Making a Small Leather Work Bag

The Leather Work Bag is the smallest in my line of leather bags in the shop. In this video above I show a quick snippet of a few parts of the assembly process.

Why My Leather Bags are Unique

You will notice in the video above that I do not stitch the seams on this bag. In fact there aren’t any stitches in sight. Early on in my leather working career (going on 10 years now), I decided to create leather goods using a very unique and durable method not offered by other makers. Instead of stitching the seams, I rivet them in places with solid brass rivets. Solid brass is not known to fray like stitching. In fact solid brass rivets are so durable, that if I make a mistake and have to take one out – it can take several minutes of cutting and prying them loose. This is all to say that when you purchase a leather bag from my shop – it should hold together for the entirety of its lifetime. That’s not something a typical stitched bag can necessarily claim.

In addition to the riveting, this leather bag as well as all of the others in my bag line are cut in a very unique way. The main body of the bag is actually one long continuous piece of leather. This is a bit taboo in the world of bag making for one reason only – it is just too costly for the manufacturer to pull off. It is very difficult to find a long piece of leather without any imperfections, but by using the highest grade of U.S. Full Grain leather – it can be much easier for me. By making the bag with the main body being one long continuous piece of leather – this allows for less seams which technically are the weakest point on a bag or any leather goods. Good quality leather is extremely strong, so the more of it you can have in one continuous piece – the better.

How Long Does it Take to Make a Bag?

The timing can vary piece to piece, but typically one full day of work is required to make a bag of this size. When you place an order I usually spread out all of the steps over a few days in order to fit it in to my making schedule during the week. Typically I can have a bag ready to ship one week after you place the order…not bad for a made to order purchase!