Rusty Melton Cases – Down Home Leather Goodness
In an attempt to get to a more positive place and stop talking about case makers and people I don’t like I thought I would spend a little more time on people I do like.
Rusty Melton is a relatively new case maker who is a rising star in the business. He is a “good ole boy” from the Show Me state of Missouri. And show us he does with his traditional design heavily tooled cases.
Rusty started out in the tradition of many case makers doing fairly simple envelope style cases. These are generally in a teardrop or lemon shape with the leather sewn backside to backside. While this is still a labor intensive process it’s much easier than doing cases where the seams are closed backside to frontside. Many case makers start out this way because it’s a faster way to get a case done.
Rusty’s tooling started out a little rough and his finishing was not quite as nice as more established makers. But in the past two years he has emerged as a world class cue case maker.
He and I have had a few conversations about case making and I am proud to say that he has taken several of my suggestions to heart, especially where the cue protection is concerned. As you all know this is my personal obsession and I am always very pleased when I see one of my colleagues taking it seriously as well.
He went from this which are tubes covered in a rough fabric with no padding;
To this which shows soft fabric backed by foam rubber;
That’s a man who really cares about his customer’s cue investments!
Then he took things a step further and started doing the type of seam work that is honestly the toughest and hardest to do in this business. Very very few case makers will do seams this way and it speaks huge volumes about Rusty’s dedication to his chosen craft that he has volunteered. Because honestly folks, most people just care about the decoration and as long as there are a bunch of pretty flowers on it they could care less how well the case is made or what effort the case maker put in constructing it.
Now doesn’t that make a much nicer impression than the teardrop shape?
So let me express this in terms of work as to the difference. Pushing the needle through two pieces of leather that are back to back and you can see the holes takes a couple hours to sew the seam by hand. Doing the blind seam as in the two pictures above takes about a day just for the seam. But the result is way nicer.
Go here to see more of Rusty’s work. Rusty’s Case Gallery
I won’t tell you how to contact him but I am sure if you like his work you will find out how to find him. 
I hear his list is getting long so you might want to get on it before it’s up in the range of the SouthWest cues waiting list.
