My 10 Favorite Leathercraft Videos

There are lots of great videos on YouTube about leathercrafting. People are producing and sharing some nicely produced, beautifully shot little movies, and the best of them have an almost hypnotic quality. Watching a craftsperson who has done something hundreds or thousands of times, you see the routines they develop, their personal ways of working. There are many great tips and techniques to be gleaned if you watch closely.

Here are my 10 favorite videos, in no particular order. 

First off, we have JnK from Korea making a camera case for Leica X1 half case in a beautiful red leather:

Interesting glue paddle... Particularly love the way he makes his precision cuts. The position of his hands. The pricking iron. And the steady application of edge coating. 

Number 2: A video slideshow of a Milanese handbag company Valigeria Beretta that has been making luxury items since 1947.

Love the large cutter which I assume they use to slice the boards that would be used inside the bags for structure. Also, it's cool to see all the patterns, cutting templates and tools they have accumulated over the years. The precious exotic skins, which you can see are carefully positioned to maximize yield. 

Next up: A handbag by Salvatore Ferragamo. You know you are in the luxury space when the craftsperson is wearing a lab coat. I love the way the video starts with him feeling the leather for any flaws or defects with his hands. You may be able to detect with your fingers something you can't see with your eyes...

At 0:55 he puts the leather through a skiver, which takes the hide down to a specified thickness. Nice way to get consistency, but those things aren't cheap! At 1:05 he's skiving down the edge with another machine, which tapers the thickness just along the edge. It has a circular, bell-shaped blade (which you can't see in the video). At about 1:07 you see him sanding the edge with a power sanding wheel. It's great to see all the steps involved in building up the handle (starting around 1:30). See how he's working on a nice, thick marble slab? At 3:11 using shears to cut relief slits for folding the leather around the curves of the handle. Then using his bone folder to crease, coax and fold the leather into place. At 3:26 there's a telling detail. When mating the sides to the bottom, our craftswoman aligns the center point, and then the corner point, before working down the leather in between. A perfect strategy for maintaining the shape when joining two pieces with elastic properties, such as leather. Note the use of an edge guide at 3:47 when machine stitching. At 4:07 the "bag-within-a-bag" construction technique comes into play - a great strategy for creating an inner lining. 

Now for a pair of sexy red patent leather heels, another video by Salvatore Ferragamo:

This one starts with the digital sketch, rotating in a 3-dimensional rendering. Then they skip directly to a pattern being projected onto the leather on an automated cutting table. These things run over $100,000! Not for your average shoemaker... At 0:27 they are skiving the edge, thinning it down. At 0:35 you see the very careful and close-to-the-edge stitching along the upper opening, mating the lining and using a post-bed sewing machine with a wheel instead of a presser foot. Just look at how close to the edge that stitching is...

Next the counter and toe reinforcements go in place, before the workpiece is clamped into what looks like a Darth-Vader-like torture/stretching machine. That thing is putting immense pressure on the leather to stretch it into shape around the last. Even with all the specialized machines, notice all the hand work still involved, every step of the way. Notice the lining is kept oversized, so it can be nailed to the last? A way to stretch the workpiece without making holes in the finished shoe. 

Into another machine that helps form the heel of the shoe, pulling the leather ever more tightly over the shape of the rear of the foot. 

At 1:40, I'm assuming that the trip on the conveyor-belt is through some sort of oven. Many heat-set adhesives are used in shoe making these days, and that may be the part of the process where those glues are activated. 2:05 using a grinding wheel to taper down the leather at the bottom of the shoe. 2:44 the sole is lovingly hand-glued in position. 3:00 a specialized press, to make sure the sole is firmly attached. 3:18 those nails from earlier are removed, and the shoe is freed from its last. 3:35 I think this device is nailing the heel to the shoe. 3:46 edge coating the shoe opening. 3:54 hot foil-stamping the logo onto the insole. 

Video 5: Some classic hand stitching from Hermes.

This video is a great primer for those of you interested in hand stitching with 2 needles. All the steps are shown (except for the inital hole-punching, unfortunately). You see the stitching pony, waxing the thread, putting the needle through the thread. Watch closely to see how he uses the thread from the first stitch to help pull the needle from the second stitch through the hole. Notice how he uses the awl to guide his needle though for the first stitch. Observe how small the stitching awl handle is (and how well it fits in his hand). Also notice how short the blade is on his awl. No wiggling when he punches through the leather either, his holes are nice and tight. Probably a nice sharp edge on his awl. Flattens the stitching at the end with a mallet. Look at the beautiful finished stitches when he's done. Just look at them, and learn! 

And number 6: Some gratuitous handbag porn from Gucci. 

Love the hand-airbrushing at the 0:27 mark. This one jumps all over, showing a variety of techniques very quickly. Hand-cut fringe at 0:57 which become those awesome tassels. Note the use of the custom wood form during assembly (at 1:24). Hand stitching to reinforce the corners at 1:39. Using heat to from the bamboo handles at 1:52. Slow stitching of the nameplate on a cylinder-bed machine 2:02. 

A document case by Dunhill:

Not as detailed or as informative as some of the other videos, but still fun to see a master at his craft... Not sure if the whole thing is hand-stitched (they only show him stitching the handle), but it is quite possible. 

Video number 8: a craftsman from Hermes talks about the process of making a Kelley bag. Originally from NY Mag's the Cut. 

Video number 9: the making of a Louis Vuitton bag with embossed monogram:

Starts with feeling up the leather (as in several other videos), and at 0:25 one of the cooler things to see: the giant embossing plate that presses the logo monogram design into the leather using a giant press. How cool is that? This video skips all the making, and jumps right to the sanding (0:36) and edge-painting (0:43-0:50) which is accomplished through a unique machine. The last part of this video seems to be all about inspecting the final product, measuring stitches, and looking for blemishes or defects of any kind. 

And last but not least, number 10: a quick video of hand-made high heels by Koronya shoemaking school:

I hope you find something inspiring or helpful in these, as I have. 

Edge Finishing and Hand Sewing Leather

I have been working on a project involving edge-finishing and hand-sewing leather, which are two areas of leathercrafting I've been trying to learn more about recently. I've spent a lot of time lurking around on leatherworker.net, which has many answers provided by amateur and professional craftspeople - some with many, many years of experience. I've picked up lots of really helpful tips...

The idea for this design is to add stitched detail around the eye openings on one of my molded hoods. This one didn't turn out too great, so I'm using it to experiment with a bunch of different techniques. The idea was to make the eye openings just little slits, but surrounded by a piece of oblong vegetable-tanned leather. I wanted the stitching to be prominent, so it becomes a part of the design. 

I start off by cutting the oblongs from a 1-inch strap of 6-7 oz. veg-tan leather. 

I use the strap-end cutter to round the ends, and the oblong bag punch to cut the slits inside. It's pretty tough to get the punch through the veg-tan, so I usually end up completing the cut with a hole-punch and x-acto knife.  

 I create a stitching groove with my stitching groover... It's adjustable so you can vary the distance from the edge. Usually you want to be about the thickness of the leather away from the edge - that's a good rule-of-thumb. 

 It's kind of tricky, but I grooved along the inner slot as well, just to create another shadow line. 

 Now I use the edge-beveller to knock the sharp edge off the leather and give it a round shape. 

 The edge-beveller has a groove in the bottom, so it just slides along the edge of your workpiece. 

 Done with the edging...

Now it's time to start finishing the edges. Here are some of the things different people use for edging: Sandpaper, canvas, saddle soap, edge-coat, parafin wax, beeswax, and a wood edge-slicker. I found the edge-slicker on ebay for around $5, including shipping from China! 

 
On these pieces I lightly sanded with the sandpaper, and then used gum-tragacanth on the edges. 

 I buffed the edge with heavy canvas cloth. 

 I laid the piece on my granite surface plate, and rubbed briskly with the canvas. You actually want to generate a bit of heat, and that with the pressure and friction help bind the leather fibers together. 

 It should give you a clean, smooth and shiny edge. 

 Once it was dry, I applied a bit of brown Fiebing's edge kote, using a small brush for inside the opening. 

 I cut the openings for the eye using a hole-punch and x-acto. 

 I actually tried drilling the nose-holes. Wasn't easy - there was no goo support underneath, and I ended up making the holes out of alignment. Good thing this is just a production test! 

I think the bare eye-slits look pretty cool at this point. May have to do a hood like this in the future...

But for this one, I'm sticking with plan "A". 

 I apply some contact cement to the hood and the eye pieces. Even though they are getting stitched in place, it's common practice to use glue to hold things together while sewing. 

For a good primer on hand-sewing technique, this book is the bible: "The Art of Hand Sewing Leather" by Al Stohlman. It takes you through the process in very clear, illustrated step-by-step instructions. 

 It's a bit overwhelming at first, (there are actually 33 steps to his technique), but the steps all make sense, and once you practice a bit, it starts to come naturally. 

One of the challenges of this project is the back side opening is hard to see because it's inside the hood. 

 You have to use the outside needle to guide the inside needle through the hole. 

 Of course, the things I like to do are never easy... Compared to machine sewing, this is almost painfully slow at first. 

 But eventually, you settle down, and get into a rhythm. It's not a race...

 And when it's done, you have every stitch exactly where you want it. 

And it will last for a really long time!

 Thanks for visiting! Until next time...