Backlog

It's been more than a month since my last blog post. This is a result of a bunch of factors. Some of these are personal (it's summer, and I'm moving into a new place soon, and I've been conscious to maintain some personal time) and some of them are businessey and good (we've been *very* busy at nTop, including some big product updates), and some of which are more random (most of my projects are in holding patterns right now and there hasn't been much to update). 

Because I care, though, here's a quick recap of what I'm working on:

• A new run of Public Radios. I've got a few small speaker changes in my backlog, and we're still chugging away at a few circuit updates. 
• A printed lattice stem. I hope to have an update on this in the next week.
• An update on my printed seatpost testing. I got the failed parts back last week, and want to write up a short post on those results. I'm also still sitting on some parts that were HIP'd and treated by REM, and I'm planning on assembling and then testing one of those too.

Totally separately, I spent an hour today updating some drawings for the parts for the leather wallet I made a few years ago. I made them in order to explain how to repair the hand stitching on the wallets, but the drawing looks nice (I usually think drawings look nice) so I thought I'd post it here. 

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So, there you have it. I should have some updates here on some of these things soon :)

Wallet parts

This, also, is moving forward:

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These are parts for my wallet design, which I'm working on with Christy Holzer. On the bottom left is my personal wallet, which I carry daily. On the top left are natural, vegetable-tanned leather parts. On the right are those same parts after being tanned (naturally, in the sun) and lightly oiled with Neatsfoot oil. 

The tanned & oiled parts will be sewn up (by hand, by yours truly) tomorrow. I may switch over to one of these (be your own beta tester; eat your own dogfood), and will give the second to a friend.

Then I'll be tanning, oiling & sewing a small batch (with Christy) and hope to be putting them up for sale (and/or crowdfunding) soon.

Old & New

Christy and I have been making progress on the wallet :)

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Center front is the latest version. On the right is one we made a few weeks back, but which needed a few modifications. In the back is the original version, which I made completely by hand in 2010 (it's been in my pocket for most of the time since then).

Throughout, the parts are vegetable tanned tooling leather. On the two new ones, we had the parts laser cut - but I'm not sure we'll be doing this for the production version.

We'll be finding suppliers of whole sides in the next few weeks, as well as looking into steel rule dies for making parts, etc. Expect updates.

Wallet

About three years ago, I made myself a wallet.

I drew inspiration from a number of makers, among them Billykirk, Makr, and Corter. Eric Heins @ Corter was also helpful in getting me oriented on a few of the details.

Recently I've been inspired by the idea of making a batch of similar pieces, and have been working with Christy Holzer on developing specs and finding suppliers of the necessary parts.

Last week, we got a few pieces cut and met to sew them up. The leather was all old scraps I had, and the fit & finish isn't exactly what it'll be in the end, but I like the result. We'll be refining it a bit over the next week or two, and hope to make plans for a small production run soon. 

It's a fun project, and I'm excited to see what the response is. Sign up below to get updates!

Keep me in the loop!

New Form

Other stuff.

Among various other things, I've been scheming with Christy on some leather based stuff. These parts are laser-cut, and will be assembled into pre-production samples of the wallet that I designed and made for myself in 2010. 

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This project is likely to develop slowly over the next few months. I'm enjoying it, and looking forward to moving it forward.