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Restauration of US Mail Bag 1968 by Merit Leather. 60 x 42 x 12 cm.

It was a hell of a work but for sure worth it. Merit leather sadly used a bad thread or did not wax it, so all the stitches were breaking apart. Good news however they used good leather. So to rescue this unique piece I did it right and completly took the bag apart and redid everything. I used solid copper rivets and waxed Gruschwitz Linen thread 18/5. It was all saddlestitched by hand and I´m very convinced that falling apart seams are no issues for the further decades of use of this bag.

It was quite a time consuming project but I have to say I learned a lot. One thing is to use the best materials you can get and do stuff the right way or leave it. E.g. the Swiss Army Leatherpieces I collect are sometimes nearly twice as old but I never had a breaking thread. So something the saddlers there did obviously better. This piece will find a nice place at my leatherworkshop.

Fixed Kitchen Knife – Leather Knife Handle

Actually my mother gave me the task to finally field test if a dishwasher damages the sharpness of a blade by giving me a kitchen knife with a broken plastic handle. But instead I took the hammer and got rid of the plastic crap and see if I could attach a new handle.

A while ago at my Schachenmayr Tannery visit I got a piece of Cowbell leather, extremely thick and real hard and durable. I cut out the rough shape for the handles out of this leather and riveted them on the handle with some solid copper rivets. Then I started to fine shape the leather by cutting more and more off. Not a stunning beauty but this knife was saved from the trash bin and probably (due to the leather handle) will no longer be but into the dishwasher.