My name is Douglas and I live in Tampa, Florida (not by choice, don't hate me). I am a piano technician my specialties include pneumatic player pianos and square pianos from the early 19th century. Because of these specialties, I've acquired a veritable petting zoo of all kinds of leathers. Why? Because old pianos used various leathers, as well as player pianos. So one day I asked myself what am I going to do with all this leather? I went to my local Tandy store and took a few classes. Before I knew it I was hooked. But I wanted to create higher end products, luxury products. I took my search to the internet and discovered too much. So here I am, eagerly willing to learn (and too eagerly willing to purchase new tools, more tools, more!!!) Someone stop me.
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Hello Douglas. It is with great regret that I inform you there are no brakes on the leathercraft train. Welcome aboard. Choo-choo!
Hell, we don't want to stop anyway 🤣. It's interesting to hear you're a piano technician, you're not the first student to come into the leather fold from pianos, I believe there's a couple others in the Masterclass too. I never saw the connection until now.
That's cool! I've worked for a while in a piano store in France doing mainly small repairs and helping with the transport. I did not know much about the piano internals before and was amazed to see how intricate they are. It was also interesting to see the technicians work on them. I almost considered learning it.. Once or twice I was even asked to give a suggestion on the leather bits, as they knew I was into it. Anyways, welcome! You'll find many, many great things here in the LCMC.