As many of you know, we’ve run a leather program out of our garage for a few years now. It’s come a long way (no pun intended) since those early days, and our two primary leather workers, Jonah and Johnson have really improved quite a bit. Johnson recently completed this bottle project, and I think it’s rather astounding work. I need to get back into the leather shop because the student is getting better than the teacher. :-)
We’re also doing work that combines the 3D printer with leather crafting. Hand-tooled leather work is gorgeous, and unique. No two pieces are exactly the same because each line must be cut and every detail must be hammered a few centimeters at a time. The end result is gorgeous but it’s also very time consuming, and frankly the artists deserves to be paid for that time and for his skill. However, this does drive the price of the items up and slows down production. When we get orders for, say, 50 journals or 100+ keychains, we’ve had to turn them down because we can’t duplicate our craftsmen, speed them up (which reduces the quality of the work), or leave other projects behind while we work on a large order for a customer requiring a “bulk discount”. The 3D printer strikes a good compromise, allowing us to design logos in 3D, print a stamp and create an end product that’s rich looking and unique without looking machined.
We’re pretty new at this process, but you can see that we are making progress with this.
Hope you enjoy the photos and don’t forget you can order some of our work at our Etsy shop.
