Recent commissions and a round up.

  I have been so busy something has had to give and that has been my blog. I have been tweeting and facebooking but not blogging. So to rectify that situation here is a round up of recent commissions and events.

  I shook hands on agreement to retain my workshop in Ashby de la Zouch. That has given me a little more security. A small but steady stream of handbag repairs and bag strap alterations keep popping up. I had a little flurry of shoes repairs.

One of my customer's competes in full contact Medieval "sport" i.e. clouting each other with assorted metal weapons.. He wore out the soles on his boots. I was asked to resole them but also to add treads. Whilst not historically accurate you need to have a secure foot whilst beating the b'jesus out of the opponent. His son likes the medieval scene so I was asked to repair a pair the shoes for him. The shoes are so nice and I had such a lot of feedback on social media about them I am working on making some from scratch. When that will be I have no idea at the moment!

Mark as Savage Opress

A commission I competed sometime ago came back in to be "distressed". The costume is Savage Opress, a character from the Star Wars Alternative Universe franchise. I had to dismantle the eighteen pieces of the armour to get all the hidden areas and backs of the plates. It took about ten coats of paint to get the base down. Then another ten passes, in different colours, to create the mottling random enough. I put it all back together again and another couple of passes to get the overall look a bit more uniform, if random can be uniform. I delivered the outfit back the Mark at the Colletomania at Milton Keynes. My good lady came with me and was delighted to see the actor, Paul McGann, in the flesh. It made her day. Mark's day was made with the suit. He had to try it on. I have to say I am pleased with the result although I was not at all certain fo the outcome whilst executing it.

   Another Star war piece was Chewbacca's Bag. The customer had some very definite ideas about what they wanted. I am happy to report the finished article exceeded his expectation so now I have another commission from him....which is nice.

Boba Fett's ammo belt

 I got a photo from a customer who has now finished his costume. Here is Adam sporting his Diamond Awl ammo belt.

Steampunk ditty bag

 I was given carte blanche by a customer to create a small ditty bag to go with her Steampunk outfit. The only guide was that there needed to be somewhere for her lipstick. So with that in mind I made a wet formed bag, finished in contrasting thread AND a small pocket on the front for the lippy.

E-11 Blaster Holster

The E-11 blaster holsters continue to be a steady seller. I got some feedback on them when I crewed for the 99th Garrison at the Nottingham Car Show on the 1st June. The feedback was that they were expensive but really well made. It seems the holsters have become aspirational buys for the well kitted Stormtrooper. I am glad I held my ground on the price. I knew they were worth the expense.

Click HERE to see what he good people at the 99th Garrison do. The collection at the Nottingham Car Show raised about £280 for Dreamflight. Click HERE to see what Dreamflight do.

The Midlands Game Fair

   The weekend of the Midland Game Fair was a long, long weekend. It took a lot of preparation. The Midland Game Fair is treated as one of the last major game event of calendar. The Great Wall Motor World Series Clay Shooting Final and the Great Wall Motor World Series Gundog Championship Final with Chudleys, the European Field Target Championship and the Countryman’s Weekly Champion of Champions in the Terrier and Lurcher events were all held despite the weather on Sunday. As usual is missed the Falconery, working dogs and the heavy horse. I spent all my time in the Knife tent.

   I got to the show ground at Weston Park at 7am on Saturday and managed to park right outside the tent that was to be my home for the next 48 hours without any drama. I was at the event supporting Jackie and Sarah from The Identity Store [click HERE for their website]. Sarah set up their stall along one wall of the tent. I had a table at the end of the run of stall. We had arranged that I would do a series of demonstrations and from that we would sell kits to make the things I had demonstrated. As soon as you do anything on a stall you get an audience. We hoped to gain from that draw. One kit was for a leather tooling set and the other was for a sheath for a knife.


  I started off by do a "Blue Peter" and making parts of the sheath kit to show the various steps. The kits contain a generous piece of leather, a pair of needles, thread, an awl, a pattern and instructions all for £15. The kits are available from the Identity Store. As Saturday progressed I had worked through the Blue Peter parts and was starting to end up a series of sheaths. Part of the demonstration was saddle stitch. However once I started a saddle stitch I had to complete the piece even if it was after the folks had dispersed. By Sunday I was finding different ways to finish the sheaths.

   The tooling kits were a bit different. For a start they are fairly expensive at nearly £50 and that is without any leather to tool. I really only had five to ten minutes to show the skills before folks wandered off. I set upon a tactic. If some poor beggar that would be standing near the bench, when the allotted time came round, I would have a chat with them then ask them their name and set about tooling a piece of leather with their initial letter. That would keep a couple of people at the bench. I would manage to demonstrate the techniques and as I said before as soon as you started doing something a crowd would appear. We also had some people that bought the kits because they had come that purpose in mind then I would show them a few basic techniques. It seemed to work well. I was encouraged when folks asked when the next demo would be and actually turned up at the agreed time.  

    We sold quite a few sheath kits and several tooling kits. I was able to press Diamond Awl. I did a few on the spot jobs, a hole in a belt and stitch or two in gun case. The jobs covered my lunch. I picked up a small bespoke job along the way. I was surprised how many of my business cards disappeared from my bench. I hope those folks are reading this post and drop me a line with a job.

   The time passed quite quickly. As I mentioned we were in the Knife tent. There were six stall holders selling knives of one sort or another. They covered the breath of the market. A couple of chaps from London were selling Indian made Damascus steel blade in a bowie or Indian style. Another chaps sold skinning knives. Another sold all kinds of blades from lock knives to collector bowie knives and a chap from Preston was selling fixed blade knives he had made. They were beautiful. He started with a steel bar, cut it to shape, ground it, polished it and made a handle. If I have more than £140 spare I am having one. The only trouble with him was that he makes his own sheaths for relaxation. He make really nice sheaths.....bugger.

   The weather on Sunday was a bit iffy. I had a lie in but was at the event by 7.15am. The gates for exhibitors closed at 7.30 as the event opened at 8am. 8am came and a flush of people came through. The early bird and all that. I had a nice chat with a young farmer and his girl. 8am really was a lie-in for him. I did not get his name but I wish him well. It was steady all day but quieter than Saturday. Rain was forecast and at 4pm will got a hours worth of downpour. The game was declared and will all started to pack up.

   I managed to do some market researc on my tack. In essence folks really liked it and most of them understood the cost but the reality was that the stuff from the Middle and Far East made in webbing was easy to look after, just chuck it inthe washer, and was cheap. The same old story really. My only let down was not getting to the chap that was selling Pith helmets in time. He was rained off early....doh!  
 
        

The Milkman's Cash Bag

   I have just completed a very satisfying refurbishment. A chap saw me at the Ashby show and asked if I could fettle his cash bag. Not a offer you get everyday but more often than you might think! As a milkman or roundsman they get given a cash bag for collecting money from the customers. It is a classic design. It is very like the ones my Dad had when he was a bus conductor.

   In this bag the dividers for the pockets had perished and some the stitching was freying. The centre of the turnbuckle, the part that come throught he base plate to holds the flap shut, had disappeared. The job was to replace the dividers and if possible replace the turn buckle.
 

The first jobs was to split the stitching and clean up the seam edges. With the gussets out it was easy to clean the inside of the bag. Next a pattern was made from what remained of the now free dividers. Then I cut two new dividers from the English bridle leather that was on hand. The next stage was to sew a divider in. The divider had a gusset on each side that formed the pocket which gave three plys of leather to stitch through. The holes in the gusset where already pierced from the sewing when the bag was originaly made bu the new divider was not pierced. The bag was originally machined stitched so the holes were close together. I went round the bag's gusset saddle stitching using the old machine holes as a guide. The stitch holes in the gusset where not too badly corroded so the finish was better than I had expected.


    With one divider/gusset sets complete I just had to run round the second set. One has to be careful not to pinch or stretch the old leather to ensure it that it starts and ends properly onthe bag. It took a couple of hours of careful stitching to complete the job. I then took a look at the freyed stitches. I ripped out what was poor and restitched the offending areas. The last job required a turn buckle to ordered. As you might expect the new item and old item where incompatible. I stripped out the old turn buckle plate and replaced with the new item. The new turn buckle required rivetting to the bag rather than the old one which just had turn out sprags. It probably why the old turn buckle was missing. It was not up to the job. To finish the job a rubbed in a generous dose of Neatsfoot oil. It brought the old leather of the carcass and belt up a treat

     

Shooting Stick

   You never know what you will be presented with at a market. This time it was a shooting stick that needed repairing.  This was more a refurbishment rather than a repair. I knew I had suitable leather back in the workshop. The customer and I agreed a price and the stick was put in the van for later. I had a bit of a think about the best way to rework the seat. The design came to me and I was away. Essentially the seat is a long piece of leather folded round bars on each of the folding wings of the stick to form a seat.

     As you can see in the picture above I stitched along the edges. Only part of the edge stitching secures the two sides of the turn over. The rest of the edge stitching is just a detail. Just to be super secure I stitched across the free end of the turn over too.

    I like to do an extra piece of detailing. Whilst doing a spot of research I discovered that the more expensive shooting sticks have a lash to keep them closed. It seemed like a good idea so this stick got one. It took a little bit of extra measuring as the popper base and the rivet to hold the lash had to be fixed before the seat was sewn in place. I think the lash adds a little something.