Work in Progress Teaser

Posted in Tips & Tricks on April 13th, 2014 by The Cyberwolfe

I decided I needed a box to store my stamps in, and the engineer in me came up with a snazzy idea that you’ll see in the finished project post. For now, here’s a shot of the box top that I put together today:

Box Top

The box stitch is a bitch – but it looks great if you can pull it off. In this case, I almost didn’t – the first hole I punched with my awl tore through. (It’s on the back so it isn’t readily apparent, but I may rivet a ‘bandage’ across it and add a matching one on the other side just to make sure it doesn’t lead to problems as it wears.)

This made me sit back and finally figure out a trick for punching the holes for this stitch. I cut a spare block of wood into a right triangle, and when I place that on my cutting board so that the ‘peak’ is pointing up and then lay the leather on it so the beveled edge is flat on the cutting surface, I can punch straight down through the groove with a stitching chisel and come out right where I want it. Here’s a diagram that makes it a little plainer – you’re seeing everything from the side:

Box stitch diag 1

The tiny arrow is aimed at the groove, and the vertical thing is of course my chisel punched straight down through the leather.

Now the trick is going to be building essentially a radial arm saw that uses Olfa rolling knife blades to make a perfect edge bevel…