Charlie's Shed - a leather tool holster

 As some of you know I volunteer on the North Norfolk Railway as a steam fireman, trainee DMU driver and trainee guard. Some of these roles need a few bits of equipment which can be bought or made. 

Some of you also know that I have a 1930 Ariel Model A which needs two toolboxes and that I have a hankering to make these myself from leather, so I've concocted a few little jobs to learn about the leather work. 

This latest one is a little holster for a ticket clipper - that old-school tool that you used to see bus conductors and railway ticket collectors using to make holes in your ticket.

We start with a bit of 2 mm leather, soaked in the sink. Add to that the ticket clipper wrapped in cling film and a wooden form cut to the shape of the clipper plus a few millimetres.

Using the clipper and that form we can squash the wet leather around the clipper until it dries and miraculously it will have formed the shape of the clipper. Behind that there is a thicker bit of leather which will make the backing and the belt loop so that I can carry this around up and down the train.

When I've cut the backing to shape I can use my stitching punches to make the holes for the stitches. This is quite hard work on the thumbs! Since I made my key wallet a few weeks ago I have learnt to stitch in a box shape in order to make the belt loops rigid.

The next step is to glue and stitch the formed shape to the backing. We will be gluing flesh side to skin side, which will never work unless we use some sandpaper to rough up the skin side. We are going to stitch this joint as well but the stitching will go more easily if we glue it first.

We use the stitching pony to hold the work firmly whilst we sit in front of a YouTube video and sew it together using the normal saddle stitch.

The final step is to use the knife to cut the waste away.

There's always a question about belt loops but this time the design fits nicely against my waist and is easy to use. I can get the clipper in and out and the holster doesn't move at all.

Charlie's Shed - a leather key wallet

 As a precursor to making the tool boxes for the Model A, I'm doing a few leather work jobs in order to learn some new skills. This first one is a key wallet for a couple of keys that I carry when working on the railway. 

Here are the two keys in a cardboard mock-up of the wallet I'll be making:

The cardboard form is laid out on a sheet of 2.5 mm vegetable tanned leather. I've learned that vegetable tanned leather is stiff and makes good boxes and holsters, and that chrome tanned leather is softer and is used for clothes and gloves.

We'll cut the leather out with a craft knife. 

When the leather is wet, it's very easy to fold and form the shapes the wallet will need. This wallet has a double fold and additionally it needs a strip stitched to the back to form the belt loop. This means that the sequence of stitching is important because effectively the belt loop stitching becomes inaccessible once the front pocket is folded over and stitched but on the other hand, the belt loop covers up some of the front pocket stitching. 

What we have to do, is stitch part of the belt loop, then the pocket, then finish the belt loop.

Here's the belt loop in place. It's stitched at the bottom, where you can see it, but it's also got two rows of stitching behind the loop one of which was stitched before the front pocket and one after.

Here's the front pocket. The leather was formed around that T-shaped key and left flat for the smaller brass key. I stitched the T-shaped key pocket first though I had already fitted the press stud.

Long after I had finished this wallet I got some Tokenole leather buffing compound which I used with a wooden buffer to finish the edges.

Railway enthusiast?

Readers with retro-technology interests outside of old bikes might like to know that my railway blog is growing at:

https://railwayvolunteer.blogspot.com/

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Fashionable gear for 40's Weekend

First published October 2018

Some of you will know that we have a fabulous 1940's weekend here in Sheringham. The event was initially organised by the North Norfolk Railway and is still a mainstay event of their calendar, but in recent years '40's weekend has extended into the rest of the town.

Some 20,000 people visited Sheringham for this year's event, many of them turned out in 1940's costume. These YouTube videos give a good flavour of the event:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=n2JeqVro8eU

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=R5nx0tCIU_g

And there is a display of vintage military and civilian vehicles at the main locations: Holt NNR Station, Weybourne NNR Station, Sheringham NNR station and in Sheringham itself.

There's always a few bikes to look at:

2015 Event - Ariel W/NG from the Norfolk Motorcycle Museum at North Walsham

2015 Event - Royal Enfield WD/CO

2016 Event - Matchless G3L

And here's another G3L, a visitor from London at the 2018 event:

There's a vehicle parade on the Saturday, and this year I was riding my 1942 W/NG. Not being at all well prepared, I had no period attire to wear and I wore my Barbour lookalike - originally designed in 1936 - but that was about it. The modern flip front helmet didn't help.

The bike looks OK, the rider is trying....

So for next year I have a new hat to wear. It's a period Slazenger helmet, from the 1950's in reality:

It must be a good one, look at those famous names:

It's actually my size...

I'm not going to win any fashion competitions though.

Does my nose look big in this?

I've got these brown leather gauntlets made by Lawson's of London, known by the previous owner to date to 1960 or earlier:

They are in great condition, sheepskin inside and very comfortable. Just the sort of thing I used to wear when I started riding in the '70's.

And here it is in use in 2019, with a dapper chap from the VMCC Anglian Section on a Guzzi 500S - from 1936: