Workshop: Leather and Lasers - Passport Wallet

I’ve been playing around for a while with using the laser cutter to make leathercraft projects. It works really well!

A few people have inquired, so @Lukeo and I’ll be running a workshop making a simple passport wallet.

The workshop will be November 22nd starting at noon, and running until about 4:30.

Here’s the prototype for what we’ll be making:



It’s a travel wallet sized to hold a Passport, a few cards, and some room for currency or papers.

In the workshop you will:

  • Learn how to use Fusion 360 to design a pattern to laser cut
  • Make your own leather passport wallet
  • Dying the leather
  • Conditioning
  • Saddlestitching to assemble the wallet.

We will also discuss etching - leather etches really well, perfect for customizing.

What you’ll get:

  • Pre-Cut Leather for the passport wallet
  • Dye and Oil/Soap
  • Thread
  • Needles

No experience or equipment is required.

Cost:

  • $65 + processing fees for members of VHS
  • $75 + processing fees for non-members

signup here:

If there’s a lot of interest, this is a workshop I can run again.

Feel free to drop me a line with any questions. I’ll have the prototype with me at VHS, if anyone wants to take a look at it before signing up.

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Super cool, so do you laser cut the holes for the stitching (and thus avoid the eternal issues with stitching heavy material?).

Yep! Gets perfect alignment.

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Sounds awesome, how do we reserve a spot?

Reserve your spot on picatic.

Hey Jon, Have you doing any etching on leather that is already dyed?

I’ve played around with it - using very light etching to darken where I want. Worked fairly well.
Something else I’m interested in trying is masking the piece, and then using the laser to selectively remove the mask, re-dying the revealed areas.

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bumping - as of this post, there’s still 2 spots available for the workshop!

Hey I wanted to ask are there any slots left for this one?

Hey @DeerBacon, Yes, there’s still two spots.

Signup on picatic.

Thank you @jon for the workshop.

Here is a photo of my completed wallet.

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Wow - that looks amazing. Bet this was a great workshop!

Here’s my finished wallet…turned out great! Thanks again @jon!

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Is this going to happen again anytime? I was a bit late on the sign up and missed out

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There was enough interest that I think I’ll run another one in the new year - probably in February.

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Post Mortem Time:

First: Big thanks to @Lukeo for his help with preparing and running the workshop!

12 Attendees. 5 existing VHS members, 7 non-members (some of whom expressed plans on joining). One attendee had prior experience with leatherworking.

How the non-members found out about the workshop:

  • stumbled across it on vanhack.ca
  • referral by an existing member/other participant

The workshop had sold out fairly quickly, so I didn’t do a lot of advertising it in public. 12 people was a good number - enough space around both the craft table and the work tables.

Total time was about 5 hours, and all participants who stayed were able to finish completely (I had expected some to take them home to finish, one participant left early and did so).

Before the workshop @Lukeo and I had pre-cut all the leather - This worked well, with a single kit having some delicate thin edges (must have bent up in the cutter) - Something to double check next time.

The schedule (dye the leather , while dye dries I presented on designing the patterns to cut, treat the dyed leather, Coffee break while it dries, Learn about saddle stitching, assemble) worked well. Strongly encourage putting a break in the middle of 5 hour workshops.

The TV/chromecast worked okay for showing the designing. Arranging for someone with a more powerful laptop with VGA or an HDMI projector for the space would be a plus.

Lots of interest in etching the projects - still iffy on the logistics of pulling this off, but might experiment with including it next time.

Supplies Notes:

  • Amount of leather was correct, came in a bit under cost estimate.
  • Needles were over cost estimate
  • Treating supplies (mink oil/ mink oil paste/ saddle soap) was sufficient - we had left overs of all three, probably enough paste/ saddle soap for next time, need more oil.
  • Only needed one wool dauber/participant, should have just had a few spares for dropped/etc.
  • More dye. We used two small jars, and used it all up. One pot / 4 people would probably be more appropriate. More color variation for dyes - dark and light brown were very similar.
  • More thread. Cut it close on this one by overestimating how much was on each spool. Should have bought a larger bulk roll.
  • bottlenecked a bit on the single lighter in the space - forgot to check how many we had. Should try heat gun to see if it will work as an alternative.

In total, the supplies costs were approximately what I had estimated when pricing the workshop.

Need to remember to warn that oiling middle crease will soak through and change outer colour.


Participants were positive on the experience, and it was fun to run.

Anyone with additional feedback, feel free to post/ drop me a line.

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Update - it looks like the conversion rate on non-members who attended the workshop becoming members was ~50% in the following few days.

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That’s awesome! Welcome new members!

photos - https://goo.gl/photos/fvq825SiMNRLr2S79

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I did a second one in Tan.

It might be overkill, but I backstitched over all the edges to strengthen them.

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