I recently decided to invest in some better miniature screwdrivers, and found a set with a single handle and interchangeable blades that takes up a very small amount of room in my backpack kit. The case, however, is an uninspiring plastic jobbie with a blown-plastic insert. The lid is kinda thin, and I get the feeling it will get cracked before long.

I smell a new project!

While the tool roll I have shown you before is pretty neat, I decided to go with more of a wallet approach on this one. I figured a three-pocket design would be good, with a cover flap that snaps in place. This also gives me room to carve something interesting on it.

For the pockets, I figured I could use a softer leather sewn onto hard leather, and if I worked it just right, I might be able to hide a couple of seams for appearance’s sake. Considering the dimensions of the screwdriver handle, it would require at least one layer of welt to thicken the profile enough to look right.

So – on to the sewing.  I dug some suitable material out of my scraps bag and spent about an hour agonizing over the math regarding how big the top section should be to make decent pockets, settled on some numbers, and set to it. The outside seams are done with glover’s needles, and I won’t be doing that again without a thimble. Those bastards are sharp! I switched to my awl and harness needles for the handle’s pocket.

Once the pockets were stitched up, I cut the welt piece and skived it thinner along my stitch line so it wouldn’t bunch up too badly on the final seam. The welt is a U-shaped piece that just goes around the outside. In the pictures below, you can see I’ve also cut a second U-shaped piece, mounted snaps, and glued it atop the welt, which has already been sewn to the pockets.

Now comes the fun part – carving the design.

After much thought and agonizing, I decided to go with the Transformers Autobot insignia. I’ll be using this kit at work, so it has to be something bland enough that no-one could take offense at it. (The other most popular idea was to carve “I void warranties” on it, but I suck at lettering.) Here’s the piece with the design carved and backgrounded:

As I said, this will be living in my backpack and subject to all the dangers therein, so I backgrounded the positive image instead of the negative to give it a better shot at survival. I also intended to dye the whole thing black and paint the design silver, so this will save the paint from being scraped off as well.

Now for the painful part – sewing three layers of 7-8 oz leather together. Here’s a test-fitting of the project:

Again, I begged forgiveness from the ghost of Al Stohlman and used my Dremmel to pre-drill the holes. I’ve gotten better at judging seam distances though – I managed to get all of this seam done with one piece of string. Here it is all sewn up and the snaps installed:

The edges look a little rough here – these pix were taken just before I trimmed and sanded everything straight and smooth. Once that was done, it was time to dye.

Points to the World’s Best Girlfriend here, she brought me another bottle of dye just as the first one ran out.

The fiddliest bit of this sort of project for me is the coloring process. Dying something black is simple and straightforward enough, but the painting gets at me. First a coat of bone white, then we tidy up with a dye marker, then a couple coats of silver, more tidying up, and correcting where I over-tidied… you get the picture.

The last two steps I finished just today – I slicked the edges and applied a thick coat of Tan-Kote. Here’s the finished product:

And now it goes into the backpack, rarely to be seen again…

Real simple project, just cut out two shapes and stitch them together. The only tricky part was to keep breathing while trimming down the bunny fur for the cuff – cut bunny fur floats, and that shit gets everywhere.

The cuff is two 5″ tall strips of rabbit fur cut from two different hides to get a good quality section with no blemishes. Sew them at the sides so it forms a circle, then stuff the circle into the stocking until the top edges line up. (Fur should be touching the inside of the leather). For best results, tack the fur in place in about 4 places to make sure you’ve got it centered and not bunched up.

Now stitch the tops together (I used a simple running loop stitch), then turn the fur out and down, and viola: fur-cuffed stocking.

Finished scabbard

…and I decided it was just too pretty to dye, so I gave it a coat of sealant and called it good.

I think I’m actually getting good at this…

With that in mind, J went out and bought us a new camp hatchet, and sure enough, i decided it had to have a scabbard for safe transport.

I’m not sure if J and Illyana intended for me to be making a scabbard for it, but they sure didn’t complain when I offered. They’re no dummies.

Anywho, here’s what it looks like before the dye. I made it ambidextrous, so it’s pretty on both sides.

Those rivets are called double-caps, and designed just for projects like these where you can’t hide the ugly side.

In this design, the top and bottom rivet are there to keep the scabbard from pivoting off the blade (the tips of the blade are almost right at the points of the trefoil) and the two middle rivets are there to keep the blade from cutting the stitches.

Now to figure out how I want to dye it…

Obviously, this just won’t do. The problem is, how to fix it?

Well, I took the piece down to the good folks at Oregon Leather, and they showed me how to use Carnauba Cream to remove the tarnish. Rub the product on, let it dry, and then buff it out with some sheepskin. Here’s what you get afterwards:

Not too bad. It may take another coat before I’m completely happy with it though.

Here’s the finished prototype:

simple dice bag

Now those of you in the forums may know that the purpose of the betting pool is to guess the final build number of MapTool 1.3, and here I’ve gone and carved the symbol for DiceTool, which has been in released status for quite some time now. Truth is, the MT symbol substitutes a surveyor’s sextant for the die shown above, and it doesn’t carve well at that scale. It’s ok I guess, but I didn’t like the three tests I did of the sextant, so I’m putting the DT emblem on the dice bag – which makes sense anyway.

If the winner complains, he can always send it back :)

The Phoenix:

…and the Dragon:

Not bad, if I do say so meself :)

Dragon…

…and the Phoenix

Notice these will have laces instead of buckle straps. I did not have wrist measurements for the recipients, and lacing them gives much better adjustment. For colors, the Phoenix is going to be dyed black and then the bird will be painted red, possibly with some orange and yellow highlights if I’m feeling daring. The Dragon gets a medium brown background with the dragon itself dyed black.

For that, I’m using the brush dye method, and here’s what it looks like at phase 1:

Astute observers may note that the dyed version doesn’t have grommets yet – that’s because I screwed up the dye process on the first attempt. I dyed the dragon and the background with the brush method the first time, but the brown dye just does not cover evenly, and I could not find a way to smooth it out for the life of me. This time, after I have soaked all the black I can into that dragon, I will apply a few coats of resist and then use a wool dauber to spread the brown dye right over the top.

And if that doesn’t work out, the next one gets dyed brown first and then I’ll paint the damn dragon on.

Now most of you should be familiar with the sheaths sold today – they only encase the blade of the knife, and then have a snap-strap to secure it in place. While this is a useful configuration, the more period method is the pouch sheath, which leaves only the last inch or so of the handle exposed. This is actually a more secure arrangement than the snap method, since you won’t ever accidentally unsnap it and risk the knife falling out on your foot, and with proper design the sheath will hold the knife securely through much bumping and jumping around.

To give full credit, I stole the design from Bruce Evans and the tutorial you will find at that link. I left the points sharper on mine than he did, but I followed his tutorial with the exception of using a drill bit instead of a nail to punch the holes for sewing, and I used a heavy thread instead of sinew. The sinew would have been more period, but I didn’t have any on hand.

I skipped the wax bath, mainly because I don’t really like the texture of wax-treated leather. Illyana is mildly into leatherwork herself, so she knows how to care for it properly. I also decided to forego any carving on this one, since I was going to dye it black, and the decoration gets lost in a black dye unless you paint it afterward. Knife sheaths get bumped around a lot so that paint would get abused pretty badly.

Here it is basically complete and waiting for the oil to dry before I dye it (with the original sheath for comparison.)

And with the knife sheathed:

Unfortunately, I forgot to snap a pic after I dyed it, so you’ll just have to use your imagination.

These are the 5″ cuffs with buckles. They cover about half of your forearm (as seen in the last post). For the buckles and straps, I went with a slot-mount this time instead of the surface-mount method of the bracers seen previously. This allowed me to minimize the surface area required for them, as well as simplifying the construction process. I did, however have to re-create my construction template for the buckles from scratch, so once again one side fits better then the other. One of these days I’ll get it right.

For the finish, I used a Fiebing’s oil dye, followed by Angelus leather paint and topped off with Fiebing’s Tan-Kote. This design would probably look good in a nice brown, and leaving the carved design un-dyed like I did in the last pouch project should work out pretty well. I was making this pair for myself, though, and my current wardrobe is all black.

One truly nice point of this build was using leather from a full side instead of a belly cut. Bellies are great for prototypes and one-off designs, but for your best work use the best leather. Even then, I skimped a bit and used a “tannery run” grade here instead of an “A” grade leather. The main difference you will find between the two from what I could see at the leather supply store is that TR-grade doesn’t have as even of a surface color as A-grade. If you plan on dying or painting the finished product, however, the leather itself is the same quality.