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Julien Douve
Nov 12, 2020
In Help From The Community
Hi everyone, I come to you humbly for guidance. A potential client needs cigar cases made, with the constraint that the leather be vegetable tanned, that it be "hand dyed, or having a hand patina finish", and of course that the leather would wet mold well. He wants 4 colours, emerald green, royal purple, burgundy red, and black. I pushed back on hand dying these, because of time constraints, available colours on vegtan, and durability of the finish. Now red, green and black I have figured out where to source, I reckon the tuscan tanneries the likes of Walpier or La Perla Azzura will be great at this. However their purple is nowhere near the bright electric "royal purple" colour he needs (see attached an unknown surface pigmented vegtan leather from A&A Crack and Sons). Do you think such a bright colour can be achieved with vegetable tanned leather? My understanding is it is hard, you get rather earthy tones vs. the electric hues that chrome tanning allows. If so, does anyone know where I could source some aniline finished/hand dyed vegtan (like buttero for example) in those four colours (that is not the one mentioned above)? I realise now how tricky it is to work with customers poorly educated in the ways of leather... I hope I am making sense here, Thanks a million for your insights Julien
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Julien Douve
Feb 13, 2019
In Share Your Projects
Hi everyone, so that's a mid-size bifold with an external card slot I am thinking of making more of to build stock. I feel the design has potential, it fits a lot of cards and cash in a neat compact package I find. But I would love to hear your sincere hard-hitting thoughts on that model of wallet, esp. on the design/construction and the finish/quality of work etc. Sorry for the wannabe fancy pictures, wanted to post these. Anyway, here it is, thanks a ton in advance!
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Julien Douve
Feb 13, 2019
In Say Hello Before Posting
Hi @Philip , Everyone, My name is Julien, I'm from France I've been practicing leatherwork for about 3 years now. I think it started after being a month off work with a broken arm, and having all that time to binge on youtube I stumbled upon Ian Atkinson's channel and found it fascinating and promised myself I'd give it a go. So when all healed I just bought a bunch of tools and started making horrendous knife sheaths and wallets using all the resources available on the web to slowly improve my work. Fast forward 3 years, still a long way from where I wish I were but definitely better, and I ended up getting sick of it and quitting my day job and moving to Indonesia for a few months to get a chance to work on leather full time, and hopefully manage to make a living from it eventually.
It probably was a bit reckless but I'm pushing on:). Going back to Europe in May and looking to set up a workshop then. It has been fantastic having all this time to try new items and techniques and get the chance to see the improvements coming from working everyday for hours on end, but it;s a slow process. I work mostly with vegtan, with a soft spot for walpier buttero (and Horween CXL), making wallets, cardholders, small bags etc. for now, but I would love to move more towards larger bags and luggage items in the near future. It is still rather rustic and crude work, working on developing more finesse and working finer materials but yeah... I'm looking forward to meeting you guys and share tips and tricks that can maybe help beginners avoid all the mistakes and the wasted time and leather I've been through at first, as it is still fresh. My IG page is @juliendouve.leather, would love to hear your thoughts and constructive feedback on what I do, as I lack objective opinion from fellow workers. Speak soon! J
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Julien Douve
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