someone sent me a request to be in my video that's probably by accident i assume one of your top three favorite tools and why uh i i'm going to assume that you're talking about tools in general in this one rather than a specific brand or model my top three favorite alls and tools i've given it away now is an awl a pricking iron and a round knife it's not a lot you can't do with those three i mean it's like you're not gonna get far with just three tools but uh round knife you can know you can skive you can cut and do a lot and all i think is uh essential especially if you're gonna do uh intricate leather work uh fine luxury leather goods and things with thick leather i think it's a skill that a lot of people are afraid to to kind of tackle is he's using the all but i would say the all the pricking iron obviously because just makes life a lot easier and i love bricking eyes and i love collecting them especially the older ones so those are the main reasons because there's these all pricking iron and ram knife so universal you can do a lot with them and i just enjoy using them if i'm honest. Are you gonna save the live absolutely it's also on youtube by the way so you'll be able to watch it in hd uh how to build a following on instagram to sell to not just leather crafters okay so this is more for people out there who who are less into the hobby um and more into actually making leather goods to sell as a side hustle as a side business uh or maybe they're full time so this is kind of appealing to you if you're if you're there now or you're looking to advance your craft from a hobby to something that's making your money or at least paying for your tools and your leather and your time uh how to build a following on instagram to sell to not just other leather crafters that's a very difficult one because it's it's something you'll see in a lot in the craft community in general whether that be pottery whether that be sewing whether that be um you know watchmaking whether that be leathercraft there's so many different crafts out there and uh you know some of the top people you'll notice on their instagram account it's other people in that craft they want to know things that you know or they want to ask questions or they want to talk about the craftsmanship and sometimes that can put customers off a little bit so if you go on a leathercraft account and you see a lot of the the comments underneath are towards leather crafters what edge paint did you use what glue did you use and you're kind of communicating about that kind of thing it's unusual as a customer to read those comments uh because you're not really sh you know someone's saying you know in their mind how do you use a diebel schlube on your on your flube is that using the the round tick you know it's just like words that they're not like what is this i don't understand what's going on and people generally customers who are confused never buy if you can remember that customers who are confused they're not sure what's going on they're not they quite understand what's happening no thank you that's generally what happens that it's what happens to you it's what happens to me if we go on a website and we're looking to buy something we're just not quite sure yeah no it's it's a no from me um so you have to be very much aware of that if you're making an account and you're talking a lot about techniques you're showcasing a lot of your tools uh you're giving demonstrations on your craft and certain things that can be that can be helpful for actual real world living breathing customers but you have to remember that you're appealing to a demographic that isn't buying from you which is other leather crafters so you know my recommendations was don't make content that directly attracts other leather crafts people because it's not helping you and if you're doing this for a living and you're putting food on the table with your craft you know it's very nice to be able to share your craft with people but i wouldn't do it publicly i would probably dm people if they ask you a direct question and uh yeah so don't try and focus on content that attracts other leather crafters even if it makes a lot of likes a lot of follows and you get more people following your content just remember that 400 interested customers will outsell 50 000 other leather crafters all day every day and twice on sundays okay do not think that numbers likes follows subscribes correlate to income in any way shape or form i can guarantee you a lot of the the lowest uh viewed videos on my youtube have caused the most emails of interested customers compared to something that reaches a broad audience so you know try and try and kind of disengage from the idea that just because something gives you a lot more likes like a picture of your tools that doesn't really help customers understand what your products are and why it's for them so try not to make other uh content that just appeals to other leather crafters answer leathercrafter questions via dm and if you have too many leathercraft questions on your products that you're trying to sell to customers you know feel free to go in the dms and answer that person and then just remove the comment because you don't want to see of leathercraft comments uh what you want ideally as a customer to see is lots of people are also interested in buying that thing as well so you know you have to monitor what's going on there so i've also put create content that allows customers to visualize what it's like to own your product um so use your product in context if you've got a nice wallet that you've created go ahead and you know go to a cafe and take a picture of the wallet next to a coffee or a glass of wine or something like that or perhaps on a desk next to a computer and some other business things that kind of give people a visualization of where it would be used or perhaps you're about to pay for something in a restaurant and there's a picture of you using the wallet or whatever it is allow your customer to visualize what it would be like to own that item so they can kind of put themselves in your shoes you know and real like just close-ups of stitching and things like that doesn't quite hit that mark so you have to you have to think like a customer and again i've done a really good blog on this leathercraftmasterclass.com go to the blog section and there's an article uh i forget the name of it now you put me on the spot but it's a picture of like where's wally but a thousand wears wallies click on that one it's all about business and selling your craft so if you're interested in perhaps selling on the side then go ahead and give that a read

another thing i put if a customer okay for living breathing real customer comes onto your account and says something like hi there uh do you make this wallet in red what i wouldn't recommend i see all the time is hi there shoot me a dm why not make that public unless they're asking specifics about how much is it going to cost or price and things like that that's probably better done on dms but if you want to answer something like absolutely we have several different shades of red if you're interested dm me your email and i can email you a picture of all the different colors we have or yeah i'll absolutely what i'll do is put um some pictures of the different reds in my story right now and try and interact so other people can see because if if one customer asks a question there's likely 20 other people that probably also thinking the same thing or would also be interested in knowing so try not to make everything a secretive thing keep it public and if you can create an interaction between customers and yourself that shows other customers that other people are interested in as well and it kind of snowballs from there well that's the idea okay uh last two questions ed edge paint versus burnishing on veg tan edge paint versus burnishing on edge tan a veg tan now typically vegetable tan leather the acceptable edge the easiest edge is probably a burnished edge another option would be skiving the edge on your vegetarian and turning it so you have a turned edge

edge binding and all sorts of things that you can do but a lot of people don't go the route of using edge paint on vegetable tanned leather i'm not quite sure why because it can work rather well in certain circumstances edge paint was typically always used on chromed hand leather which is is probably where it's best but i think it really depends on what you're making i mean this is vegetable tanned leather and i've put edge paint on it and the reason i've put edge paint on it is because on the inside we've got chrome tanned goat skin so we'd have a layer on the outside of of vegetan calf on the other side vegetan cough and then you've got two layers of the lining on the inside which isn't going to burnish quite as well so in that case you know i've sanded the edge i've heated it to kind of level and iron the edge down and then i've put on a couple layers of edge paint on there because it's not going to burnish that great because of the lining that's on the inside of it so in that case it would work so i think it really depends on your design but if you want to make a product that's just all veg veg tan leather and you're comfortable um just using a bit of edge paint on there and that's your thing then absolutely i think with the right design it can look really nice all right and last question last question do you wax polyester thread like linen do you wax polyester synthetic thread like you do linen natural thread i would say yes i find that polyester thread stitches a little bit more behaves itself a little bit more with wax on it also makes the thread a little bit heavier so it hangs better as you're stitching it doesn't get in the way and caught up on on as many things and it stitches a little bit smoother it's not absolutely essential because uh synthetic leather synthetic threads like polyester especially long staple podies or continuous staple polyester um what's the word for that now there is a name for it that's gone um it you know it doesn't have any ends to it so it actually slips through the holes that you created with your pricking iron or your your all very well so it doesn't really need wax but i do find that you have an easier stitching experience when you're stitching with polyester thread that has been waxed now you can buy it waxed but realistically most of the time if you pull waxed uh polyester through your fingernail nothing will come off i think there a lot of them aren't actually waxed i think what they do is is put a little bit of some kind of synthetic silicon over the top of it to make it just make it feel a little bit more slippery i'd like i'd like to actually see if they do wax them because i can never see it on there even if you twist it the wrong way and make it open up you can't really see wax like you can on some linens uh cyrus hello number 1972 underscore london says hi phil on the 0.35 thread what size john james needles should you use i'd probably still use uh zero zero four something like that uh if you wanna go smaller you can but i don't think it's really necessary uh yeah i mean uh the vast majority of everything that i stitch is done with zero zero four john james and occasionally zero zero two like if i need the extra length but i've actually just done an instagram tv on on using different needles with thick thread so check that out but yeah i i probably would still use 04 yeah for sure uh right and ng design fr hello how are you doing i hope you're doing well nicholas so uh do you wax polyester thread like i do linen yeah i'll pull it through pull it through a block of beeswax absolutely uh before stitching uh jones how are we doing for time all right a little bit of time left how do you determine a good stitch spacing for different projects that i mean that's i don't think we really have time um tell you what on the next q a which is next month uh throw that in when you see the stories come up um so i can give you a bit of a longer run-up because we're literally running out of time here uh cyrus says you're the wizard thank you hello from india hello from england i love ritz a tiger thread brand yeah a lot of people do cool right so that's the end of the q a guys thanks for watching don't forget this is going to be on on youtube as well and also saved on instagram tv if you're not follow me on youtube just remember there's a lot of content that's going to be on youtube that's not necessarily on instagram and vice versa so if you're on youtube follow me on instagram if you're instagram follow me on youtube don't forget to like subscribe and if you like this video share with your friends or people that you think this video might benefit as well don't be selfish share it with your friends cool well if there are no more questions thank you very much for joining me guys and i will see you next q a session thanks a lot take it easy

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Questions in this Q&A session:

0:32 FREE guide offer.

2:43 How to sharpen an edge beveler.

9:34 The difference between a fully glued leather lining, and a lining only glued at the edges.

13:40 Pros and cons of re-tanned leather.

16:59 Is Tokonole good for chrome tanned leather edges?

17:52 Advice for using chrome tanned and vegetable tanned leather in the same project.

20:47 Do you plan on making a round leather box course?

22:29 What is a good size creaser to start with?

23:55 What do you think about leather alternatives? Vegan leather, beleaf etc.

26:14 What kind of handle do you advise for heavy things?

26:49 How do you eliminate pocket stretch when using leather for wallets or cardholders?

30:42 Overview of non-leather linings, canvas, silk, linen etc.

32:58 Do I need to buy a skiving machine?

33:58 How long did it take you to develop your skills to the level you wanted to work at?

36:08 How do you make leather waterproof? Does linseed oil work on leather?

38:39 What is the best lighting setup for a leather workshop besides sunlight?

43:54 What is the difference between handmade and craftsmanship?

46:14 How do you properly store leather hides to prevent mold (mould) growth and not lose the natural smell of leather?

50:57 Is there any leather that looks the same both sides?

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Show Notes: Hello and welcome to the leathercraft master class q a sessions with me phil and in this episode i'm going to be going through ten questions which is two more questions than last time all about leathercraft that you've sent me from instagram lives which reminds me if you're not following me on instagram at leathercraftmasterclass make sure you follow me there because there's loads of great content that you might be missing out of if you're only following me on youtube and also remember there's now a free guide for you guys which i will link up here and down here and with those two resources they're going to help you a lot with deciding on your leather and deciding what tools you need for your projects to give you the absolute best outcome possible now in this session i'm going to be asking 10 questions and those 10 questions are how to sharpen an edge beveler number one difference between fully glued leather linings and a lining glued at the edges pros and cons of re-tanned leather when to use it over chrome or vegetable tan advice on using chrome tan leather with vegetable tan leather in the same project so a combination which is cool what do you think about leather alternatives vegan leathers bee leaf etc overview of non leather linings canvas silk linen etc how long did it take you to develop your skills at the level you wanted to work at what is the best lighting setup for a workshop besides sunlight what is the difference between handmade and craftsmanship and how to properly store your hides to prevent mold growth and not lose the natural smell of leather very important there but i'm also going to be taking questions from instagram live so there might be a few popping up on there and also i'm going to be going probably on many different tangents talking about lots of different things so yes below on the timeline you can skip along to the question you want me to answer the most but don't forget to try and watch as much of it as you can because it's always there's always going to be something new for you to learn there and it's free advice which is the best kind really isn't it okay so without further ado i'm gonna go ahead and go live now on instagram and then we can get started on the questions all righty so yeah a lot of questions uh last week i've lost a week last month i'm doing this monthly now i did eight questions uh this time is a super ten questions so uh we can't be too slow about getting through it cool right so question and answers these are your questions a lot of them are multiples as in a lot of people ask the same thing or the same kind of thing so i'll be trying to cover as many of the questions as possible so what is question number one now question number one is how to sharpen an edge beveler how to sharpen an edge beveler now for those of you who don't know what's an edge beveler see if i can reach over and get one here a piece of leather luckily there is one there so an edge beveler is a small tool like this okay apologies for those of you who already know exactly what these are but it bevels an edge it's very a self-descriptive name so when would you want to bevel an edge you would bevel an edge on it on a belt in saddlery or anything that's going to get a high level of friction where things are going to be rubbing you don't want it to to catch or wear out prematurely by having a 90 degree sharp edge so this just knocks the edge off really really well now there's two types there's one which has a flat blade so when you take your corner of your leather and you just cut it off you end up with two more with two more corners essentially and then you have these convex or concave depending how you look at it but it's a concave edge which is a blade which is curved between two guides so essentially as you're going across your top edge it will become rounded it will curve it naturally all right so it helps you to do that just makes it easier to burnish as well so all you have to do is run it along your edge is it on frame there is not a frame there yes it is run it along an edge on one side turn it over do the same thing on the other side and there you have a rounded radiused edge and then you can go ahead and burnish it if you need to so the question is how do you sharpen one rather than what it is but for those of you who don't know how would you sharpen one my recommendation is make sure you check reviews on these i i i don't always insist on having super sharp tools out of the box a lot of people say the tool has to be sharp when i open the box it needs to be ready to go skivving knife should skive straight away a craft knife should cut leather straight away i don't mind putting my own edge on everything if it comes butter blunt i don't mind too much to be honest with you i think the skill to be able to sharpen is very important and sometimes when you buy these tools it gives you a good amount of practice time but these are one of the tools i think you should have very sharp out of the box because it's an absolute pain in the ass to sharpen them generally speaking the way i would do it is if you're using a concave edge beveler i would have uh a rod like a steel rod you can even use like a cocktail stick or a skewer depending on the size um but usually a steel rod that's slightly undersized okay so it doesn't quite match the concave blade then you can place a piece of sandpaper over the top and pull it back okay a few times and then you can go finer and finer and finer and that's going to give you a nice sharp edge which you can then start polishing by see if we can get it here just using a piece of thread okay so this is actually just a piece of string it's probably about one and a half millimeters this is a larger number two about 1.8 millimeter uh edge beveler and i've got some compound on here green compound and you just simply pull it through a few times and it's just polishing that blade and once you've got it polished it's going to last an incredibly long time before you really need to sharpen it again with the rod and sandpaper method so that's the way i normally do it but my advice would be to check reviews on your edge bevelers and try and go with a brand that really does get it sharp right out of the box that you don't have to go through that process because it is a bit of a pain and you want a polish on here you can't just use sandpaper to polish it and then to sharpen it and then expect it to work well if you're pushing a blade perpendicular to the line that you're cutting so you want a polish blade for that you can have little micro teeth on there for blades which you're cutting across leather with okay so for example uh oh it's over there my craft knife i can use let me get it for you otherwise you're not gonna be able to imagine what i'm talking about so i have a ceramic sharpening rod for this and this is about around 2000 grit and it doesn't put a polish on there

what it does is it puts a very micro not burr but um what's the word i'm looking for uh slightly toothy edge okay slightly toothy edge on there and that really digs into the leather and cuts through quickly because it's a pull cut a push cut where you're going straight through the leather another example would be a manual splitter okay so the blade is along here and you're pulling leather in this direction across it perpendicular that's where you would want a high polish you wouldn't want a toothy blade okay micro serration is the phrase i'm looking for run phil hurry back yes it didn't take me too long but yeah so this is a push cut okay so that's where you want something that's highly polished so you wouldn't want to just sharpen it on sandpaper you'd want to make sure that you pulled it through some string with compound okay string should be the similar size or slightly above than the dip or the convex edge on there okay so let's put that back in its place re-holster it lean back serrated edge yes yes serrations that's correct yeah i say this kind of stuff all the time as soon as that goes live and that camera is on it just just goes it just goes talking to which uh guys um it's okay quality on here on instagram tv so this live will be saved on ig tv on my instagram account it's okay quality it's like 480p 360 or something like that but it's also going to be on youtube in uh hd so uh you can go on there it's also got better sound quality as well because i've got the lav mic going and it's also gonna be for for both of you instagram and youtube's uh it's gonna be on a podcast as well so this audio gets taken from the video and goes on a podcast so you can listen to me whilst you're in the gym or driving cool right so that question is done how to sharpen an edge beveler try to avoid it at all costs or use the sandpaper and rod method next question the difference between fully glued leather lining and a lining that is only glued at the edges okay so in a lot of bags are my hands clean should i go and get a bag i don't know we'll see on uh depends how well i can explain it so on a on a bag that you've made if you want to make a high quality bag a high-end luxury bag is is almost universally lined with something on the inside that allows you to work with a different color it allows you more options with a pocket it also allows you to use firmer stiffer more durable leathers on the outside and then softer linings on the inside which gives a more of a sense of a luxury feel when you put your hand inside so there are a lot of different benefits to using a lining which gives a completely different feel to your product so what's the difference generally generally and this is more of an observation than anything else um on more masculine leather goods such as briefcases okay so uh more traditional saddle leather briefcases bridal leather briefcases attache cases which is the box case and more gentlemen's bags and accessories linings tend to be glued directly because it's it's firmer is generally more durable that way as well and then on more feminine leather goods and cases and bags handbags for example you tend to have a loose lining because it feels softer when you put your hand inside so if you have the same leather one is glued in on one side and one is only glued on the on the edges on the other side the side that's not fully glued in always feels softer because the leather yields okay it moves with your hand as you're moving your hand around and pulling your keys out i don't know but the the side that is glued in directly becomes stiffer inherently because it it takes on the stiffness of the leather that it's glued to all the reinforcement that is glued to um but if you glue in the lining fully you can't have a pocket on the inside of the lining so these zip pockets that you open on the inside and you put your stuff inside you can't do that at least not very well on a fully glued in lining what you then have to have is a hanging pocket or make use of dividers okay or adding partitions between them such as you would see on a traditional bridal leather brief briefcase so you would partition things off or you would have a hanging pocket which is just stitched in at the top so adding a lining adds softness it also adds the ability to add pockets which are more covert because they're on the inside of the lining and it generally makes it feel softer and also when you glue a lining direct to leather the whole thing the structure of the bag itself becomes inherently more stiff so that's another thing to bear in mind the lining essentially takes on the characteristics of something you would use as an interlining something you would use as a reinforcement so the whole thing becomes stiffer so that's mainly the difference you don't have to always glue it in it really depends on the design a lot of time on handbags i like to keep a loose lining along the panels on the base and then glue in a full gluing along the gussets i find that just after a long period of time gussets that are loose depending on the type of leather you're using can start to feel a little bit loose because they get a lot of uh they get pulled along a lot the lining can stretch more before the exterior leather and it just looks a little bit more worn out so i like to glue in gussets but again it really depends on the the the design itself atif says beautiful conversation hi from pakistan hello edith thank you for joining me so the difference between fully glued in leather lining and the lining that's only glued and glued at the edges depends on the function depends on what kind of pockets you want to use depends on the structure of the bag and also the style okay so the next question is moving on to the third question pros and cons of re-tanned leather when to use it over chrome and veg tan now the question is what is retan leather okay retail leather also called combination tanned leather is leather that has been through the two most common types of tanning which is vegetable tanning and chrome tanning so it will end up taking characteristics of both essentially it's uh it's a hybrid of the two so it will be firmer than most chrome tan leathers softer than most vegetable tan leathers more water resistant than most vegetable tan leathers and also more wear resistant and with a higher tensile strength than most vegetable tan leathers so it takes on the best and the worst of both types of leather it's used quite extensively in the shoe making industry i think that's probably where most retan leather goes is the shoe making industry because if you use pure chrome most pure chrome tan leathers can be too soft for making boots and shoes and things like that you wouldn't want to you know press the toe and it just completely dips in you want something that has a little bit of firmness but a pure vegetable tan leather shoe you need to condition it a little bit more often to prevent it from cracking so you know there are pros and cons and a retan is actually a great combination for shoe making but i'm not a professional shoe maker so i can't confirm those for sure when do i use it i i don't tend to use it very often most of the time i'll end up using you know chrome tan leather where i need to use chrome tan leather i want the softness i want the compressibility i want the ability to stretch such as a flipped bag which usually ends up looking better in chrome tan leather but in certain builds i will want pure vegetable tan leather so when would i use retand i've only ever bought it once or twice i'd it's it's not something that really appeals to me so when would you use it it's difficult to say it's probably where you want something that's going to be a bit more water resistant maybe you're making a soft sided briefcase and but you don't want it to be too structured you want it to have a vegetable tan leather look but not too stiff you know but you have to remember that there are chrome tan leathers that have been treated so that they're quite firm so they've been finished quite dense and they're they feel more like veg tan and there's some vegetarian leathers that have been had to have their fibers agitated and they feel really soft like chrome tan so there is a lot of overlapping there is not like every chrome tan is soft every vegetan is firm and every re-tan is somewhere in between there is a lot of blurring and blurring of the of the lines it depends on how it's been tanned it also depends on a lot on um the method that they've used to process that leather as well so the pros and cons of return leather it really depends i don't use it often enough to really have a strong opinion on it to be honest okay so how are we doing i'm there uh so we've got a question here m.a dinster says is token all good for chrometan leather edges it is possible to get a half decent burnish or what seems to be a burnish on on certain types of retand or firm vegetable tanned leathers and firm chrome town leathers it is possible you're never going to get it like uh to look like a veg tan leather edge but token yeah i i have used it to be fair on certain chrome 10 leathers or or retail leathers and it does work but it's it's not ideal the best thing to do on chrometown leather for edges is either edge paint or skive the edge and then do a turned edge uh which is probably my preferred method probably definitely my preferred method right so fourth question in here advice for use okay it's another chrome tan there's a lot of different tonnages going in here uh i think it's the last one actually advice for using chrome 10 leather with veg 10 leather in the same project okay so i'll put a picture up on the screen for you guys on youtube but uh in the de havilland travel bag you'll notice that the main panels and gussets of the bag okay is chrome tanned leather which i prefer for a bag that's made inside out and then flipped to finish but there are certain parts that i chose to use vegetable tan leather okay and the chrome town leather that i used was tumbled so it has a very heavy texture the veg tan that i used was actually english bridal leather which takes a very nice polish so i liked having a little bit of contrast the color was very similar but you'll notice that the veg tan was a lot more polished and the chrome tan although very similar in color was a lot more textured and sometimes i like to play with textures instead of playing with colors so that becomes the contrast the temp the texture um but generally speaking i much prefer making handles from pure vegetable tan leather because it just molds better to the hand over time it takes on the characteristics of your hand better i think it it looks better with age and any areas of high wear although chrometail leather is very wear resistant it doesn't look better with age the best chrome tan leather ever looks generally speaking is day one the best vegetable tan leather ever looks is subjective some people like it where it looks clean some people like it with a patina um so it has that used look like you've been places and done things and it's picked up a story some people like it some people don't like the patina at all okay it's not universally accepted as the the creme de la creme um but when it comes to vegetarian leather i i i do like using parts especially handles attachments and things like that in veg tan um but if i didn't flip the bag i could have made the whole thing in vegetable tan leather if the stitching was in the outside for those of you on youtube i'll introduce you to the buckram weekender which is another bag that i did it's not part of a course but it was a bag that i made as a prototype for a company in london but that was pure vegetable tender that's stitched on the outside so it really depends on what you're going to make as a bag the design what you're going for the characteristics that you're looking for that generally comes with experience so it's no right or wrong it's just what you've found to be pleasing your personal preferences and of course your clients preferences if you happen to be making it for somebody else do you plan on making a leather round box that's an interesting question i've already a course on box making which was a square box with a quilted lambskin lining and an alligator raised alligator micro trunk handle on the top um which i'll link to on youtube well i'll show you a picture of it but that was yeah that was that was a rectangle so not round um i do get that question every so often you're not the first to ask it so if there are people watching this and you're like yeah i'd love to learn how to do uh make a solid leather box but uh do a box stitch on the on on the exterior then let me know in the comments below and uh same with you guys on youtube let me know in the comments if it's something that a lot of people request absolutely i'll do it but there is something very similar on the watch case course that i produced again youtube i'll show you what that looks like but that was very similar because it's you're stitching in using a box stitch a cylinder around a form so there is that there so that's another option but if people are interested in actually making like a box like a hat box or something quite traditional then yeah i'd be more than happy to do that personally i only use vegetable tanned leather yeah if i had to use one i'd probably probably pick vegetable tan leather because it's a joy to use it's a bit of a purist thing but i think it's horses for courses i don't think it's uh the perfect choice for absolutely everything and neither is chrome tan de lacy bags sorry if i'm pronouncing these names wrong because the camera is actually really far away what is a good sized creaser to start with for straps and wallets uh assuming you're not using an electric edge creaser i'd say probably 1.5 millimeter slightly slightly big for watch traps um pretty pretty good for wallets uh small bags usable large bags you want to be going to 2.5 or more but yeah if i had to choose one it'd probably be 1.5 but if i had to choose one it would be an adjustable edge creaser that way i can have an infinite number because there is no number infinite adjustment will that stay on there yes it will

excuse me which glue to use when making a polish card holder in order not to stitch every card slot i think what you're talking about is uh just card slots i think that word is used by one particular artisan on instagram and no one else in the world uses it that i i don't believe that's the actual term but they uh but it sounds french so i don't think cutting a slit in leather is a a french invention but uh sure um so advice for using chrome tan leather with vegetarian leather that's done personal preference really is the answer so what do you think about leather alternatives vegan leathers bee leaf etc so what does someone who works full time professionally with leather think of leather alternatives and not a lot to be honest i have tested them i've tried them i find they're left wanting i don't think technology is there yet i think they're not particularly durable not particularly easy to work with they don't cut the same they don't skive the same they don't stitch the same and they don't have the same durability in my mind some of them can have a very high tensile strength but so does polyester i i i really think if if you're i think if you're vegan and you want to buy vegan shoes buy something that's made of a cloth or a canvas or something like that don't buy something that looks like leather because essentially you're advertising leather so you're promoting the use of animal products by wearing something that looks so similar to an animal product you know so i think if you if you're gonna go not go non-leather going on leather i mean if you look at viton for example louis vuitton have been making a coated canvas for almost two centuries if not two centuries and i think that's a viable alternative i'd much rather have a waxed canvas bag duffel bag or something like that than a fake leather one i think it just doesn't it never looks good either it doesn't age well either but a good waxed canvas bag or something like that i think look great it has that kind of rustic look to it it can be it's not necessarily something that will be used on formal occasions but it looks great looks casual it looks cool i would much rather use canvas and materials and and fabrics if i left leather uh rather than go after something that's uh trying to be something that it's not he says bit of an imposter material in my mind um so yeah that's what i think about it not much uh question here uh

creation queer william thoreau says what kind of handle do you advise to hold heavy things in a closer box um well what kind of handle would i advise for heavy things in general uh probably a like a briefcase style handle something that you would have on luggage that would probably be my go-to choice something with a reinforcement maybe with a spring steel insert on the inside to to handle higher loads that's probably what i would use how do you sorry turnkey leather says how do you eliminate pocket stretch when using shell cordovan for wallet or card holder pockets okay i'll tell you something now i'm glad you asked that because i've had this before where people have been panicking and they've sent me images and their customers unhappy that um and i'll go through this at the expense of a question here for time i've had people send me going i'm freaking out my customers sent me an image of cards falling out the pockets of their card holder or their wallet that i made with vegetable tan leather with shell corder van and token old edges and all that kind of thing the thing with vegetable tan leather and a lot of leathers in general is you're going to get some stretch the leather will conform sometimes this is a good thing okay for example when you're breaking in a new pair of shoes they start getting a little bit wider creasing in certain areas they're starting to mold to the shape of your foot and that's a desirable attribute of that kind of leather um when you have a handle and it starts to take the like little dimples from your hands from years of holding it makes it more comfortable it breaks into your hand it's a desirable attribute but when it comes to storing cards in a card slot if you have more than one card in a say a vegetable tan leather card slot then when you only ever have one card that card slot has molded and stretched and adjusted to two cards so when you have one card what's gonna happen when you turn it upside down it's going to fall out a lot of the time this can happen when you have multiple cards in the same card slot you take one out to use it at the cash register and suddenly they're all falling out and you're having to stuff one in or you know you maybe you have a few cards in there that are business cards and you go through i don't need that anymore and you take a couple out well that leather has conformed to that particular use it's done its job right it's done what it naturally wants to do it's stretched so if you store more than one card in a card slot then cards are going to fall out if you store less cards so that's just something you need to be aware of how do you get around that if you make a turned edge at the top of your card slot so using thin leather and you thin it down again and you put a non-stretch tape underneath and then turn it over okay you can even make it double long fold it in the center and then you have at the top like a nylon or polyester non-stretch tape that makes a big difference it doesn't make it perfect but it definitely helps but it will just make it very hard to stick more than one card in there depending on how your tight your tolerances are so there are pros and cons to this um you know it's very simple card holders are great but the downside is leather conforms leather stretches and if you start storing more than one card in there they can fall out and that's not something you want to say on your you know you know when you're trying to sell a product to your customer oh yeah by the way don't store more than cut one card in there because they all fall out well i've got lots of cards what am i supposed to do it's something to be very aware of um the answer would be to make a larger wallet with more space to store them or use a thinner leather with a turned edge at the top and underneath to that turned edge is sandwiched uh a non-stretched tape which is then stitched in along the side seams so that it can't stretch it makes it more difficult to store more cards in there so it will deter your customers from doing that so but that will usually help the issue of cards falling out all right cool right so let's move on to the next question how much time do we have right okay what do you think about leather alternatives not much is the answer to that overview of non-leather linings oh going another non-leather so an overview of non-leather linings canvas silk linen etc an overview um i'm not really uh sure where to take this but i do like using canvas linen i haven't used silk before i would like to explore that um i'm not sure how it would be inside the lining it would need to be quite a thick silk maybe with a cotton material backing or something like that to give it a bit more stretch and stop it from being too soft on the inside and i don't think it will be even though silk is quite strong because it's usually so thin uh it might need a backing but for canvas and linen and of course you can make linen canvas canvas is just a coarse style of weave that's it um but linen and canvas i do think it really does bring a a lightness to leather goods and a more casual feel to leather goods so maybe a little less luxury high-end fine leather craft a little bit more relaxed but with fine craftsmanship and detail you can kind of bring that back that uh air of luxury but it's i i really do enjoy a travel bag with a canvas lining i think it looks really cool very durable as well and yeah what is the name given to these specific card slots uh card slots i don't think there is just cut card slot uh i'm not aware of an industry standard term i've heard many variations but no uh consensus uh i don't think anybody has a name for them uh turnkey leather says how do you like the 40 degree chisel angle of the crimson irons versus the 45 of most other tool makers i've never used uh crimson hides irons before unfortunately um robbie borgman says do i need to buy a skivving machine no one needs to buy a skyping machine it's just if your production level is a point where it would make absolute sense to speed up your production uh employ a skyping machine buy a skivving machine for sure if you're making money from uh from your leathercraft projects and in order to make more and produce more you need to speed up some process that's slowing you down skiving machine if you want to make products where small pieces can be split down thinner to make your projects better finer and sell for a higher price buy a scribing machine outside of i that i would recommend buying a skivving machine when you need it not when you want it

all right so let's move on to the next one so an overview of non-leather linings canvas silk linen etc i think it brings a nice contrast in there it brings a lightness to your work and also a durability so four more questions to go how long did it take you to develop your skills at the level you wanted to work at an interesting question how long did it take so this this question starts with an uh an assumption and that assumption is that i have arrived where i want to be already craftsmanship is a different mentality and i'll go into that a little bit more on the next question but craftsmanship is problem-finding problem-solving some people have have defined craftsmanship as but it's also the pursuit of perfection with the knowledge that you'll never actually get there and being okay with it because craftsmanship is all about refining refining refining craftsmanship isn't a thing it's a mentality it's a philosophy it's a way of life it's a way of working it's a way of thinking craftsmanship is all about honing your skills all the time and the only way to do that is to constantly have a beginner's mind is always being curious always thinking how can i make this better how can i make this finer how can i improve this what would make this just elevate just a little bit more how can i improve the quality of this where can i find something that would work better for this it's always that constant mentality of of small regular increment uh improvements and that to me is is craftsmanship so how long did it take me to get to where i want to work at well i i i never will that's the thing it's a never-ending process that's the beauty of it some people find that frustrating that they'll never actually reach perfection because perfection doesn't really exist um but some people find that absolutely fine it's the journey rather than the destination that's essentially what it is so how long did it take you to develop your skills to the level what you wanted to work out i haven't got there and i never will and i'm okay with it so that is that to me is the fun so one from uh

kamazotz sorry if i'm saying that wrong um how to pull you recommend me to make cowhide waterproof after dying would linseed oil work linseed oil has been used actually for centuries because it actually turns into a more like more of a gum substance when it dries or when it oxidizes rather so more like a varnish but it also prevents the leather from breathing so anything that truly makes a leather waterproof also stops it from breathing also stops it from being conditioned and more likely to crack if you need something that's waterproof you don't generally choose leather no one would make an umbrella out of a thin skin you know even if it could take the stretch uh it's you use the right product for the right use um so how can you truly make you can only even really make it water resistant so wax is um you know buying leather that's already waxed and heavily oiled english bridal leather being one of them but generally speaking anything that will make it waterproof usually ends up making it dry out as well so that's just something to be aware of no i i wouldn't generally recommend linseed oil you know i've used it or something similar on here china wood oil tongue oil but it's not a product that needs flexing it's just a strop just to firm it up a little bit but yeah i wouldn't recommend on putting something on your leather that stops it from breathing or being conditioned remember leather can get wet as long as it's not undyed untreated vegetable tan leather where it gets kind of water spots leather can get wet and also can dry out it doesn't rot so yes you know you can have a leather bag and it got a bit wet just let it dry naturally don't put it near a radiator or a heat source just let it dry out naturally it'll be absolutely fine so you know if you're making a product for use in wet environments i wouldn't use leather in the in the beginning so another one angry man says uh will you give us the pleasure to hearing new podcasts i love the one with the story of the three craftsmen uh yeah what you're listening to right now and your question on the podcast is currently being listened to by someone pounding the treadmill right three more questions how are we doing we're okay got 15 minutes what is the best lighting setup for a workshop besides sunlight now this is a really good one okay this is a smart question and not a lot of people consider it and at one point i didn't consider it and i made a mistake because of it and i'll explain the situation so i was in a workshop once and most of the time i used photography lights designed for videography photography and that kind of thing and i switched because they were bulky i switched this is the old workshop to uh strip lighting okay like a t8 long strip light and fluorescent and i was making a project was a briefcase and i was redoing the handle and i was redoing the handle to match the case itself because the original case the original handle was abs completely knackered it was perished it was done there was no way that you could repair it the leather was literally crumbling away in my hands it was like dust and so i redid the handle remade it took it apart exact measurements it was the absolute doppelganger it was really good put it on there and then i dyed it in situ so as it was on i was i dyed it finished it done everything to it and i looking at it the color of the handle perfectly matched the color of the case slightly lighter on the handle because you have to remember that as leather ages it gets darker so if you make them an exact match the handle will start overtaking in the case in darkness i digress um but anyway the color itself was was perfect the warmth the saturation everything was right took it outside for the first time in broad daylight it was middle middle of the summer i looked in it i thought that looks red the handle looks red compared to the case they're both dark brown but this looks like a really reddish brown and i went inside the house turned the lights on and it matched went outside again i thought this just to my eye maybe i'm being fussy it just looks off something's wrong i come like how and then i went back in the workshop looked at it no it's fine when outside what you're experiencing there is known as color rendering index or cri sunlight is ideal because it gives your eye the perfect sense of color depth saturation all that kind of thing when you use artificial light like you know strip lights certain fluorescent lighting fluorescent lights probably the worst uh leds incandescent bulbs traditional bulbs have a good cri rating but uh you know fluorescent tubes are the absolute worst are usually around 70 to 80 on the index if you're making a workshop from scratch and you want to have good lighting in there make sure that you're working with 90 or ideally 95 cri or above which is going to give your eyes the most accurate view of the colors and comparisons as possible as close to sunlight as possible i don't think it exists to have a cri of 100 i don't know if incandescent bulbs can get there or they do get there they might do i'm not exactly sure but fluorescent balls are probably the worst for that and that's what i was experiencing so i went out and i actually saw the true colors and the true colors were off i managed to fix it again and it worked out perfectly but it was just a pain and i'd never even thought about it so when someone asked me you know what's the best lighting setup a a very high color of rendering index and that's usually going to be seen on lights that are designed for photography or videography because they understand that you need the right light for your camera to pick up the best possible accurate colors

top letter says i do not understand your language but i follow you live because your work is extremely beautiful um being if you wrote that perfectly with the correct punctuation and use of capital letters i'm beginning to wonder if you uh actually do speak english because if you put that through google translation it ain't that good yet maybe you have an english friend writing it for you perhaps all right so what's the best lighting setup anything with a high cri index i would also like to say try and have lights coming from different angles so i've got them from here from here from there from there the idea is when i put my hand down or pricking line yes you'll see some small shadows here and there but they're not very powerful shadows if you have a strong light source coming from one direction only you're going to get strong shadows and it can throw your eyes off a little bit and so when you're aligning a pricking iron to a very you know faint line that you've made with your wing dividers with incorrect lighting um you know a shadow cast over there can make your stitches off you know and people are wondering am i holding at the wrong angle is it the wrong pricking iron am i just not good at leathercraft no it's delighting sometimes the most simple things are the culprit so

top leather's laughing right now right so a few more minutes left have we got uh less than ten minutes what is the difference between handmade and craftsmanship and i kind of alluded to this uh in an earlier question what's the difference between handmade and craftsmanship handmade is as it sounds it was made with someone's hand or mostly with some of the hand unfortunately i don't think there's an industry definition written down anywhere where there's a certain standard when you cannot say that it's handmade if your someone's hands touched it i think technically in the industry if you push leather through a sewing machine it was hand sewn i don't believe you can say hand stitched but i believe you can say it's hand sew but if you put it in a machine clamp it down press go and it does the entire thing for you i don't think you could say it but i i don't think there's like an industry standard you can't say this you can't say that could be completely wrong um but i mean handmade i mean if you're if your kid makes you a macaroni picture with school glue uh and tissue paper it's handmade right but it's not necessarily craftsmanship so craftsmanship yeah it's it's a different mentality craftsmanship is always looking for problems and trying to fix them always trying to find better ways of doing things always honing and honing and honing and honing and improving and looking at things with an eye of making them better that's how beautiful cars are made that's how beautiful leather goods are made that's how beautiful watches are made uh it's it's an eye of how can we make this better how can we make it more efficient how can we make it smoother how can we decorate it better uh how can we change something just to elevate it that little bit more all the time that's craftsmanship because you can have something that's terribly handmade but you wouldn't necessarily call it craftsmanship like some someone might make a wallet or a bag and say you know it's not perfect the stitching isn't perfect and the edges aren't great but you know what that's how you can tell it's handmade yeah that's handmade but that's not necessarily craftsmanship craftsmanship is a very different mentality where you wouldn't even consider selling that in the first place as the craftsman's mindset um it has to be to a certain standard and that standard is always being raised so to me that's the difference between handmade and craftsmanship one is the description one is a way of life last question last question with the remaining time that we have is how to properly store hides to prevent mold growth and not lose the natural smell of leather okay so how do you store hides in leather itself to prevent mold growth and not lose the natural smell of leather now i don't think leather is naturally anti-fungal or mold proof but it has natural antifungal properties due to the tannage so if you're managing to get mold on your leather i mean i've seen pictures of it but i've never actually experienced it so i think you'd have to probably be storing your leather in a very dark place that can't breathe so it's contained usually in a plastic container or something where it's got damp somehow so he's usually under some extreme circumstances i think for that to happen i don't think it's very easy the way i store leather in general big sheets big hides of stiff leather i would try and store them flat if possible on a rack okay or over i think you call it um what's the word now oh something horse okay it's just like a a sheet of um like a flexible plywood that goes over a fr a frame like so with probably eight to ten millimeter radius on it so the leather kind of like naturally hangs over each side and you can stack them quite high and it keeps them relatively flat it makes it store a smaller footprint but ideally if you can maybe under a workshop table just have a thin shelf across the large table where you can store them flat that's the ideal for skins you can you can wrap them up and i like to store them in cardboard tubes cardboard tubes are ideal because they're they're usually quite inexpensive and also it allows them to breathe a little bit more um i had a friend who used to live locally he's he's uh moved up north now uh french guy leather craftsman and uh he used to have a leathercraft shop in hong kong actually funnily enough but um she'll contact him again see how he is anyway i went to his place once and um he he stored his leather inside plastic sheeting which was then inside uh large plastic pipes okay i think there are abs pipes or something like that and he's like oh yeah i've got some really nice leather to show you got some really nice leather and uh he pulled it out opened the bag and the smell that came off it was just so bad it smelled like the the the oils had gone rancid it just really ponged really badly i was like what's that smell it's just like oh i don't know it's just how it is like did you smell like that when you bought it and he said i can't remember i was like i think you'd remember if you're smart like that um i said you to open it out let it breathe at least um so i have seen where leather stored poorly has caused a negative impact but i've never actually seen mold on anything so i've got some questions on here um your top class pal love your attention i for detail great listen to you well well done thank you very much uh in french chevrolet chevrolet chevrolet chevrolet i don't know uh thank you for sharing your experiences with us you're making the world beautiful it's a nice way of describing it thank you very much it's very kind of you so how to properly store hides ideally thick highs that don't want to bend and conform too much ideally if you can store them uh on the flat or at least on the bend for smaller skins such as you know calf soft calf skin chromatin leathers small animals goat skin lambskin things like that you can wrap them up personally i like to wrap them grain side out which not a lot of people do the grain side in can cause lateral creasing so if you leave a skin rolled up tightly inside something or even not rolled tightly um these little tiny horizontal creases along the hide can be uh quite apparent when you unravel and open it so i like to have it so the grain side is on the outside so it's stretched rather than compressed and then i wrap it in brown paper so it can breathe and it's inside cardboard tube so again it can breathe and moisture doesn't build up and cause any issues so we are out of time uh thank you for your questions guys thank you for those who reached out apologies if i didn't get your questions done in here uh last quick question here is there any is there any leather which looks the same from both sides yeah i mean a very well finished english bridal leather will look the same both sides usually resin backed so you know like sometimes you have split leather that's finished with polyurethane or resin over the top to make it look like the grain layer you can use that process for the rear side of leather so one is like uh almost a pretend grain and one is the actual real grain um you'll see that a lot a lot on mostly vegetable tan leathers i believe i don't know of any chrome tan that are double finished but i don't see why not but it wouldn't breathe very well because uh a heavy pigment layer like resin like uh polyurethane or something doesn't allow leather to breathe very well so a double layer probably dry out very quickly but yes a lot of good quality english broader letters can be finished both sides if they're struck through or died through completely okay first time listener enjoyed the q a ah good stuff it's also on youtube and it will also be a podcast on leathercraftmasterclass.com so don't forget to go there as well cool right thanks for joining guys appreciate the questions i appreciate you joining in and asking questions and being active it's also always good when i get a lot of questions in here as well and there's a little bit of an interaction as uh with us which is quite nice as well all right so thank you for joining me don't forget go to leathercraftmasterclass.com because right now there's an offer to get a free video which explains everything you need to know about selecting your letters what letters to choose how to buy them and how to test them which is very important but also there's a bonus article which is 20 pages called the tool buyers guide which as it says will help you to select the right tools to get you started and it's a tiered system so if you're a beginner intermediate or advanced you can then select what tools you need for each stage so that is available right now leathercraftmasterclass.com and follow the button that says are you new here and then click that and you'll see it alright guys thank you for joining me i'll see you next time again next month same time see you then take care

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Questions (not including LIVE questions):

Good tools vs good leather

When should you invest in a hot foil machine?

What should you do to make your work stand out?

How to survive as an artisan during Covid?

How do you know if your patterns will work?

How do you prevent your hands hurting when saddle stitching?

How do you hand stitch canvas to leather?

Leathercraft business, better to focus on one product or many?

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Show Notes: So welcome to the leathercraft masterclass and in this episode of followers questions and answers i'm going to be answering the most burning questions from all my instagram followers over the last day i put out questions asking people to send in all the problems that they're having all the questions that they want answered and in this q a session i've boiled everything down to eight questions that were the most popular on instagram and we're gonna answer them now live so this is obviously pre-recorded for you guys on youtube you can also download this audio as a podcast if you head to leathercroftmasterclass.com check out the podcast and you can download an audio version for you busy busy bees out there who'd rather be listening to this on the treadmill or whilst driving so you have the option if you don't have the time to watch it all but if you're here to watch it welcome and thank you for joining me what i'm going to do now is hit instagram live and then we can take some live questions if you're not on instagram you're missing a lot of quality fine leather craft content so hit me up on instagram at leathercraftmasterclass give me a follow and you'll be notified when i go live so you can join in the conversation if you wish so let's go live on instagram now and see if we have many people we usually do

checking connection you are now live so hello to people on instagram and thank you for joining me right so uh loads of questions again over 100 questions on this one so i couldn't put all of them up on stories uh but some of them are hilarious you guys are really funny but you know who you are but uh i've boiled this down to eight questions most of which were questions that were very frequently asked and quite different to the ones last week as well a couple of business ones most of them are based on leathercraft and leathercraft okay so let's dive right in because last time we almost ran out of time so the first question on today's live q a is which to invest in first good tools or good leather which to invest in first good tools or good leather that's actually a very smart question what i like about that question is the word invest was used rather than which tool should i buy because to me that's exactly how you should view

buying tools buying leather should be viewed as more of an investment into your time and efforts as you start growing because i'm assuming by that question that you're new to leathercraft and you're wanting to start looking at what tools you need what leather you need and things like that now just to let you know that there is a free video available on my website if you go to leathercraftmasterclass.com or if you're on youtube watching this because this is being recorded on youtube as well i'll put the link below in the description and for you guys on instagram if you head to my profile after this live um on the link in by if you click that then at the top there's a button click on that and you'll get a free i think it's 38 minute long video about how to select leather and a 20 page article highlighting exactly what tools you need depending on the stage in leathercraft that you're at so it very much depends on the individual and that's what that tool list was designed for so you can identify who you are where you are in your journey and then you can look at what tools you should be looking to invest in but i would say in answer to that question what should you invest in first good tools or good leather the answer is both because if you pick one or the other you're either going to use the wrong tools or bad tools with good leather or you're going to use the right tools and good tools with bad leather so it's best not to compromise the way to to save if you're not looking to put too much into this because you're new and you want to make sure that this really is for you then i would recommend buying the minimum amount of tools that do the job well and then as time goes by start adding more and then if you're going to buy leather i always one of my biggest recommendations is vegetable tan calf leather if you're looking to get in fine leather craft it's a very forgiving leather to use very fine very good quality in general easier to skive greater stitch greater edge finish and it has a really nice tight grain a good surface on it so it's a great one to get involved in and if you buy the classic colors like tan natural finish dark brown or black or just start with a natural finish so you can dye it whatever color you want then i think that's a really great thing to do because you can make so many different products and then just dye them yourself afterwards and that's a good way to save money but you're still using great leather and you're still going to have a great product with with the right techniques um blank slate binary says i cringe when i see when i see cheap tools used on shell cordovan

it's a slightly skewed investment they're spending more on the leather than the tools someone says what was the name i'm not sure if i said a name of anything apologies uh rd workshop says join at the right time so many answers the right way thank you very much glad to hear it thank you thanks for joining okay so the answer to that is is basically the designer dieta ram said it best i think excuse my german but when i get abba bessa which means less but better so one of the greatest designable designers of all time is essentially telling you how to buy tools buy less tools but better tools and then as time goes by invest in in more as funds allow or your enjoyment continues i mean a lot of these tools this is probably 10 to 20 percent of what i have there's more on the walls over there tons under the desks and in the other workshop i didn't buy all this all at once it didn't just you know i didn't just put down several grand to get it all it was acquired over a period of time so just remember that you might see some fantastic tool collections out there and people they've got the exact specific tool for every little different technique that just doesn't happen overnight it does take time to acquire so be patient with yourself but get really good with a few tools like the expression goes beware of the man with just one gun because when you have that much experience all of your experience into one two or three different tools for different things you can get really really good at it so you don't need a lot of tools that's uh that's not true okay rampage leatherwork says i think king is asking what the name of the leather you recommended all right okay i get you now um just vegetable tanned calf leather okay so calf skin uh in vegetable tan you can get it in chrome tan re-tan all that kind of thing i think it's a very good leather to get to to grips with but vegetable tan is i don't think it's a beginner's leather i just think it's more forgiving for beginners so if someone's using veg tan it doesn't mean how that person's a beginner because they're not using more difficult challenging leathers because i use vegetan for so much stuff probably more than chrome tan but i think it's a little bit more forgiving especially if you're learning to stitch learning to skive chrome 10 in general can be a bit of a pain so sorry my apologies i just scrolled down uh we are making leather camera straps from two to three millimeter thick leather is that fair or should we use thicker leather uh unless you're unless you're carrying around i don't know like a vintage hasselblad i probably don't need that much size and strength for a camera uh if uh if if when you relax the camera it barely bends it's probably going to be too thick i don't know i i i generally prefer slightly thinner camera straps but then again i shoot with a mirrorless so it's probably quite lightweight it depends on so many things the temper of the leather how it bends how it molds how it feels in your hand flexibility etc so it's very design dependent um but if you're using several layers and padding you want to be aware of using too much thickness uh otherwise it won't bend i hope that helps to answer your question uh urf from d bunny says uh does chrome 10 get good with edge finish if yes what is the best way to edge finish in chrome tan you you're basically you're not limited but there's two kind of cornerstones of edge finishing chrome tanned leather and that is number one is edge paint which is the most popular for that uh edge paint was really creative with chrome tan leathers in mind number two which is probably my ultimate edge finish my favorite which is a traditional turned edge which is where the edge is skived thinner so that it can turn over on itself so the edge is actually part of the grain and then it's stitched through or stitched over into your lining with your lining sandwiched in between depending on how you want to do it but um those are the two main uh main things you want to do with chrome tan okay so the next question moving on is when should you purchase a hot foil machine how do you determine the payoff that's a good question um a hot foil machine really is a luxury if there is a luxury machine you know maybe a band knife splitter or a skivving machine could come under this category but you know if there's a machine that could be considered a luxury good in your in your workshop a hot foil machine because uh quality does cost i think there are a lot of chinese brands out there that are much cheaper when it comes to giving you a logo or if you want to stamp initials and things like that but i mean i've had disastrous experiences with chinese-made hot-fall machines they are getting better and i predict they're going to get there one day but not yet i think some of the most famous brands kingsley howard quickprint or what i use which is the metallic elephant ksf mini which i absolutely love that's what i use but i think you're going to be best served with a higher end model which makes sense because you're asking when should you purchase a hot full machine because it is a larger investment not everybody's going to have a kind of cash flow to then just dump you know one and a half two grand or two and a half grand if you want you know all the the type and your logo dies and everything like that it can get quite expensive so i i think it's some for someone who at least at minimum has a side business which gets an income that can cover that so i mean don't take this as gospel but this is just kind of off my head if you can if you're selling your leather goods and in a month your total profits after everything net profit uh all your liabilities taken out what you're left with if that can cover a hotform machine i think it's worth a month's wages in leathercraft to get hold of because it can make a difference in the way your your leather goods look depending on the style that you're going for and your ability to initial and make a piece unique to one person to one individual that can help is it necessary i don't think it is but it is definitely an asset to have but i don't think every beginner or intermediate person necessarily needs it but if you are a brand and you're looking to go full time with leathercraft i think you're definitely gonna need to have something that's gonna be able to initial your work or put your logo on there so it just gives it that professional look that professional finish so even though you've got your stitching right or your edges perfect or the design is beautiful um you know sometimes if you see a bag and the logo is missing on there it's thinking it's unusual to see that so i think it's definitely an asset but if you can cover the expense with a month worth of profit then yes if not then no i mean if you haven't earned that from leathercraft in the past year i don't think it's for you yet so it might take a while and uh and you'll get there eventually so when does it determine it depends on how much you're earning from your craft now if you have disposable income if you you know if you have a job and it pays well and you absolutely love the craft you love leathercraft it's your escape i mean people spend you know i know friends have spent 20 30 maybe 50 grand on their cars and their trucks they're just absolutely dumping cash on there because they love it it's not earning them any money is 100 liability then you know a couple of grand on a hot fall machine if it makes you happy get it you know life isn't particularly long and we always regret the things we didn't do not the things we did do so i think if it makes you happy get it if you're looking at things from a purely business and logical sense wait till a month of profits can cover it that's my opinion rd leatherworks says well let's rd workshop let's get it right another question in handmade leather products what are the points that take a product from top quality to b grade oh stamping it with terms like real leather or genuine leather when that kind of should be implied by the cost of it uh unfinished edges where no effort has been made on it uh using kind of like really gaudy colors where no thought has gone into the design or the way the product looks uh and it's not meant to be quirky it's taken itself seriously but it's just too wacky it's very difficult to describe but there are some things you just look at it and go no and there's something that i've made myself and i've experimented with different colors and shapes and designs and in your mind it worked and then you make it and you're like no i can't even describe what it is i just don't like it so you know what makes something be great when no thought has gone into the design and it's just a showcase showcase of techniques i think that's another absolute sin in leathercraft is when it's just uh it's just a showcase of how well that it was stitched how well it was ed fit edge finished and things like that but just no thought has gone into the design it either looks overly basic or it just there's nothing nothing nice about it it's kind of difficult difficult to explain but i think when you can see a product and you think a lot of thought has gone into that design there's a reason it's shaped that way um you know then then it really shows an a-grade product but you know the usual sins of something that's badly stitched badly cut doesn't fit well too many creases in the corners and things like that but uh i think to really make something a great you have to think about the design and the reason uh why it's made the way it's made so and another thing for example reaching over like something like this all right so i recently made this for a course a lot of you on instagram probably already know this is the terren luxury handbag this was made to the golden ratio that's actually something i haven't mentioned before if you don't know what the golden ratio is i'll probably make a hash of explaining it but it's a mathematical uh ratio that improves the way things look even human faces you'll see in designs and sculptures you'll see a lot in branding logos for example the twitter logo was made to the golden ratio and things like that so it's it brings a design together but you wouldn't ordinarily be able to explain it so i took my design and then adapted it to the golden ratio that's another thing that makes something stand out where you go love that can't explain why but it just it's just it's just on point so uh art is art yes i agree uh rick s a you being an established leather craftsman yourself what do you actually purchase leather item sorry hold on one second it's going too fast up there uh when you actually purchase a leather item what are the first things you pay special attention to when i purchase a leather item uh well yeah i don't have time to make anything what's the last leather item that i purchased that i didn't make myself uh probably uh i bought some um master and dynamic headphones which were leather wrapped all around the top and around the sides with leather on the interior and things like that what do i look for neat stitching nicely finished edges design aesthetics uh usually the usual suspects really but yeah i honestly i rarely buy things uh myself okay so uh rd workshop says recap for everyone oh you're okay so you're recapping what i've just said for everyone this this will be on ig tv as well just to let you know guys um so it's not dead after the live is done that's the old instagram model where it was live for 24 hours and then it goes it's now permanently on instagram tv and it's also being recorded for you guys on youtube as well right so where are we you know what i should do i should actually cross these off because i keep going which one have i done all right so third one how are we doing for time uh we are 19 minutes in okay so the third question is creating your patterns and how to know if it will work creating patterns and how to know if it will work all right so the the short answer is you don't that's uh you you're not nostradamus uh you won't be able to accurately portray what is in your mind and the outcome it will have in actual physical tangible form in real life made from leather it's you're never going to have it so it's just a matter of minimizing the interruption between what you envision and what you create and getting there with the least amount of failures possible or alterations in your second third or fourth rendition of it or your prototype so the the short answer to that is you don't but the medium answer to that is you don't know if you until you try and you have to try so when you let's say gucci for example so you go to the gucci research and development department you go to their design studio you go to their prototyping studio what you won't see is someone comes up with an idea sketches it out hands it to a pattern maker they make a pattern they hand it to the people who make the bags themselves in their atelier factory or whatever you want to call it there and and they make the bag and they're like right that looks great put it to market send it out ship it it doesn't work like that what you'll see is multiple different prototypes over a period of time so they'll come up with their first edition then a panel of individuals will look at it and go i like this i don't like this this sticks out too much that that idea didn't work i see what you're doing with it but we need to change the measurements on this the gus is too long it's course increasing in the corners when you lift the bag i don't like the way it drapes and then they'll keep refining it and eventually send it out to individuals who will then test it and live with it for a few weeks then they'll come back with their feedback what did you like what didn't you like there's a huge process that goes into making a bag coming up with an idea and then that brand gets it to market now individual artisans and many people out there assume that that is something that they can avoid doing that they can avoid having to make a first edition prototype a second prototype and then come up with a complete bag now that might be something you can do if it's a very very basic design but when you start getting something a little bit more complex it takes a lot of experience to start reducing the number of prototypes that you have to do after a while you begin to get an eye for it and you you know but in in the initial stages when i first started making bags i'd make one and then i would look at it and then pick it apart with a cl a very very critical eye which i'm very critical of myself which some of you may have figured out but i look at it very objectively and go what i like what i don't like what could change what could be improved what could make the process more efficient what processes did i do that i didn't have to what did i not do that i should have done and then i could have two three four five or more pages with tons and tons of notes of what i'm going to do on the next one and then after a while the amount of changes on your ideas and designs all the things you would change about it become less and less and less so that is an experienced thing so going back to your original question creating your patterns and how to know if it will work the only way you're going to what you're going to find out if it works is if you actually do it and then once you've done it don't expect it to be perfect it never will be and then start refining start refining there's a japanese word for that what is it now uh ah it's like constantly improving improving improving improving pro until you get to the point where you just can't improve something anymore uh that is the uh someone will remind me okay so descartes leather dice car leather sorry two millimeter ether foam i think that might be an auto correction for eva foam for pattern checking learn that one of the courses it's genius thank you very much thoughts on selling a prototype

i'd rather you use the prototype because if it doesn't work the person who paid for it is going to find out whether you think that's fair or not i'm not exactly sure kaizen yes the japanese word for incremental perfection i think it was done for the business world but anyway r d workshop having a critical eye do you think you would buy the products you make yourself i would never buy my products uh i steal them

would i buy my own products uh well i wouldn't buy a handbag uh unless it was for someone but um a de havilland travel bag absolutely love it personally and i get to use it it's one of the few that i do use regularly uh yeah i would i don't think uh i don't think i would i would be very good at creating a product that i just didn't like or didn't get on with or detested i don't think i would ever do a course either on something i just absolutely hated but everyone kept asking for it so i did it i wouldn't do that i would i would do something that i would believe in i always keep an open mind so i actually like a lot of things but i i don't feel like it's a good idea to create products that you wouldn't enjoy using yourself and therefore buy and so that's my answer to that okay so blank slate binary i think a leather duffel is my ultimate goal for bags yeah you just it's something about a big leather bag that's just you know especially one that you can have for decades hand down to your kids or whatever and really nicely made leather duffle it says a lot as well i think when when you go traveling and you've got a really nice bag um you know yeah when i was younger i used to travel with like nylon bags and things like that and it's it's night and day when you travel with something that's really nice uh it's an absolute pleasure i think it makes a difference okay so creating patterns and how to knife will work you will need to start by actually doing it to know that it will work unfortunately you can't know before you start so uh how to present sorry no how to prevent should try reading my own writing how to prevent your hands or fingers from hurting when hand sewing for long periods of time how to prevent hands and fingers from hurting when sewing for long periods of time so some of you may have had it where you've been hand stitching say you're stitching a belt and it's a raised belt and you're stitching around the entire perimeter there's over a thousand stitches very easily over a thousand stitches even with a larger iron and after a while you notice your hands are starting to hurt now that can be a bit of a problem as you're pulling the stitches tight because you want to maintain a consistent tension all the time otherwise your stitching is going to look slightly different and you want that consistency in everything that you do to create a really fine product so i would recommend either stitching more often which is going to build up calluses i mean i can't really say that the sides of my little finger here which is where i pull the thread tight are especially callous they're maybe a little thicker than normal than the second finger but i think after a while you do get used to it so it might be either stitching a product that requires a lot of stitches and in that case i'd recommend these uh i'd rarely crack these out to be honest i think i did for the trunk handle i did which is about 13 or 14 millimeters of vegetable tan leather with thick thread and you're you're really pulling on that this is and for those of you on a podcast this is a little tube it looks like a thimble of leather and this is chrome tan pig skin and it is stitched on one side and it's stitched very tightly so that i can actually pull it down like a little hood over my little finger now you can see the end of my finger coming through there so it looks like a fingerless glove almost and that sits on there nice and tight so as i'm pulling those stitches in you know when i'm doing 300 stitches and each one gets pulled really tight it protects my little finger from the tension

all right so the next question is the proper way to hand sew canvas to leather i've got two or three of these but not from the same person also stated i love your podcast oh thank you very much so the proper way to hand sew canvas to leather canvas stitching canvas to leather is very similar to the way you would stitch any material to leather it has a weave so there's certain things that you have to think about but i must say i think leather and canvas is a match made in heaven really it's a bit like leather and brass uh you know and things like peas and carrots whatever you want to say but there's leather and canvas are really really good together because they both have more of a natural look canvas i think looks a bit more natural than a lot of different um materials but there's something very traditional about that i guess that's maybe the appeal but it also adds a certain lightness to a lot of leather goods and bags and things if anyone's ever seen the birkin which is half leather and half canvas it really really works well when you think it might not but it just does and it adds a bit more of a casual look to your leather goods without being over casual but it has more of a relaxed appeal to it so i think leather and canvas just even just an off-white canvas is probably the best and a natural colored leather i think that works really well but your question is about how to stitch them together there are two main ways that you can stitch leather to canvas uh the most common method is going to be a turned edge so like you would skive the edge of your leather if you're looking a cross-section of leather here you'd skive the edge of your leather so it's thinner here than it is here and you'd fold it over and stitch it where you simply place your canvas i'm assuming you're lining fold it over and then you can stitch through it now you are severing the fibers with your all blade or your pricking iron but because you've glued it on both sides and you've got the pressure of the stitches pulling on the leather and sandwiching it you don't get any laddering from that or it's unlikely the second way is going to be where you have say for example an edge painted finish so you don't skive it just edge painted on the end or burnished and you've creased and pricked all the way through your leather then you take your canvas fold your canvas over so the canvas is now the turned edge and the edge of the canvas the raw edge the live edges on the inside and then you stitch through but without an awl so you don't need to use an awl because you can push easily the needle through the canvas through the hole that you made with your pricking iron and then stitch as normal if you find it difficult to find the hole from the canvas side going through to the leather you can get a round all so non-bladed all around all um which is like a big needle with a handle really and then you push it through the hole you made with your pricking iron it will pierce through the canvas so you'll see where it needs to go and as you pull it out you push your needle through and you stitch like that so you don't use a blade at all because you will sever the fibers in the canvas and you'll get lathering laddering so you'll you'll see unraveling below the slit line okay so uh just looking at the comments there how are we doing for time just double checking good we're okay so the proper way to hand sew canvas to leather so those are my two recommendations so you either turn the edge of the canvas so there's no raw edge it's just turned or you turn the edge of the leather and put the canvas in between so those are my recommendations another way would be edge binding um there's just so many different ways that you could do it really tips on being unique so next question tips on being unique now that there are so many leather crafters out there so how can you stand out from the crowd how can you clear through the fog so your potential customers can see that you exist in the first place that's a very very uh challenging one now i did recently do a blog post which you may find very interesting which is all about how to market your leather goods especially on instagram and social media specifically that so if you head over to leathercraftmasterclass.com click on the blog and the latest post you'll see an image of where's wally which is uh just an illustration of how it can be sometimes when you're trying to market your leather goods but so many other people are making the same things as you how can you be unique how can you stand out well it's more that your products need to be unique and your products need to stand out and the way that you communicate about them but if you're looking at what everybody else is doing try not to follow that crowd too much and do things that not everybody is willing to do not everybody's willing to get on camera and talk about what they do which i think is a very powerful tool in 2020 and moving into 2021 it's a very powerful tool in the way that you communicate with people the way you build trust with your clients the way you get to talk about your passion in a way that inspires people to want to buy what you're talking about i think video is very underutilized still very under utilized you know a lot of people feel nervous about getting on camera i think that's completely natural you know when i first started doing this i was always nervous getting on camera doing lives and things i remember my first live i ever did i've said this story a few times apology if you've heard it first live i ever did i did i didn't realize that you could stop it i don't know why um and it was an hour long and about two minutes in i was stitching uh the interior of a laptop briefcase so the interior uh partitioned the divider and i was stitching a binding over the top of it i ruined it i'd throw it away but because i was trying to read comments as i was stitching i didn't realize my finger was in the wrong place and i pushed it through and hit bone on the other side and uh you know you probably know i like sharp tools i like sharp walls i didn't know i didn't feel it it was that sharp and uh i started just leaking everywhere and the entire time i was trying to hide and just kept wiping my jeans with my hand of this life and i knew i'm going to have to throw this away because it's covered in blood and uh yeah it was it was a terrible terrible bad situation uh it was embarrassing i was just like i hope no one can see just the red clara it looks like i spilt a bottle of wine down the side of my leg it looked like a murder scene by the end of it but no one noticed luckily and i just carried on talking and stitching meaninglessly because i had to throw it away it was junk and uh so uh and i'm still doing lives as you can see so if the worst happens it really doesn't matter you just cancel the live you can do that i realize now it's it's the thing that says end in the corner of the screen and few people would have seen it don't worry about it you just don't save it if the worst happens it doesn't matter and if people aren't interested they probably won't be to begin with you have to build up traction you have to build up trust you have to make it you know you have to you'll allow your personality to come out and it will but you have to start like anything like leather craft in order to get great you would have had to be good in order to be good you would have to be okay in order to be okay you'd need to be terrible in order to be terrible you first have to try but you cannot go from try to great you have to do the bit in between it's a bit of a [ __ ] sandwich sometimes but sometimes when you want something and you want to stand out from the crowd and do things that are different you have to start by building yourself up and i think video is very very underrated now another thing that i will also say as i have time is focusing on what is popular right now okay so what's popular right now during covid19 well probably not wallets because people are hibernating them but as as everyone is everyone's worried about that so i don't think the mod the wallet market is doing as good as it will do after covid or has done before covid but one thing i have noticed by complete accident i wanted to buy another laptop the one i wanted was not only about 50 more than it was a year ago but it was out of stock everywhere and looking around on the internet this might be different from country to country i've noticed that it's so difficult to get the laptops you want everything selling out there's so many it's like last one in stock no we don't have it in stock do you have this one though we don't we don't know when it's going to come back in maybe early next year and all that kind of thing so one thing you know laptops are really selling why because everybody's at home so tech is going through the roof laptops and probably many other different things so i would imagine that if you started making laptop briefcases laptop folio cases laptops slips anything to do with that well there's a bigger market for it for it now than there was a year ago and there are so many different things like that so while a lot of people are conserving funds in some areas of their life they're spending a crazy amount in other areas of life so what can you create to complement the things that everyone's buying at the moment that's going to make you stand out so if you start making things that everybody else is making a time when everyone's buying everyone's attention is somewhere else you need to focus on where that attention is going what's popular what's trending and as leather crafters sometimes we focus on timeless style and things that last and that's all well and great but we also need to keep an eye on trends if you're looking to sell if you're a hobbyist ignore this but if you're looking to sell to fund your hobby or if you're looking to sell to make extra income or profit or as a full-time business you always have to focus on what's happening right now what are people actually buying and what can i make to help them so it's all about the the value that you can give or that you can provide to them uh table mats someone says yeah possibly maybe people are eating more at home than they were at restaurants uh someone else is also saying on plan exactly i plant exactly an unusual laptop bag happy to hear that good so tips for standing out all right two more questions to go we should have enough time so the next question is advice on how to survive well this is very linked to the other question i didn't wanna i did pick up on that advice on how to survive as an artisan during this time okay so we'll we'll extend on that a little bit more north lift belt says i'm literally doing curls right now listening to this that pump going son one more rep so uh advice the question is advice or asking for advice on how to survive as an artisan during this time so what is this time what's going on what is covered 19 coronavirus a lot of people are not buying things that they don't seem deemed as essential necessarily or things that they would ordinarily buy they're not buying at the moment and some for some people not others it really depends on the products that you make but for some people they've noticed a drop in sales on their leather products okay and that's natural because everyone's worried about the economy the way things are going so that could be something that concerns people but i will say when coronavirus ends i mean i've talked to a few restaurants we're in lockdown again but some people were earning so much profit-wise i know i was eating out way more than i normally do when the restrictions were lifted so you know for a lot of people i think you're going to see a big influx in sales when people come through this there might be a lot of people that didn't realize it didn't affect them that much now they've got disposable income so that's just something else to think about but i think how to survive as an artisan during this time again it's going to come down to unique products that people are buying um what are people buying right now okay so you specified during this time we're talking about covered what about things that you could make so pouches for masks for example so if you made an oversized pencil case or perhaps a pencil case might even fit a mask in there with a zip over the top and you put that in and you close it and it's marketed as and you stamp it perhaps as a mask pouch because i know myself i've got um you know masks in the car under the car seat down the side they keep finding them throwing them away on the disposable ones or recycling them rather you know it's taking my own advice i probably should have something where i can stick them in there that looks good that i could put in the glove compartment that i could probably put in my coat pocket something would fit in there something classy something classic and you know you could make it for a pouch for gloves uh everyone's buying hand sanitizer right now i don't know about you but you know i've been over to pick something up before with a little bottle of hand sanitizer and the top explodes what happens if i had something with the lid on it that would keep it shut it's just something to think about because right now these will be useful products for people to keep themselves organized what about covert kit where you've got a two-sided piece with a with a zip that goes all the way around you undo it you've got your masks in one side you've got your hand sanitizer you've got your gloves you've got an advice pamphlet or something that you could have picked up from you know a government organization that you could slip in there there's all sorts of things and one thing that and this is just an idea be careful how you use this because if you make claims that are false you can get in a lot of trouble so i will say that as a disclaimer but no one's really picked up on the antibacterial properties of vegetable tanned leather vegetable tan leather uses tannins which are known to kill bacteria and viruses and just a very before i started this on my phone just a very quick look online there are actually scientific studies stating the benefits of tannins and killing bacteria with a little bit more research if you can find something some concrete evidence or scientific studies that can back up the claim that vegetable tan leather is antibacterial you can say that your products are and you made using antibacterial leather okay because that's exactly what it does if it has those properties it can be claimed that way now you have to be very careful because this is we're talking about health here anything to do with health finances or any kind of like claims like that you've got to be very very careful with but if you have if you can cite studies that show it's antibacterial but you have to be very careful that you don't say that it's been shown to kill covert 19 viruses or anything like that so but it should be something that people should consider using because people are going to respond to that i know i would if i see some you know right now we've all become germaphobes i think because when i'm out when i'm shopping the last thing i want to do is put my hands near my my face it wasn't really something i would do before and i wouldn't really think about it but now i go to scratch the side of my head and i'm like oh no don't do that so we're all very conscious of germs and bacteria and things like that you know it's because it's constantly in our heads because we've we've lived a long time through this now so i think we really if you really want to survive during this time make products that people want make useful products tell them about your products talk about the benefits you could even sell a bomb on the side with uh beeswax and cedarwood oil see the wood oil is really antibacterial anti-fungal properties and you could sell it as a secondary product to keep topping up the antibacterial properties of your leather you know you you have to think about these things and what people want if i saw a product like that that was like antibacterial store all your stuff in something that looks kick-ass all in one place so that you you know and then talk about we've all had it where you've got masks all over the car when you want to find one you forget where it is you know and and you know you keep running out of hand sanitizer because you've put it in the wrong place it's a solution to a problem and if you want to survive as a leather crafter you need to be focusing on making things that are going to be useful at this time so that would be my advice panda leatherworks says tannins are also used in wine i guess i need to drink more to stay healthy yeah and tea so there you go it's tannins and two i've always wondered if you could make if you could tan leather with tea i don't see why not i think uh it's been done with uh grape must before uh because of the tannins and grapes but hey or whatever okay so uh and last question so let's get one more question in have we got time yeah we have the last question today is leathercraft business is it better to focus on one product or several so this is a la the last question that we have and it's about business is it better to start a business focusing on an individual product or lots of products at once so dump a load of products onto the market or just showcase one here's my opinion on that

one product and the reason i say that is it's better to start a brand where you build a reputation for something and then start your line extension and start giving them other complementary products or products within that category uh i saw someone recently starting to make um leather strops uh and then they came out with a little pouch that you can put your uh straight razor in uh and then but you could extend that even further and then make a shaving kit to go with that but the the hero product should be the one that you come out with first that you get a reputation for so like a leather straw for example um so many different examples from that but i mean if you if you look at brands uh hermes their hero product their original product the product they're known for was saddles and they still make saddles now that's their hero product that's the the top of the range apex predator product that they're known for that's what they put out and now you can buy birkin bags and accessories and things like that if you look at dunhill their original product was pipes and then they started making cases for their luxury pipes and then they started on a leather craft journey and then they started getting into tailoring and started get into bags and cases and all sorts of things now they're in aftershaves and perfumes and things like that if you look at louis vuitton for example then they started out making with their hero product was trunks so they started with trunks they got known for being famous for trunks selling to kings and queens and all the aristocracy in paris and now they're making louis vuitton toilet paper you know they've extended it over a long period of time but if you can get a reputation for being really good at one thing really good at specific niche product then you can start building on top of that and adding more products that can then complement that that style that area that niche whatever you're involved in so i think should you come out with a lot of product some people have been successful doing that so just because i'm saying it doesn't make it right it's just my opinion on it some people people have been very successful putting out several different types of products and some people are more successful overall at building a good reputation for being the best at something and then building on that reputation then that reputation can be your non-tangible asset which really pushes the rest of your products so that would be my answer to the last one so a quick question now the confectionary says searching for brass hardware for sam brown belt i'm unable to locate the essential three components for the belts as suggestions for high-end brass belt hardware have you checked out abby england abb ey england uh i think they have an instagram account but they've got a website obviously they sell a lot of hardware on there blank slate binary says supreme even has their name on sandwich bags now i don't get it it's irony as supreme uh are having fun and people who believe in that philosophy of just being ridiculous for the hell of it for irony buy into that brand and they'll buy supreme sandwich bags and things like that because it's hilarious because it's just laughing in the face of conventional wisdom and thought when it comes to fashion and accessories and they've done very very well at it so um yeah as long as their customers understand it that's the main thing i'm going to assume you're not a supreme stephen k gavin how you doing buddy didn't you come out with a question on the forum recently seeing the time we have here uh about sam brown belt maybe you can dm leather confectionery unless abby england was your recommendation as well okay uh stephen k gavin says they've got a section just for sam brown belts

uh is it suitable to use synthetic leather for bag linings uh i personally wouldn't uh if you're going to go leather gallery if you're going to go synthetic go synthetic i think consistency within your brand is going to be a bit more powerful in that sense okay so thank you for joining me guys i got like something a ridiculous number of questions last time it was 126 this time i think it was almost just under 150 questions i couldn't put them all on instagram and i obviously definitely can't answer them it's taken me this long to get through eight but they will repeat questions popular questions and i'm going to be doing this every month now so if you do have any burning questions wait till you see me on instagram and the stories asking for your burning questions and then make sure you get them in so that i can then add them to the list and then go through these questions for you so if you enjoyed this make sure you follow me on instagram for those on youtube if you're on youtube go and follow me on if you're on instagram go and follow me on youtube get it right phil and so you can see a lot more content because there's stuff on youtube that's not on instagram and there's stuff on instagram that's not on youtube best platform for the best videos so it all varies so don't forget to follow me don't forget to subscribe thank you very much if you want more information click the link in bio on instagram or click the link in the description below thank you very much good night and i will see you in the next video thanks for watching

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Show Notes: Hello and welcome to the leathercraft masterclass and in this episode i've taken some followers questions from instagram stories about all the questions the burning questions they have to do with leather craft so i'm also recording this on the main camera which you're watching from now and i'm going to be doing an instagram live as well in a moment so we can take some live questions if we have time but the questions i've collected i have here and i'll be making my way through them now just to let you know if you don't have time to watch this because it might be quite a long video i'm going to be doing a version for the podcast as well so i'm going to be ripping the audio after editing this and i'll put it up as a podcast as well so you can download that leathercroftmasterclass.com go into the main menu click podcasts and you'll be able to download this and go to the gym do your gardening do some craft work whatever you like so there'll be an audio as well many other episodes too to check out absolutely free so before we start answering some of these questions let's go live so let's go over to the phone and go live checking connection you are now live okay so now we can uh potentially interact with some people as well okay so these questions here that i have ripped from instagram stories now i think i had 120 something uh questions come through so i can't go through all of them obviously because we don't have time hello again how's it going all right so i'm gonna go straight in uh with the first question now i can't say who asked the questions because i didn't actually ask permission maybe i'll do that next time but it's uh anonymous so i won't say who's asked good evening once again yes bodega brazil says cute hair mate oh thank you very much i'm glad you think my hair is cute right so let's go on with some of the questions now there's a few questions here i've tried to get them as kind of dissimilar as possible but a lot of these were repeats as in i saw a lot of these questions and if a lot of people ask them then there's probably a lot of other people that want to know the answers to them as well so question number one let's dive straight in question number one is why is my edge paint peeling off

good question um because a lot of people have issues with edge paint who come from like a burnishing mindset into edge paint because i've seen many many times people try to smooth an edge by burnishing first and then applying edge paint i've also seen people applying wax to an edge and then applying edge paint and then trying to burn it in and all sorts of things like that edge paint needs what you would do to a wall before painting it like any other paint you would sand it you'd rough it up so it has the best possible chance of adhesion now if you have a very very smooth edge on your leather then unfortunately that can play havoc with the paint ability to soak into and bond with the leather which is what it needs to do it doesn't want to sit on top so much as soak in very slightly so it can anchor itself into the edge so sometimes even though it's much easier to apply edge paint on a really beautifully clean fresh cut with a sharp scalpel like blade apply edge paint onto that sometimes it would be it could be good just to get a piece of sandpaper or a piece of sandpaper glue to a bit of board and just in one direction just a few swipes we're not changing how the edge is profiled or anything like that it's still smooth but it just opens up the grain a little bit more allowing you to work that edge paint in and then that edge paint can anchor itself another thing that leads to edge paint peeling off is going to be applying too many layers so say for instance you know you're applying eight layers 10 layers 12 layers because you you know you're really trying to get that smooth edge and each and every time it's not smooth enough so you just a touch of more sanding and another paint trying to get that perfect edge and you end up building up more and more and more layers until you've got a thick piece of synthetic rubber like material on the top that's going to be much easier to peel off the least easiest layer to peel off is layer number one as always directly onto the leather it's anchored itself in the more layers you start adding the more likelihood of peeling off especially where you're seeing a lot of flex in the leather um and that that's where edge paint really does get its um bad reputation especially from people who are more used to burnishing it's all about edge preparation edge preparation edge preparation the perfect edge for edge paint is clean cut very slightly rough but still smooth that's a good foundation to start with now another thing can be the type of leather that you're using vegetable tanned leather that contains high amounts of oils or waxes is one of the most difficult to apply edge paint to and that's where primers can come in handy

i do find a lot of primers however can be quite thick um and it's it's it can be and there can be an issue with your edge paint peeling off the primer um that sometimes happens as well so you know some primers are good some primers are not there's some paints that you have to have a primer style i think i've had bad results with peeling from that but apparently you're meant to use a primer on that one so i'd i'd recommend testing on leather first heavily waxed heavily oiled leathers also bring a problem so question here from pinitel and how do you prevent the paint from cracking on folds if you apply it folded when you open the wallet it cracks sometimes i think cracking on on folds can also be it's more likely to happen when it's thick it's more likely to happen when you've got more layers added on there then the paint is more likely to resist folding it's a little bit like uh you know it's it's very easy to fold tin foil back and forth several times you could be there for hours doing it nothing's going to happen but if you get a thick piece of aluminium bend it forwards bend it back bend it for two or three times it'll snap in half you'll crack it's the the thicker it is the more likely it is to happen so if it takes you many many many layers for you to get a good edge finish it might be worth practicing so you can get just maybe two to three layers before it's you know perfect so it needs a bit more practice because the thicker it is the more likely it is to bend now if it's a bend that's takes a lot of folding like a bifold wallet for example um that that can be a challenge if your edges are thick that's another thing so when i mean thickness the width of your edge if you've got three millimeters and you apply edge paint to it whether it's clothes whether it's open that after a while is just gonna crack if you have a thin edge that's where it's less likely to crack do i have no i don't think i have my wallet here no it's nice probably at home but anyway a thinner a thinner edge so the thickness of your leather the thinner is the less likely likely it's the crack as well another issue for cracking can be people that tend to use an edge creating machine with a spatula or just a regular single crease to to heat the edge paint itself now the issue with that can be uh sometimes the heat can degrade the integrity of the edge paint itself so it doesn't like you know when when you see people drawing along the top of their edge paint and there's smoke billowing off and all that kind of thing it's too much heat it's not designed to take that that amount of heat the only time you should add heat is when it's just been freshly sanded on your finished layer and you adjust just enough heat to smooth it and that's it and keep going over and over and allowing heat to build up inside the edge pain that can degrade it and lead to a loss in flexibility more likely to crack peel off etc

uh wishton leather says awesome analogy thank you got it thanks a lot i do not heat my paint cracks completely yeah uh too much too much heat is is um uh using heat is a is a is difficult because it's very easy to use too much heat and it takes kind of an experienced hand to know what is too hot and it's also going to vary um from edge paint brand to edge paint brand for example giardini just i've never had great luck using heat to smooth those edges some people have but i find it it's it's so close to burning before it actually does anything that it's very easy to go over over the edge uh lindsay leatherworks says the uh depends on the paint brand giardini who just said that giardini is more flexible more rubbery yeah absolutely i mean i i use giodine is good but yeah you're right on the it has that kind of rubbery feel and i have used it in the past and i have had clients mention it what's this rubbery feel on the edge and it's not in a in a bad way it's just something that they did notice and to be honest you know clients don't always notice a lot they don't look at the angles and go wow you managed to get the angles on the rear side as well my clients ever ever said that to me they talk more about the the design the feel of the leather the smell of it and all that kind of thing but but i have had one or two clients mention what is this stuff on the side is this rubber and it's probably not what i want to hear to be to be honest especially if you've used some nice exotic leather so i've i've never had that ever since so you uh switched to um uniters united's edge pain

whereas united seems a tougher stiffer surface yeah it's a little bit more smooth when you feel it it doesn't feel as tacky on the finger right okay so let's get into question number two so how long have you been my big camera says i've been 11 minutes in okay so we've got an hour on this uh on this live now i actually have a skivving knife here um because the next question is the art of skiving please uh there's no question mark there's an exclamation mark at the end of that but it still comes under a question the art of skiving the art of skiving skiving to a lot of people seems such voodoo that i think there's many many people out there who don't explore more fine leather craft because they don't have the skill to skive well and i think that this is this is another analogy that i like to use for skiving okay people who try skiving and aren't good at it 99 of the time it's because the blade isn't sharp enough i've actually freshly sharpened a blade before giving it to someone who's never skived didn't know what the word skiving was and i said do this and i pushed the blade along the edge and showed you know what it looked like and that person completely ignorant to what skiving actually is looked at it saw that it looked quite easy grabbed the blade and did it themselves and it wasn't quite as good as mine as you'd probably imagine because they've never skived before or know what it was but they thought it was terrible i'll tell you what it wasn't that bad at all and they just did the same thing they just held it an angle pushed it forward they started to over-skive quite quickly but it was they they didn't they weren't aware of how difficult it normally is if you know what i mean ignorance is bliss sometimes a lot of people put skiving up on a pedestal but it really does come down to how sharp the blade is now if i gave a semi-sharp blade to someone who's never skived before they're probably just going to slice through the leather all themselves but the analogy that i like to use is a bit like going on a surfboard trying to surf whilst learning how to juggle then when you fail at it you think i'm just not good at juggling that's what it is i'm not good at juggling no you're standing on a surfboard you haven't got the right platform in which to learn how to juggle and that is skiving knives if you're not able to get a knife skiving skiving razor sharp it's not you're not gonna be it doesn't mean that you're not good at skiving it just means the blade's not sharp you haven't got the right tool the right platform to learn how to do it correctly if you know what i mean i hope you understand the analogy but most people can't skive not because they can't skype because they don't know how to sharpen correctly now i'll plug my own courses uh techniques of the blade that's of course where i teach how to sharpen and how to skive but you'll notice for people who've watched that video course i talk about how to sharpen first not afterwards because the most important thing is getting that razer razor edge then you can learn how to sharpen so you need the right platform force platform first which is a super sharp blade hammerhead set leather says absolutely agree with you on the sharp blade the edge can go off so quickly uh it feels sharp but it isn't sharp enough yeah i mean i've i've spoken to people before been to their workshops when they say oh yeah i know how to sharpen my my all blades they're super sharp they're super sharp feel that super sharp i push it through leather and it and it feels like i'm just like trying to stab a brick wall i think what some people regard as sharp isn't sharp at all like when i draw this across the hairs they should ping forwards and that doesn't mean they come off as i do it they should literally shoot forwards that's a sign that you've got razor razor edge that makes skiving easy literally makes skiving easy i can take someone off the street give them 30 minutes of tuition and they'll be reasonably reasonably good on a specific type of leather if i throw in different leather variables they wouldn't know how to do that but i can get some very very quickly up to a decent level as long as that blade is sharp that is where the skill is you know it's always important to learn how to sharpen first because that's such an important life skill in many different craft areas you know it could be carpentry it could be leathercraft it could be so many different things

cool right so next question so how to define good quality vegetable tan leather is our third question today so how do we find out now as it happens i do have a free course that's going to be coming to you guys through my website which is specifically about selecting high quality leather what to look out for tannery tricks how to test leather before you even purchase it so that you can decide whether it's good or not before you you know disconnect any dollars so that is going to be coming soon ideally in the next few weeks it's been uh it's been a a long process but there's a few changes coming so that's going to be coming out in the meantime how do i define good quality leather quality is subjective i think

you know terrible terrible leather is going to be good for nothing but there's some types of leather that might on the surface not seem particularly good quality but they work very very well for a specific type of product like i could take certain types of leather that have been processed to make flooring out of and it feels like wood and if someone's to make a bag out of that you know even with the sharpest blade it's really difficult to get your all blade in there they're difficult to punch difficult to do anything on because it's designed for flooring floor tiles leather floor tiles literally leather floors personally i like to use them for making boxes because then you get to use leather and it's almost like wood if you know what i mean but it's difficult usually oak bark tanned but if i gave that to someone said go and make a bag out of that or a briefcase they would tell me that that was poor quality leather there was something wrong with it so it's very subjective poor quality leather to me is leather that's really dry cracks very very easily leather that is overly heat sensitive so if you want to use a heated edge creaser it burns very easily i've had ones that it burns or it's not quite hot enough to make a proper crease i've had that before leather that um what you said specifically vegetable tan leather vegetable tan leather that is fully pigmented on its surface i don't think that's that's very good to me that's like getting a you know a beautiful piece of walnut and then just painting it rather than staining it so i think lower quality leather is usually fully pigmented so that you don't see any blemishes on there and then it's it's it comes down to specific types of leather for specific projects and that's a huge makes a huge difference matching the right leather to the right project so you know bad quality leather is not as easy to get hold of anymore because it doesn't sell well after a while there are some places in london that i've been that that do have leather that's not particularly great but most of the time when you've when you're buying online nowadays you know everyone's scrambling to get leather from the top tanneries and leather that everyone's going crazy for and that kind of thing so i think we're really better off now than we ever have been with a leather selection so it's not as easy to to buy poor quality leather in the first place i think we're quite spoiled to be honest so i'm very grateful for that right so um to recap on that question how to define good quality veg tan leather i've mentioned a few things there but i do have a free video 38 minutes long that's going to be coming to the website soon and that's going to show you in detail what to look out for but uh as a kind of a tip it comes down to how does it work okay so when you work it when you stitch it when you skive it uh when you edge crease it when you do a folded edge when you do a burnish all these kind of things when i get samples through the first thing i do is perform like a whole array of tests on it and then once i'm happy it works excellently and it's the right leather for the right project and i like the look and i like the feel of it then it's the right leather from me and then i give it the label of you know the stamp that's good quality that's something i'm going to keep on my list as a go-to leather for that kind of project so it comes down to testing a lot of testing uh fourth question sorry because my cameras my uh phone is so far away i'm really struggling to see uh our scenario i hope i said that right quality is subjective yes absolutely

best spoke wh says red yes i'll be getting there uh austin j nixon says hey there friend hey austin how you going uh question number where are we number four this is an interesting one um some of you will be interested some maybe some of you won't this is more of a like a business question how can one man or woman uh how can a one-man business optimize efficiency to scale up and grow and stop being a side project that's an interesting one but the very fact that you threw in you know optimizing business efficiency scaling up um tells me that you're probably familiar with a little bit of business or you've looked into it so you're already uh a leg up uh from people who say how can you make money from this uh it's it's not as difficult as people think but people always think that it's all about just the leather craft i'm gonna make what i want to make and then i'm gonna take pictures i'm gonna put them on the internet for people to see and i'll be able to flip the bird to my boss in a week doesn't happen like that it comes down to understanding that what you want to do as a choice comes last what people actually want comes first so it's a deep dive into the world of speaking to potential customers going on forums for people who appreciate the finer things in life and seeing what your ideal customer looks like sounds like quacks like understanding them and then building an idea of who you're marketing towards who you're talking to and really understanding who your potential customers could be and where they are and where their attention is going and how you can somehow get what you do and your brand where their attention is and explain to them very simply why you're good why you're better or what you have to offer that's unique then you can start thinking about designing products building a business and but what a lot of people do is take the thing that they should be doing last which is designing the products and they do that as the first thing was the first thing is understanding the end user and then working back to creating products you know um some are you know i've said this before i think wallets and card holders are great we've got a few more years with them other than keeping a card holder in my car i can't remember the last time i use the card i use my phone for everything when i go in to buy expensive things or cheap things at the supermarket i'm tapping my phone if i'm buying online i'm on my phone or on my laptop i think you know card holders and wallets are great but a lot of people are really holding on to tech that's going to be obsolete as a way of creating leather goods so i think a lot of people should be looking to the future now and going what's the new tech coming out what are people using more i mean there's there's some places you know like france for example and there's a few other countries that still use coin pouches i'd if i needed spare coins right now i'd probably go looking underneath you know the car mats or something in my i wouldn't know where to get it i never used cash for for anything um so i think we really need to be looking as a leathercraft community towards the future a little bit more what are people beginning to use what's trending what's coming out what gadgets are coming out that are going absolutely wild that people could be using leather work items for you know like with people that got onto the who got on early into creating watch straps for the the um the apple watch is it apple watch i can't remember what it's called basically that um did very well people that got onto creating a little shell for the airpods they did very well people you know looking towards tech as a way to for creating leather goods because there's a lot of things that are going obsolete now and i think we should all be looking towards the future a little bit more but that's my personal opinion so how can one man business optimize efficiently to scale up and grow to stop being a side project personally um i went a very long time trying to leave the day job going back a few years now uh many years uh trying to leave my day job to go full time as a leather craftsman i said to myself okay what i'm going to do is i'm just going to keep going and eventually when i earn more money from leathercraft i'm going to quit my job and go full time in leathercraft that just never happened i waited the longest time i did everything i could but if you're doing a part-time job as a leather craftsman and a full-time job as a an accountant you're only ever getting part-time results so you're asking your part-time leather crafting job to give you full-time results so that you know when to switch it's not going to happen doesn't make sense and when i say it like that it's obvious but you know to me it was like okay this is i've got to do something here so uh i took some major time off work um and put my time all into the business seven days a week and i tell you what when you're throwing in the deep end you tend to move quickly because you need to survive and that is something that i underestimated because i ended up making more money in my first month as a leather craftsman than my full-time job plus the side hustle because when you're working seven days a week and all you're doing is being consumed by leather work then you tend to push yourself much much harder than you ordinarily would anywhere else and you know it's it's a great feeling it really is and i encourage you know anybody who has an entrepreneurial spirit to try at some point in their lives because you just occasionally you have to have that kind of you got to take a leap of faith you got to take a bit of risk in your life but manage risk everyone says you know you need to have at least six months of of cash before you go full you know quit your job and go full time into whatever business you want to go in actually i i disagree i think one year one year is a much better buffer so that if you were out of work and you you know your idea wasn't working you've got a year's savings to back you up uh in case anything goes wrong but there is a little bit of uh of risk involved in anything like that so do okay let's move on to the next question which is your opinion on laser cutters laser cutters

i mean you're asking someone who's kind of passionately obsessed with traditional techniques old school ideas and skills uh what they think of laser cutters so you're going to get a bit of a biased answer to this would i ever use a laser cutter probably not have i used one that you know i haven't um you know any any time that you really put a machine between you and your work there's more of a disconnect i find and the more disconnected you are from your work the more it can suffer if your goal is to create the finest leather work with the most attention to detail and craftsmanship possible if you have a passion for craftsmanship you always want to be as close to the leather literally hands on the leather as much as possible and when you put you know sewing machines cutting machines laser machines between you and that you start to build the disconnect now it's that doesn't mean i'm right it doesn't mean i'm right at all uh that can be completely wrong but it's my opinion and personally every any time that i use a machine you know like in carpentry i used to be a carpenter i was a trained carpenter from when i was younger i went to college and studied it and i much preferred you know using chisels versus a router or um using uh you know sanded by hand versus using a hand sander it's much more efficient you're going to get more work done and you're going to get more volume produced when you speed things up by using machines but then if you're interested in creating volume that's going to make your craftsmanship suffer slightly and you know i i think any time you you actively put a machine between you and your leatherwork you create a disconnect i'll still use a hotfoil machine instead of you know

stamping by hand for example on this uh edge preset with a uh type holder on the end which i use sometimes but you know i'll still use a hot form machine because it gives you know the most precision uh and you know if it's slightly off the customer's not gonna appreciate that uh i'll still use a skiving machine um which you know can save time give you very accurate skives on long pieces which can take you know a while to skive by hand that's probably probably my limit and everybody's going to have a different limit and different reasons some people who are real purists go i would never touch a skiving machine to thin down the edges i'd only have a skive by hand um and i wouldn't disagree with them if that works for them so everybody has a different philosophy on it which is what it comes down to really um is your philosophy and your beliefs on on craftsmanship because that's what matters if you're doing something that compromises what you believe in it's generally going to suffer anyway so somebody might do really well creating laser cut clutches bags watch straps or whatever all power to them if if they're happy with that method it's working for them they're happy in their work they're happy in what they do their customers are happy then you know that's that's what they should be doing so what's my personal opinion on laser cutters i wouldn't use them i don't know what it does to the edge burning wise or if that affects them or if you have to sand it afterwards to get rid of the char i don't know um but i probably wouldn't use one okay

okay there's a conversation going on about burning skin what's that mama don't know mama don't know okay that's a cool name sorry so far away i can't read it do you hand cut everything or use die stamping you know i i hand cut everything i i cut by hand mainly because i enjoy it i really do i love cutting leather i love the challenge of it because if you get it wrong you can't you know click undo and it really pushes you to focus and i love things that really push me to focus because it's almost like mindful meditation sometimes like one of the great joys that i have in starting a leather craft project is the initial cutting out phase taking my patterns deciding where they're going to go you know weighting everything down and then just you know taking my time because my mind is thinking about nothing else all your problems all your concerns all the stresses go away because you can't think about anything else but cutting it's like sometimes i like to use a straight razor to clean up the beard because if your mind wanders you'll have eight pints of blood coming out your neck so there's some some things that really force me to laser focus i love it um so yeah i i i do it by hand now if i was to start a business now uh my main my previous business is kind of in stasis at the moment if i was to start finch england back up again and start producing again and i had a certain number of bags or cases or wallets that were doing very well would i spend half my day cutting out all the components uh probably not i would actually probably switch to die cutting to speed up process through a necessity i wouldn't like it because i enjoyed that phase but i would also appreciate that i just can't get enough done unless i do stuff like that especially if you're hand stitching and doing things like hand skiving and doing a lot of hand work there are some processes or alternatively i would hire some company in the studio and get somebody to come in and teach them if they didn't already know how to click or how to cut out patterns and use it the person is the machine as long as they were good and i trusted them okay cool so i'm just going to mark some of these off to make sure that i don't go over them again

what's the best way to apply edge paint so another edge paint question what's the best way to apply it in or in all honesty the best way to apply edge paint would be uh whichever way you're most comfortable with now that could be using a scratch all or round all okay like that which is a scratch all um you could what else do we have here you could use an edge paint roller something like this which has some knurling on the end so like a grippy feel to it and it rolls so it's on bearings so you can roll your red paint on you can use this which is a bamboo skewer i do this for for larger edges sometimes where i can dip a bit more in so it has a bit more of a reservoir on there i put a bit of beeswax on there and heat it over a flame and then wipe the excess off which makes it non-stick so i can peel the edge paint off afterwards or you can use something like this this is actually water in there this is testing for testing heat but something like these which have a little tiny spout on the end there um almost like a syringe so you i can place edge paint down and then draw it along so that's another way of doing it but which you know sometimes i will switch from one to the other depending on the type of edge if it's a larger edge then the this little bamboo skewer or an edge paint bottle so i can put more down otherwise i'll be there forever you know so i'll switch it around but it comes down to practicing and finding what works best for you simple as a simple as that so what's the best way whichever way works best for you so next question someone asked has the video frozen

hasn't someone else says hasn't frozen for me pal okay so i guess that's your wi-fi sorry uh which is better to stitch backwards or forwards so i've seen this this debate before thinking about it now i remember there was uh i won't say his name there's a french leather craftsman uh who's on instagram uh and he was arguing with a russian craftsman who did a video where the russian craftsman was stitching forwards and he took exception to that and there was this huge argument that's not the way we do it in france it's not how it's done that's not how you should do it another guy was saying well i get the same results so what's what's the problem if i do it differently to the way you do it um which is a good question right uh and the french leather craftsmen who sure remained nameless was just saying no that's not the way it's done but no one was saying why why why is it better to stitch backwards than it is forwards and while i wouldn't say it's better there are two reasons that no one ever seems to talk about or know about but people who advocate stitching backwards just don't seem to know but they will just defend to the ends of the earth that you must stitch backwards as you as you go there's two reasons it's better to stitch backwards number one if you look at left-handed people when they write now this isn't my right hand this is a mirror image for you guys on instagram okay this is actually my left hand when people write left they tend to do it so that their hand misses the page right because what they don't want to do is smudge because we write in english from left to right and most languages left to right so if you're left-handed your hand tends to smudge your work now if your stitching is very similar say the seam was running top to bottom as i'm stitching and moving down as my fingers leave the line of the stitches the seam up here i'm not touching them okay but if i'm stitching and going up my fingers are constantly touching the seam that i'm actually stitching which means that if there's any dirt or grease or anything you've picked up on your fingers you're more likely to dirty the stitches because they're just getting a lot more time being touched and being rubbed by skin your palm of your hand your fingertips as you're going through so if you're using you know white stitching white thread rather there's a potential to to dirty it because you it's covered in wax which picks up a lot more dirt as well so that's one reason the other reason is um and it's not it's not a great reason but when you're stitching your seam let's say i start my seam far forward so i'm stitching a long piece a bag for example that's sitting here on the side of my leg and the clams i can't bring the end where i start the seam any further forwards because there's bag in the way watch strap or something it's not this isn't a big deal but over here my arms are at their freshest when i start the seam okay my arms are sticking out as they get tired my arms come closer to the center line of my body okay so as my arms get more tired the action gets easier as well now if i was to do it the other way around i start stitching my arms and shoulders start getting tired the further forward i go it gets exponentially more tiring on my shoulders and my upper back and you know on my forearms so another reason to do it is as you get tired it gets closer to the body and easier at the same time you know is that a big deal if you're stitching a wallet no so anybody that stitches forwards do you need to learn how to stitch backwards if you're getting the same results no are you having issues dirtying your thread no that's fine are you having issues with the arms getting tired no that's fine so if you're getting the result the result is the most important thing it doesn't matter which way you stitch but if i was teaching it and i do obviously in my video courses i teach stitching furthest away from you and then bringing a stitch that way you're not touching the thread more than it needs to be touched and your arms are getting more and more relaxed as they come forwards towards you so is it better to stitch backwards or forwards personally uh for me and what i teach i feel that it's better to come backwards but it depends wishing leather says i personally do two back stitches or however many you want then cut really close to the item then use a little bit of glue poking the throat i guess somebody is answering a question somebody asked cool uh right next question let's move on how to sharpen a pricking iron uh personally i like to use a if i'm going to clean up say for example i i buy myself a pricking iron and i want to clean or smooth the prongs i'll have a little hobby vise i keep open in the corner with like a rubber jaw on there and i clamp it in and then i can use a very fine file similar to a saw file uh but the sides are completely bare so that it's not filing anything that the sides are rubbing against and i can clean it up that way but here's the thing i i don't actually like sharp pricking irons and i i don't know of anybody else in the crafting community that does this but if i have a pricking on that's exceptionally sharp i will literally blunt it on sandpaper while a lot of people will be going crazy i like when a pricking iron kind of pushes the leather in slightly before it cuts and starts severing through the fibers and the reason is i feel that when the edges of the slit that's being cut are slightly curved it gives a better looking stitch and it's also easier to stitch and it's less likely say when you have a 90 degree cut because it's sharp that the grain gets pulled out with the needle with the thread and sometimes the grain can actually get folded over in the stitch that doesn't tend to happen with pricking eyes that are a little bit more blunt now there's another craftsman uh martin carswell did a recent video uh on his instagram instagram tv great video all about pricking irons and he mentioned that it's very very difficult to rock your pricking line you know when you start it where you think it should be started you rock it back onto the heel of the first prong there and then you lift up and put your front prong in that hole and you can kind of walk it back to see where the stitch is going to finish up which is a good way of doing it if you have a sharp pricking iron you tend to make little cuts so that's another reason but yeah i don't tend to like sharp pricking irons uh very much and it can also make in some leathers make the slit a little harder to see but hey horses for courses everyone has a different um different opinions and it's it what what are you satisfied with the result that you're going for are you getting it with the way that you do it absolutely fine so it's just what i found to be true and i prefer pricking lines that aren't particularly sharp now a lot of people send pricking irons back if they don't cut themselves with it you know some people really love that sharp blade on the inner and uh complain if if it's not if it's not sharp enough to me no it's the other way around okay cool right moving on how to sharpen punches yes that's an interesting one um i'll get i'll get a punch here hold on one second

so how to sharpen punches uh what i like to do is chuck this into a drill press i know not everybody's going to have one spin it make sure it spins true and then just get a diamond plate uh or a piece of sandpaper on on a board and then just go over the edge and it will accurately thin down the edges you don't need punches to be too too sharp it doesn't have to be you know like scrape your nails off sharp it just has to be sharp enough but i would be very very careful of sharpening the inside too much you only ever want to remove a bur um because the inside of a punch actually widens as it goes up so it's not straight wall it actually does that so when you punch a piece of leather it goes up into a chamber that gradually gets thicker and that way you can you know tap them out really easily if you didn't do that it would jam up so i have seen some sharpening systems where there's a cone that you stick up inside the mouth and then you know sharpen it that way but that tends to turn this into this so eventually if you keep doing that you're going to get a jam which is annoying so you only ever want to use that just to take off the burr so the sharpening happens on the outside a bit like a skiving knife the uh the edge of the blade here the angles the words are coming are not coming to me right the bevel is only on the outside you only you mainly sharpen here and you just pull back a couple times on the on the rear because you want this to be super flat so it's the same on this you want to sharpen from the outside not necessarily from the inside okay so uh second to last question gluing on a fold does the inner have to be thinner and smaller so what this individual is mentioning is is if you glue two pieces of leather together and you want to glue it around the form okay so when you glue two pieces of leather and they're both curved they keep that curve that's that's gluing on a fold does the inside say the lining material have to be thinner and smaller thinner ideally because if the outside is thinner and it wants to open back up again it's going to resist the least and it's more likely to crease so if the outside is thinner than the inside when gluing on a curve that can sometimes be a problem so ideally the same thickness or thinner on the inside definitely or the exterior should always be slightly stiffer that's a general rule of thumb does it have to be smaller not necessarily because what you tend to do is glue on a curve and then trim everything up and that can be from your template or it can you could trim up the lining to the exterior leather that you just glued onto so you don't have to make it smaller to counter at the fact that it will be covering less distance so it doesn't have to be smaller but ideally thinner or softer on the inside thicker and or firmer on the outside okay and lastly lastly thread types thread types and a lot of you on instagram have been talking about that uh yep so it's just seeing something there and it's not in my language so i don't know how to answer that so thread types i love tiger as in tiger thread it's a tiger thread um but i love the look of linen but it's harder to use yeah it can be harder to use for for some things linen is a great way to find out if you're good at stitching if you can stitch well with with cabled anything really but cabled linen if you can stitch well with it you know your stitching technique is good with tiger thread whether your technique is stitching is okay or it's really good it tends to look the same it's what i call a very forgiving thread because it's flat it tends to be lay a bit more consistent you'll never get that fine look with tiger thread in my personal opinion you won't get that finesse um you won't get that necessarily that traditional look that a lot of people like depending on what you like but it's very forgiving it allows you to make a few mistakes and it won't make you pay for it if you change the order that you do things during a stitch or if your stitching technique is not spot on if you want to have nice consistent angles and a very consistent seam uh cabled linen especially is going to expose you very quickly and you'll get to see where you're doing things wrong which can be good because if your mistakes are highlighted very clearly you know to do something about them which is good now if you find linen difficult it just means you need a little bit more practice but if you like tiger thread and in anticipation of this uh i got these out now these are from rocky mountain leather supply um they sent me a sample of these it's not my kind of thread it's a little bit shiny it's it's what you call poly braid some people like it some people don't what it is is braided polyester like tiger thread waxed but it is produced in a way that's a bit more rounded so it doesn't lay as flat it looks in my opinion better than tiger thread when stitched it doesn't look that dissimilar to regular cabled polyester or some linen threads so it's a bit of a compromise but if you like tiger thread and you're not that keen on the way linen looks or the way it stitches or you're having trouble with it give polybraid a try it's just a rounded braided polyester which might work a little bit better for you i don't know why it took so long to come out with with this because it does seem uh an obvious uh answer to that doesn't it really okay so

ah he is saying nice job excellent all right guys well is there any more questions you guys have on the live before i sign out there is a few minutes left but not too much longer cool all right pnw edc says tiger's nice when you roll or hammer it afterwards yeah most threads are going to look a little bit more neater a little bit more consistent when you when you tap them down it really depends on what on what you like i don't like it i don't like the look of it never have but on some projects especially like outdoor projects like knife sheaths

pouches things like that where you need a little bit more toughness and it's not so much about having that traditional fine leather craft look then it actually works quite well or you're doing a stitch that's straight or below the surface of the leather i don't think it looks too bad it's just uh it's just my snobbery syphilis the hat there's no there's no logical reason but then again i didn't start leathercraft for logical reasons we start it because it's something that we love to do and something that we believe in and makes us uh makes us feel good you know and that you know a lot of things we do are completely illogical and liking one type of thread over another when it's all it's doing is holding pieces of leather together it's really logical when you think about it but this isn't based on logic

how do you finish with linen thread

it's not here okay all right uh usually i have a little bit uh i have one of these with pva glue in and i'll just do a dab on the rear side after pushing the thread in so i'll snip the thread close to the surface push it in dab of white glue and then tap everything down so after you've added your glue tap everything down and that closes the leather around it actually provides a really really strong bond even after like five minutes like a couple times i've had to redo a seam for whatever reason i need to take it apart again and even after a few minutes of just that little tiny touch of glue and then closing the leather when it comes to like taking it out it's almost like you're trying to break the thread again to get it out so it's actually a very very tough way of finishing uh thread but it's always done after two or three back stitches as well will you save the live to instagram tv uh yes yes i will be sorry yeah someone's saying i can't read their name because it's gone up too far the handbag course when will it be finished very very shortly the next one is the is the finale which is inserting the gussets inserting the zip flap how to stitch the outside and the inside consistently so they both look like the external seam uh it's also going to be finishing the zip gusset which is the opening and the closing of the bag itself and also finishing the edges which is not going to be burnished it's not going to be edge painted and it's not going to be a turned edge it is what i'm calling a stabilized and polished edge so it's a new concept for edge finishing that i want to introduce to the world which comes from a very very old book where they use a different substance to stabilize the edge rather than burnish rather than just use edge paint so there is something holding it together but it's inside the leather rather than on top of but it looks like a burnish but it's more consistent and it's more durable than a burnish so that's something that's new and that is the terren luxury handbag so it gives it a beautiful finish traditional traditional look but it's a brand new concept for edge finishing so it's no longer just going to be burnish edge paint or turned edge this is my idea of the fourth dimension of edge finishing so stay tuned for that but yeah the next one the next course that's coming out is the finale and then it's going to be a brand new course after that so stay tuned for what that's going to be

uh

resi sorry i can't see i can barely see says you are so professional that i can ask questions i just listen and try to pick the notes can be used in my first steps of leather crafting thanks for sharing your knowledge you're very well very welcome thank you for saying that

wisdom leather says when i start my waitrose job i'm gonna buy your course because the bag is so damn sexy thank you very much and waitrose for all you who don't know is like the poshest uk uh supermarket where they do really good coffee as well there's like the best of everything there i love it uh thank you phillip for the video you're absolutely more than welcome slavacon says thanks for the info phil it's very helpful no problem at all and just in closing apologies to all the people on the instagram live who's had questions i didn't see obviously i had to get through quite a bit of material um so it's not like a regular live where it's just you and me talking but this is going to be available afterwards on instagram tv and it's also going to be on youtube and i'm also going to take the audio from this if it's good and then put it up as a podcast but thanks for watching guys i appreciate everyone who asked questions thank you to all of you who put questions on instagram stories um that uh you know i might not have been able to it's like 120 something questions i couldn't put all of them up on stories uh because it wouldn't let me and also i couldn't discuss all of them so it was just the ones that kept repeating those are the ones that i focused on today i hope you found it helpful if you want more information on how to work leather how to get started in leather how to do beginner media and advanced projects head to leathercraftmasterclass.com take a look at the courses and see if there's something that you would like to do in those projects as well so again thanks for watching and i'll see you next time

Support Leathercraft Masterclass by contributing to their tip jar: https://tips.pinecast.com/jar/leathercraft-masterclass

With everything going on in the world right now, these are uncertain times where fear is running high.

But as the coronavirus has many in the crafting community under lock down, is there some good that can come of all this?

In this episode I take on another Q&A session from students, followers and subscribers, as well as sharing some ideas for future growth.

Discover how the online courses can help you and your leathercraft: https://www.leathercraftmasterclass.com/

Browse The Course Guide: https://www.leathercraftmasterclass.com/course-guide

Other helpful resources you may enjoy:

Read the Blog! https://www.leathercraftmasterclass.com/blog-1

Follow on YouTube! http://www.youtube.com/c/LeathercraftMasterclass

Follow on Instagram! https://www.instagram.com/leathercraftmasterclass

Follow on Facebook! https://www.facebook.com/leathercraftmasterclass

Support Leathercraft Masterclass by contributing to their tip jar: https://tips.pinecast.com/jar/leathercraft-masterclass

From finding a logo and naming your brand, searching for customers, how to avoid hagglers, workshop setup and finding the right pricking iron for a specific thread size.

You asked, I answered!

Discover how the online courses can help you and your leathercraft: https://www.leathercraftmasterclass.com/

Browse The Course Guide: https://www.leathercraftmasterclass.com/course-guide

Other helpful resources you may enjoy:

Read the Blog! https://www.leathercraftmasterclass.com/blog-1

Follow on YouTube! http://www.youtube.com/c/LeathercraftMasterclass

Follow on Instagram! https://www.instagram.com/leathercraftmasterclass

Follow on Facebook! https://www.facebook.com/leathercraftmasterclass

Support Leathercraft Masterclass by contributing to their tip jar: https://tips.pinecast.com/jar/leathercraft-masterclass

I also crack a beer, so I suggest you do the same. Cheers!

Discover how the online courses can help you and your leathercraft: https://www.leathercraftmasterclass.com/

Browse The Course Guide: https://www.leathercraftmasterclass.com/course-guide

Other helpful resources you may enjoy:

Read the Blog! https://www.leathercraftmasterclass.com/blog-1

Follow on YouTube! http://www.youtube.com/c/LeathercraftMasterclass

Follow on Instagram! https://www.instagram.com/leathercraftmasterclass

Follow on Facebook! https://www.facebook.com/leathercraftmasterclass

Support Leathercraft Masterclass by contributing to their tip jar: https://tips.pinecast.com/jar/leathercraft-masterclass

We start with thoughts on: Going back in order to go forward when maintaining traditions. Having ridiculous goals and why you need them.

Plus, my experiences with a new mindset.

Discover how the online courses can help you and your leathercraft: https://www.leathercraftmasterclass.com/

Browse The Course Guide: https://www.leathercraftmasterclass.com/course-guide

Other helpful resources you may enjoy:

Read the Blog! https://www.leathercraftmasterclass.com/blog-1

Follow on YouTube! http://www.youtube.com/c/LeathercraftMasterclass

Follow on Instagram! https://www.instagram.com/leathercraftmasterclass

Follow on Facebook! https://www.facebook.com/leathercraftmasterclass

Support Leathercraft Masterclass by contributing to their tip jar: https://tips.pinecast.com/jar/leathercraft-masterclass

Oh yeah, some stuff about leathercraft too! :D:D

Discover how the online courses can help you and your leathercraft: https://www.leathercraftmasterclass.com/

Browse The Course Guide: https://www.leathercraftmasterclass.com/course-guide

Other helpful resources you may enjoy:

Read the Blog! https://www.leathercraftmasterclass.com/blog-1

Follow on YouTube! http://www.youtube.com/c/LeathercraftMasterclass

Follow on Instagram! https://www.instagram.com/leathercraftmasterclass

Follow on Facebook! https://www.facebook.com/leathercraftmasterclass

Support Leathercraft Masterclass by contributing to their tip jar: https://tips.pinecast.com/jar/leathercraft-masterclass

I also talk about a recent visit to a family member, who as it turns out lived with the Dumas family, the people behind the HERMÈS empire.

Discover how the online courses can help you and your leathercraft: https://www.leathercraftmasterclass.com/

Browse The Course Guide: https://www.leathercraftmasterclass.com/course-guide

Other helpful resources you may enjoy:

Read the Blog! https://www.leathercraftmasterclass.com/blog-1

Follow on YouTube! http://www.youtube.com/c/LeathercraftMasterclass

Follow on Instagram! https://www.instagram.com/leathercraftmasterclass

Follow on Facebook! https://www.facebook.com/leathercraftmasterclass

Support Leathercraft Masterclass by contributing to their tip jar: https://tips.pinecast.com/jar/leathercraft-masterclass

Discover how the online courses can help you and your leathercraft: https://www.leathercraftmasterclass.com/

Browse The Course Guide: https://www.leathercraftmasterclass.com/course-guide

Other helpful resources you may enjoy:

Read the Blog! https://www.leathercraftmasterclass.com/blog-1

Follow on YouTube! http://www.youtube.com/c/LeathercraftMasterclass

Follow on Instagram! https://www.instagram.com/leathercraftmasterclass

Follow on Facebook! https://www.facebook.com/leathercraftmasterclass

Support Leathercraft Masterclass by contributing to their tip jar: https://tips.pinecast.com/jar/leathercraft-masterclass

Book on Amazon.com: https://amzn.to/2RfUyYN

Discover how the online courses can help you and your leathercraft: https://www.leathercraftmasterclass.com/

Browse The Course Guide: https://www.leathercraftmasterclass.com/course-guide

Other helpful resources you may enjoy:

Read the Blog! https://www.leathercraftmasterclass.com/blog-1

Follow on YouTube! http://www.youtube.com/c/LeathercraftMasterclass

Follow on Instagram! https://www.instagram.com/leathercraftmasterclass

Follow on Facebook! https://www.facebook.com/leathercraftmasterclass

Support Leathercraft Masterclass by contributing to their tip jar: https://tips.pinecast.com/jar/leathercraft-masterclass

Discover how the online courses can help you and your leathercraft: https://www.leathercraftmasterclass.com/

Browse The Course Guide: https://www.leathercraftmasterclass.com/course-guide

Other helpful resources you may enjoy:

Read the Blog! https://www.leathercraftmasterclass.com/blog-1

Follow on YouTube! http://www.youtube.com/c/LeathercraftMasterclass

Follow on Instagram! https://www.instagram.com/leathercraftmasterclass

Follow on Facebook! https://www.facebook.com/leathercraftmasterclass

Support Leathercraft Masterclass by contributing to their tip jar: https://tips.pinecast.com/jar/leathercraft-masterclass

I also discuss a common question I get about the differences between working with vegetable tanned leather and chrome tanned leather.

Discover how the online courses can help you and your leathercraft: https://www.leathercraftmasterclass.com/

Browse The Course Guide: https://www.leathercraftmasterclass.com/course-guide

Other helpful resources you may enjoy:

Read the Blog! https://www.leathercraftmasterclass.com/blog-1

Follow on YouTube! http://www.youtube.com/c/LeathercraftMasterclass

Follow on Instagram! https://www.instagram.com/leathercraftmasterclass

Follow on Facebook! https://www.facebook.com/leathercraftmasterclass

Support Leathercraft Masterclass by contributing to their tip jar: https://tips.pinecast.com/jar/leathercraft-masterclass