Leather and Nascar in the Arizona Desert

Though we always get here to PIR for her to start her chores on Sunday... I don't start until Wednesday. So... today I go to work as a pro-fesh-unal Nascar Driver...

... or... more lately... Tram Host... 'cause I have a tendency to want to just run over the illiterate bozos that can't read the NO PEDESTRIANS PERMITTED ON THE TRAMWAY signs...

I figure I can just use the same argument cagers use when they run down an Ol' boy on a motorcycle with their Buick... "Why Officer! He came out of nowhere! I never saw him!"...

So... what to do 'tween Sunday and Wednesday?

How about continue to march on the Leather Craft revival, now that the Beet harvest is done... The "Mystery Meet" up in Glacier that is still cloaked in legalese secrecy... and while I wait on the start up of my chores here?

Collected a few more bits and pieces here... collected a fresh piece of leather from Leather Factory while we were in Denver... and the first Journal is truly starting to take shape...

 I cut the leather for the cover on Monday... and doodled and schemed on what I wanted to do for the tooling design...

*Custom Journal in the Making*

Then I mocked up a test fit to see how it was all coming together as well as working at getting my leather carving muscles working again... It's starting to feel pretty good... been too long since I worked a piece of leather. I've determined that it was a mistake, to leave it behind.

So... knowing that it's never too late... I'm going back and picking it up again... Hoping that it will contribute eventually to the pantry...

*Tooling leather in the sunshine*

I sat out in the sun, amongst the rigs in the lot here at PIR and tooled up the cover for this first of my custom journals...

I've realized a couple of things; One, I need new glasses! ;) and Two... Leather Craft is a perishable skill... it takes a bit to warm all the muscle memories back up when they've been left dormant for a while... but still... they come back quick... So all is good.

With the leather drying from tooling... I went to town to pick up a couple more bits to shape into a tool I'll need... For some more work on the book block, the shaping of the spine etc... I need what's called a "Lying Press"...

I'm laminating up a couple pieces of Poplar... to be used with some decent Irwin Quick Clamps to serve that job...

*Lying Press under Construction*

This tool building keeps up... and I'm gonna need either a bigger trailer... or a base camp to put it all ;)

The trams are calling and I must go...
Brian