Over the last couple of weeks I’ve made quite a few more small leather things. Whenever I needed something, I tried to make it. So here’s another small leather projects post!
Refurbished wooden plough plane
This is a plough plane I picked up at a flea market a couple of weeks ago. It was in pretty good shape, just a bit rusty and dirty. And it had a lacquer on it that I didn’t like, and some parts had dried up glue stuck on them. Other than that, it looked good to me. It was made by Nooitgedagt, a former toolmaker in Ijlst, Friesland. I bought the plane in Makkinga, which is about 50km from Ijlst. Nooitgedagt went out of business in 1990. I find a lot of Nooitgedagt planes on my hunts for tools. Some are from their early days, the late nineteenth century. These are premium tools, but often have been forgotten and left neglected in grandpa’s shed. The newer tools are not great. Not bad either, just plain average if you ask me. This plough plane looked late nineteenth century to me. I still haven’t found out how to exactly date these. I know they used several brands, stamps and stickers on their tools, and this plough has the oldest brand that I know stamped in it. In the 1920’s or so they started using another one, and stickers.
Leather and linen self-closing bag
If you follow my blog, you know I’ve picked up leatherworking recently. I like it because it’s a lot faster than most woodworking I do and requires fewer tools and little workspace. I’ve worked with fabric a couple of times too, and thought it would be fun to combine the two in a project. It happened to be my brother’s girlfriend Franka’s birthday today, and I’d been thinking of something to give her for a couple of days. Then, last thursday, I thought: “why not make her a nice handbag?” This would be quite an ambitious project, for me at least, but I gave it a go. And it worked! I made it last thursday and gave it to her tonight.
The bag and lining are made of linen I got from an art store. It’s the cheapest real painting linen you can buy (but still quite expensive at 36 euros per 1×1.5m, luckily I got some extra for free). It’s quite supple but still rugged and strong. The bottom is made of nice supple chrome leather. The strap is cut from thick veg tanned leather. I used rivets to attach the straps, and the bag closes when you pick it up because of the system with the eyelets. I added a little label in the lining that says “for Franka, from Lieuwe and Hanneke”.
I didn’t take any pictures of the making process for a tutorial, because I mostly based my design on a tutorial by Renske Solkesz. Go take a look, it’s a great tutorial!
A new axe and an old hatchet
Normally, I buy old, neglected tools and refurbish them. It’s cheap, and it makes me feel like I saved something from going to waste, or even like I conserved a piece of history. Conserving a piece of history can take a lot of elbow grease, though. I don’t use power tools to grind or sand, so I often spend hours scrubbing and grinding the tools back to life. A few weeks back, I was in the market for a new axe and I didn’t feel like waiting until I stumbled into the right one at a flea market, or spending the entire night on restoring it. I decided to buy a new axe. It had to be something special, though. Not just something from the DIY store. I considered buying a Gränsfors Bruks (those things make me drool a little), but decided I didn’t want to spend that much right now. Then I stumbled into De Wit, a small, local tool manufacturer that specializes in garden tools. They sold several types and sizes of axes. I decided to go for the “Forest Axe” with a 1250 (2.8 pound) gram head and 700mm (27 1/2″) ash handle. It cost a little over 40 euro’s. (And you may have seen it already in a post I made about some leather projects, including a sheath for this thing.)
Some small leather projects
I’ve always been fascinated by leather. Well made leather items can last for ages. A friend of mine has an old satchel from the Amsterdamse Spaarbank (Amsterdam Savings Bank) in Art Nouveau style that must be a hundred years old, which is in great condition and she still uses. Leather is a versatile material that comes in many qualities, and can be used for many purposes. I have done some leather working in the past, making simple cases for chisels and knives, but nothing too pretty or intricate. I had only very basic tools and no knowledge of how proper leatherworking is done. So I decided to buy some more leather and get some practice. I made four small projects in one week, which I will show you below.
Making profiles for a Stanley #66
I bought this stanley #66 beading scraper a while back. It only cost me a couple of euro’s but it was missing its fence and only had one scraper blade included. Otherwise, it was in great shape. I haven’t been able to date the thing exactly, but I read that it was probably made somewhere between 1900 and 1941, since it doesn’t look like it was once japanned. I ordered a Lie-Nielsen fence for it, which fit after a bit of filing, and some Lie-Nielsen blanks.
How to make a bone folder, cheap and easy
I’ve been working leather for a while now, mainly making sheathes and cases for my tools. They were intended to be functional, not pretty. Recently I’ve been trying to make some prettier things out of leather too, such as a case for my Nexus 7. To make clean lines and sow neatly and cleanly, I needed a folding bone. These things aren’t available a lot where I live, however. So I decided to make one. It turned out to be incredibly easy.