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.
Apologies for the delay in this post. A lot has been happening. In short, 5 years ago we got permission to convert a large barn into a house. Cutting a long story short, the local Council objected to the build and we have been fighting for 4 years plus to get it certified lawful. Thankfully, that happened last week. The fight has cost us over £200,000 - on top of a build cost to-date of £690,000 and a completion estimate of another £200,000. So, the stakes were high but, truthfully, sense prevailed and the liars were defeated. So now, we get the barn completed. There is quite a bit of work that I need to do - the barn is some 740 square metres but I'm only doing some nice bits - I'm panelling one room in English oak in the classic style (rails, stiles and inset panelling) and making various bits of furniture - mainly tables and cabinets. Therefore, for the next few months, I am focussing on timber - at least I know better what I am doing with timber. I'm lucky enough to have a dedicated woodworking area of about 110 square metres and a separate craft room of about 50 square metres.
Anyway, pen case. Please see the photographs for the result. I'm only 70% pleased with the outcome. There are a couple of areas where my sewing should have been more accurate. I like the concept of the case but the result has to respect the concept and I don't think it does. I have since bought a vintage leather cigar case from Ebay for me to see how that is constructed as it does not appear to have the protruding side seams. I'm interested to see how it was mad. Live and learn. I also quickly made the second pen holder using a small scrap of oak and inset the leather as you can see. The idea is that my pens can sit in the oak pen holder on my desk and then
, when I go out, i transfer them to the leather pen case. Don't look too closely at the pens themselves as I just took some pens that i had been given years ago to fill up both items.