Share Your Projects

I have a few quite nice fountain pens from when i was working and I wanted to keep them somewhere else than just loose in a drawer. So, I started to look at designs for pen cases. The cases that I like, and I thought protected the pens the best, were mainly cigar cases - although you can buy molds for similar to the one I intend to make from leathercraftpattern.com.

So, molded leather - which I had not tried before. The first step was to make a mold. I had a number of plastic test tubes which were about the right size; no end of timber and I am quite used to resin work (with cabinetry). So I made a very simple mold. The tubes were epoxied to the base of the mold. The sides of the mold were measured to come half way up the depth of the tubes, i.e. sides equal to the radius of the tubes. The next time that I was mixing resin, I mixed a little extra and filled the mold to the top of the sides. This meant that the resin also came halfway up the tube sides.

I then soaked some thin goatskin (for the inside lining of the case) and some faux ostrich hide (this is my first time doing this). I molded them both to the form with a bone folder and then cramped on some offucts of timber.

Now to let it dry. When dry, it would form one half of the bottom part of the case. I would then repeat this exactly for the second half and then glue and stitch those two parts together, stitching up the two channels between the tubes as well. That would complete the lower half. I'm not sure about the top half yet. I think that I mold more layers onto the bottom parts so that they would slip over the lower half when complete. Obviously, i couldn't stitch the channels on the top half as it wouldn't slide over the lower half. I may, therefore, just make a simple wooden mold for the top halves. Who knows yet? .

How will it turn out? Will it be a disaster? Will it be good enough on my first attempt or will I learn from it for a second try? Follow my success or disaster and learn from the mistakes.