I have to get into the habit of blogging.  I have a lot to say but I usually say it AZ Billiards when I have a few minutes to spare.  This month has been busy as well closing out several projects and developing new alliances.

As you all are aware my studio is a collection of talent.  To this end I have brought four new leather tooling studios into the fold who will each be working with me on various projects.  These guys are GOOD.  They can do just about anything in leather including some very nice Sheridan Carving.

Sheridan Carving is a type of deep carving designs in leather using mostly floral patterns that weave and interlock between the flowers.  Here is a picture of something done by our artists to give you an idea of the sort of tooling you will see on my cases coming up.

Now we can do almost anything – any design, any name, any pattern.  You won’t find any sewn on patches with laser engraved names on my cases – unless that’s what you want.  I don’t have anything against laser engraving but if you can get artistry like this done by hand then wouldn’t you want that?

So that’s the exciting news on the ornamental design front.  The next step is to improve the inlay techniques.  My aim is to be able to inlay seamlessly into leather.  Leather inlays and wood inlays.  This is one area where the laser and cnc cutters might come in handy.  I will keep you all updated on that front.

And pictures of cases – soon is all I can tell you right now.  As of this moment I have not finished one single custom case.  Mostly because I have been swamped with other stuff and partly because I am not happy yet with where we are in the shop and I am still waiting on some custom equipment that is being built to make my life easier.  I could do the work by hand but I am not going to put out anything that is less than the aboslute best it can be.

Billy Stroud of JossWest cues once asked me why I thought his cues cost so much.  I said I don’t know and he said “it’s so I don’t have to stand in front of my customers at shows and make excuses why something isn’t right.”  So I have that same attitude.  I don’t want to send out anything that isn’t right so all you have is a good experience.  So please forgive the wait, it’ll be worth it.

This entry was posted on Thursday, July 26th, 2007 at 5:49 pm and is filed under The Journey. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.