Hello all, my name is Aaron.
I'm an Australian that has been living in China for the past 9 years, and continue to do so.
I have always loved leather goods, and it has been a dream of mine for the past 12 years or so to be able to create these goods as well as admire them.
Unfortunately, time, life and business commitments have always gotten in the way. But FINALLY now my business is running well and I have been lucky enough to be able to delegate most day to day operations to others so that I may pursue something which I love, and hopefully turn into a business unto itself (my ultimate dream - making a living off of something I love doing)
My background is in engineering (I am a toolmaker by trade, and engineer by profession) - so if you have steel questions etc - feel free to ask!
I strangely enough also have a heavy background in sewn product, and my wife and I own/operate a sewing factory . I mostly take care of the machines, pattern making, technical stuff etc etc.
I had researched long and hard before deciding to purchase the courses from Phil, as his style is exactly what I am interested in - european elegance with an old world twist. I also have a great respect for Phil as he obviously practice what he preaches and his work is outstanding - something which I hope to emulate.
The issue I had found previously when researching leathercrafts is that most of the content is American based saddle/tack biased, which, whilst it has its place, it is not something I am greatly interested in.
I am currently in my purchasing phase, gathering a list of suppliers/ materials and building up my tooling arsenal.
I will admit to being overly eager though - I purchased 3 full hides of leather prior to finding this course, had them all laid out and got excited - then after watching a couple of videos, I rolled the hides up nicely in kraft paper and put them away and bought a couple of bags of scrap leather...need to learn to crawl before I can walk.
I hope to be an active member of this community, and thank you all in advance for having me!
Warm Regards
Aaron
Lol
@Fadi @Maru Tuchi
@Fadi @Maru Tuchi
Well peoples, I ordered some scrap leather from the guys above, and it arrived today!
Heres a quick summary of what I think...
- Chevre is meh...for the price, I think i'd be better off buying full skins for anything other than practice, they are creased, mostly scratched, maybe 1 or 2 areas that I may be able to get a couple of card wallet liners out of. But this is for practice anyways, so i'm not really fussed.
- Cowhide...wellllll....these pieces were definitely bigger than I though they would be, and from my limited knowledge of leather, seem to be very good quality indeed. I got a mix of what I think is Clemence and Togo (check out the pics below) as well as 2 pieces which are out of place - grain is WAAAYYY to big - but overall, seems to be the real deal.
Both sets of hides have a musty smell, indicating that they have been stored for quite some time - but it's not crazy bad and I think a good bit of airing out and some activated charcoal in a box should have them back to perfect.
Here is the link to the taobao shop where I purchased these, and I have also added another link for another guys which I may buy some scrap from in the future, as he has a bit of a bigger range.
I bought from here: https://shop274166959.taobao.com
Here is the other shop I may buy from in the future with more of a range: https://shop307410931.taobao.com
Both shops also offer larger offcuts of these leathers (4-6 square feet for a single piece) if you do a bit of digging around in their stores.
Here are the photos and have fun!
🤣🤣🤣🤣🤣🤣🤣🤣🤣🤣🤣
Welcome @Aaron
Thank you for that great introduction, your three hides story got me laughing 😂
There's actually some decent pieces in there for small leather goods. Also great for practice.
What leathercraft tools are you working with?
Hey Mate,
your "I put away the three hides I bought before" comment made me laugh to no end. Been there, done that!
As you said, the problem with the leathercraft teaching community is like you put it: too much saddle tac. And on the other end of the spectrum, you have these new makers who make absoulutely stunning videos, hollywood worthy even, but that are useless as teaching material because the products they make are not that complicated anyway and some of them even do "technical mistakes" on their projects...
Comes in Phil and his courses. You will be challenged, you will be frustrated at time, you might even cry "mamaaaaa", but in the end, they are worth it. Really really worth it.
Hope you enjoy your time here :)
Welcome, Aaron!
Be sure you will love Philip‘s videos and also sharing experiences and stuff with all of us in the Forum.
Hope you can make a great improvement and share your projects with us!
-Maru