Get Your Strap On

      I just wrapped up construction of a project that has been on my to-do list for several years: guitar straps. You see, about fifteen years ago, I did a re-build of the old lighting rig for Rogue Cthulhu. I build log of that re-build to post here has also been on my to-do list for several years. Anyway, part of that re-build included using a winch to raise the new light rig. That winch used nylon webbing (seat belt material) instead of the usual rope on the winch. I sourced a fair bit of grey and also black 2" webbing for that project and had quite a bit left over. My immediate thought was, "let's use it to make guitar straps." That thought ruminated in my mind for the next fifteen years, until last night.

 

     Over the past two or so years, I've been piecing together the other parts I'd need to make the guitar strap project; buckles, leather...  Well, that's pretty much it, buckles and leather, and I already had the leather. But in my defense, I did have a difficult time finding buckles that I thought were perfect for the job, and also, I didn't look very hard. 

     The leather I used is a thin soft calf skin like black leather (not sure of its origin) with a textured pattern on one side. I found this leather at a discount store many many years ago. It is far too thin and weak to be used for the strap ends, so of course, that's what I used it for. To make it work, I doubled up the leather, giving me the textured pattern surface on both sides, and also sandwiched 10 oz. black cotton canvas between the layers. These I married with spray adhesive, and would later stitch the edges for reinforcement. I cut out the strap ends with the help of a template I made in Inkscape, using an existing guitar strap from my collection as a guide.

     Once all the pieces and the stars aligned, All that was left was to dig out the sewing machine and assemble the straps. It was pretty evident that I hadn't used my sewing machine in quite a while. My first attempt yielded pretty horrible results. After switching to grey thread, like a normal person would, I ripped out and re-sewed that zig-zag stitch about a dozen times before I was satisfied with the results (read as: too frustrated to continue).

     After adding the buckles and stitching the ends, I cut the strap button holes with a hole punch and a craft knife. That's it. It took about an afternoon to make three of them. Probably would have gone a lot faster if my sewing wasn't so bad.

Engraved Wooden Wand Case v1

Hot on the heels of my recent laser engraved Goetic Seals Box, I found another use for some of those pre-made wooden boxes that you find at the craft store.

This is a 7x2 inch wooden box that I have sanded and laser engraved with a design on the lid, which I had selected specifically to use in conjunction with some 6" selenite wands which I carry in my shop.

After engraving, I sealed the box with two or three coats of de-waxed shellac. Then I set about trying to install a foam and cloth lining to cradle the rather fragile selenite wand.

The foam part of the lining came together very quickly. I used 2mm craft foam and positioned it in such a way that the springiness of the foam would create a soft cradle for the wand on the bottom of the box, and also a pad on the underside of the lid would apply gentle pressure to keep the wand from moving around.

The bottom foam piece was cut extra wide and the edges and center folded down to make an M shape. The sides of the box will hold the edges in place. In order to keep the center down, I glued it down to a scrap piece of chipboard that would run along the bottom under the foam.

The short ends of the box also needed some padding to protect the tips of the wand, so I cut two pieces of 2mm foam (two for each end) to tuck into the end of the box. I had to trim the M piece a little to make room for the end padding.

BTW, pay no attention to the fact that the colors of the foam change in some of these pictures. I lined more than one box and had at least one failed attempt and I just used whatever color foam I had laying around. I knew I would be covering it with cloth anyway. Each picture may not be from the same box or stage of the project.

The cushion on the lid was just a simple piece of 2mm craft foam cut a little wide so that it would bow out a little bit from the lid. This will offer some gentle pressure to keep the wand from moving around when the lid is closed.

The foam part came together quickly, but the cloth part was a pain in the ass. I ruined at least one set of foam parts experimenting with how I was going to cover it with cloth. I originally intended to use velvet, but I thought satin would be easier to work with because it is thinner, and I knew I would be tucking the excess cloth behind the edges of the foam. Sorry, it's hard to see much detail of the cloth work because it is black.

The lid was the easier of the two sides, but even that took two tries to get an acceptable, if not perfect result. The satin cloth is spray glued to the craft foam and the ends are turned under and also tacked with spray glue. The short ends were kept a little sloppy so that the excess cloth would hide the small gap created by the bowing of the foam.

Pro tip: don't use super glue with craft foam and satin cloth. It soaks through the cloth very quickly, bonds to your fingers instantly, and dries very slowly on the foam.

The bottom side was even more problematic. At least two failed attempts were made trying to cover this assembly with cloth. Again, I used spray glue to tack down the satin to the craft foam. I had to wrap the little end pads in satin separately and just tuck them in on the ends. I tried to cover them at the same time as the main piece but that didn't work out well. Even just covering the main piece had a lot of little issues that had to be worked out. Tucking things in here, folding things under there, making sure not to impede the design of the M shape of the foam. Difficult to explain, but take my word for it. There were issues.

Anyway, it all got worked out satisfactorily. The lining wasn't quit as nice or as easy to make as I had wanted it to be, but the end product is quit a bit better than the cheap pre-fab wooden box I started with. This will up the value of the selenite wands considerably.

Tarot Bag

A couple of years ago, I was shopping at my favorite discount store, which gets one-off random stuff in all the time that it sells for dirt cheap, and I found a big bin full of these leather scraps. It is super soft calf-skin like leather with a cool pattern on it.

Each scrap was about 2-3 square feet in area, and I think they cost me about $2 each, so I bought a LOT of them. Other than one small modification project that I won't describe, this is the first project that I have used this leather for.

I'm always finding that the stock sizes for velveteen bags that I can get for the store are ill suited for holding tarot cards. If they are tall enough, they are too wide. So I decided to make a few tarot bags from these leather scraps.

I don't do a lot of sewing. I'm not particularly good at it, and just about every time I touch a sewing machine, it jams up on me. But I do have a sewing machine (the second cheapest one I could get from walmart), and I did take Home Ec. in Jr. high, so I know the basics of how to sew.

I made a chipboard template (5"x9") to help with cutting out all the pieces of leather. Each piece of leather was then spray glued to a piece of green lightweight cotton fabric, which will become the bag's liner.

The top edge was folded over on each piece and sewn down. This will be the top edge of the bag, and this is where the drawstring will go.

The two sides of the bag were sewn together with a zigzag stitch that wraps around the edge of the fabric to prevent fraying. The bag is sewn together inside out.

Once the drawstring is threaded through the hem at the top edge, the bag can be turned right side out.

This was a fairly simple project, but one that I think will sell well in my shop.

Doctor Who - River Song's Diary

Merry Christmas everyone! 
I have the day off so I thought I'd clean the house and write a post for my most recent project. I'm very happy to say that my daughter has become a big Doctor Who fan. I personally have been a big fan of the show since I was very young, maybe 6yrs. old or so. Some day I will have to show you my home-made knitted Doctor Who scarf that I made for myself in Junior High!

While flipping through the ThinkGeek.com website, looking at rubber d20 molds, I stumbled across two officially licensed versions of the River Song TARDIS diary. The standard version, and the limited edition deluxe version. Both look very nice, and I was trying to choose which one to buy my daughter for Christmas, but then I started looking at them closely and decided that I thought I could do at least as good of a job, if not better, making one myself. Let's see what you think.

I started with a Google image search for some screen grabs of the actual prop. It appears to me is that there are several versions of the prop in various states of age and deterioration, which is to be expected, but more than that, the surface details seem to be slightly different.

In this image of the book, as it is new, the cover is clearly embossed, or rather in relief. And the covering material appears to my eye to be paper; probably painted kraft paper, judging from the way it wrinkles on the spine reliefs.

But in these pictures, at first glance the cover details look the same, but under close inspection, the  rectangles and squares look, to my eye, to be painted on. The spine relief is much less pronounced. The cover material looks to be cloth. The top and bottom horizontal lines of the outer rectangles extend past the vertical lines, which they clearly do not on the "new" version above. The Standard version from ThinkGeek also looks to be painted on (with the extended lines), while the deluxe edition is in relief, without extended lines (but it's in faux leather, and the color looks off).

So first step was to decide on which screen grab version to use as my model. Since painted on surface details were just not going to do it for me, I opted for the "newer" version, with a relief surface, non-extended lines, but with a cloth cover.

A quick look around the shop and I quickly spied a very serviceable blank book to use as the base. Rather than make the TARDIS door design out of piecemeal strips of chipboard, I decided to cut out the whole pattern from one piece of chipboard. I measured my book and made a full scale mock up of the surface details in CorelDraw and printed it out to use as a cutting guide.

I made a little bit of a mess of the French groove while removing the book block. This particular brand of sketch book is bound very tight and has a good mull, but the covering material is very thin and it ripped along the spine while I was cutting through the mull. No problem. Easily fixable.

I just turned to my old pall, Tyvek. This stuff is very lightweight, thin and flexible, it glues well, and is super strong. Seriously, I can't even rip this stuff with my bare hands. And it's cheap too! You can recycle mailing envelopes to get a free supply. I love Tyvek for strengthening the spine joint of books I make or repair. I usually use a brush or a sponge roller to apply the glue, but this time I tried using a car body putty spreader. It works very well. Faster and easier than a brush, and less wasteful and cleaner than a roller.

And so with a little smoothing, voilà, the spine is stronger than ever.

To create the surface relief, I used my standard 0.057in. thickness chipboard. I glued the printed cutting guide directly to the chipboard and used a hobby knife and a metal ruler to cut out the blackened outline. This took a while. There are a lot of cuts in that design. Then I spread glue on the cover boards and pasted down the cut chipboard pieces. I just eye-balled the spacing.

Front and back, of course, and then some more chipboard for the spine reliefs.

Fearing that the cloth I had selected as the covering material was a little too thin and might reveal some of the underlying framing and color differences, I decided to first cover the boards with kraft paper and glue, working the paper into the crevices with a bone folder. Then I gave it a very light and quick spray of flat black spray paint to make the underlying surface a little darker, which would slightly darken the color of the cloth cover (or so I figured). My blue cotton cloth was light weight and might soak up too much glue as I worked it into the crevices, wetting it out and creating a mottled surface, so I decided to use a strong spray on adhesive, 3M 77, to attach the cloth to the kraft paper. Again, I worked the cloth into the cover's crevices with a bone folder.

Then flip it over and tuck in the edges...

And there you have the finished cover.

Case in the book block using the double end sheet method (using a blue end paper)...

and voilà, a TARDIS book fit for a Time Lord!

Sorry if the texture of the cloth made the pictures come out a little weird. They look better at full scale.
I made this book pretty quickly. It took a few hours, 20 minutes here and there spread out over about five days, because my daughter was also working on a project for a Christmas present and I could only work on this when she wasn't in the workshop with me. I hope you (and she) enjoy it. I think it turned out pretty well and, with the exception of the tedious cutting out of the panels, it was pretty easy. I may make a few more and sell them in my shop. I wonder how many Doctor Who fans are in my area?

 Merry Christmas, Isis!