A New Leather Work Bag for Men

It’s been months in the making with several prototypes tested and refined, and finally this simple and extremely durable Men’s Leather Work Bag is ready for sale! Part of the reason it took so long to release is that I had to acquire a new skill…stitching on an industrial strength leather sewing machine. I decided that designing bags with rivets only is really going to hamper my abilities to make larger and more complex items for the shop. In order to accept my fate of using stitching with leather I decided a compromise was in order: still use rivets to help reinforce heavily handled areas, and use a sewing machine so massive that it basically uses rope as the thread!

The learning curve is quite steep for this type of machine and I definitely spent many a week heading home quite frustrated. But I pushed on. I knew it wasn’t rocket science, and with steady practice and patience I would get there at some point. The real trick with these machines is that you need to develop the eye and muscle memory to help the leather flow through it correctly. Only experience will aide in progress.

For this leather work bag I decided to base the design on the small cardboard box I had used every day to carry my water, lunch, mail, and misc. items to work each day. It’s compact and made to look like a medium sized tool bag with open top. I chose to use very thick Full-Grain leather on this, industrial strength thread, and of course solid brass rivets. You can really beat this thing up and it will only look better!

I imagine this bag could be used as a tool bag, lunch bag, or just every day carry to work bag. My next endeavor will be constructing a bag design with a zippered closure. High-tech! Haha! If you like the look of this bag and want one made for yourself, go visit the product page here. It takes about 4 to 6 business days to make and would certainly be a great gift for Father’s Day!