So recently I was doing some spring cleaning and found an old fake leather watch band that someone gave me as a Christmas gift (it was very much a pity present but I digress). The leather cracked the first time I wore it and the watch that it came on was cheap and never worked. I decided I wanted to make a better version of the leather cuff, this version sans the watch and add some of my own flair.
I ended up finding a scrap piece of leather that I got from my dear friend @JimmyWayneWestie and saw some great potential for this project. I traced the outline more or less of the old band onto the new leather with my custom leather Awl I made, and got to work attempting to skiv the end so I could get it folded over properly. Using my wing dividers, I made a punch guide for myself and got to work punching the holes.
Once I was done I threw the leather onto the Glowforge, using the premium tool for making a repeat pattern, I made a rectangle and setup an outline for my leather, scoring it instead of engraving, I had a plan for something I wanted to try out!
So now I had a nice leather that looked kinda meh and you couldn’t really see the scoring.
I got to work stiching that sucker up, making a few minor mistakes along the way as dealing with the skived end was more delicate then I thought it would be.
I dug out my embossing tool that also had a scooper on the other end, I thought that perhaps I could take the scoop and do some edge work while wetting the leather and make it smooth and uniform. After working on the middle and seeing how it turned out, I decided to go with the embossing end and spent a good solid hour working the inside of each of the knots to make them uniform, I was beginning to start to like the direction things were going.
I put a chocolate brown sealer on the edges, and hit the lathe burnishing tool I’ve made and was able to clean up the edges lickety split, once that was done is when this really came to life. I applied a few layers of acrylic leather sheen and the soul of this leather really sprang to life, looking almost old and worn but really showing off the personality it was hiding away!
There are a few things I plan on doing differently on the next one, but I’ve got a great basis for getting it done. Till the next one my friend
Hock
