introduction

Good morning everyone. My name is Martin and I bought the 6 month plan a couple of weeks ago. I am now retired having sold my business - previously to that, I was MD of a large business employing over 3,500 people. That means 3,500 daily headaches! I have always enjoyed cabinet making and am lucky enough to have a large, well equipped workshop here near Tunbridge Wells in Kent. Over the last 30 years, I have made everything from small jewellery boxes to large pews - always for us, family or friends. Unfortunately, I tire easily these days and wanted to do something that involved a little more sitting down. Leather is like wood in that it is a natural material with you have skills to learn and ideas to use. For me, its all about form and function and striving to reach that level of acceptable perfection. I think that terms "acceptable perfection" is important as it makes me realise that it is practically impossible to reach absolute perfection and unnecessary to do so. The tolerance I work to in wood - within 5/1000 of an inch - are very much good enough for a material which still moves over its life. However, those tolerances in precision metalwork, building engines or spacecraft, are ludicrously too much. So what is acceptably perfect for wood is not for steel and I guess, the same is for leather. I don't think we cut to that level of perfection and don't need to do so.

I looked at many ways to learn how to do leather work to as higher standard as possible. its personal, but I'm not interested in rustic leather work but want to strive to make items that are near as possible in quality to the best that there are. The only person, the only course, that I could find was this one. I liked Philip's delivery; his level of skill and design are the ones I want to strive for and his attention to detail with explanation of the why's suit my personality. So that's me. Inevitably, I am going to ask way more questions than provide answers but I will be there