shipwreck

Did not take to many pictures, always forget. But shot these, not bad for the first try. Used some thin leather from a womans jacket. The hardest part came from getting the brake lever holes lined up. Used the brute strength and ignorance approach, made the holes as they were being laced up. The other hard part came from the fact that I have never seen laced leather wrap in person. My internet was down, so while I had the time that would have been spent doing work available to do this, I had no internet to show me how it was done
before, polished and ready


After, waiting for some brake hoods when I make the long treck to the bike shop.


Made some test peices to make sure my width was right.



Went ahead and did the levers, cause they are not totaly pristine, and got carried away.

The biggest problem was that as the leather was tightened, the stitching stood proud of the leather. Next effort will have as much tension on the maching as it will handle, and the leather will be damp when I sew it, so the threads sink in farther.

Otherwise, I was suprised that it worked. I will use it till it wears out before I try again, cause it took about four or five hours of my life doing this

rootboy 

Wait a minute. What's that sewing machine for? Did you stitch them together before putting them on?

shipwreck

This was the test peice I made to check for size. The final stiching was done in black upolstery thread. The sewing maching is in the pick mostly because I like my sewing machine! I use it a lot in my other hobbys and its good to have pics of it next to some project that most new machines could not do, to show others what to look for in a machine at thrift stores.

No, it stiched the whole length of the leather so that the twine would have double the thickness to draw against. Next time I will sew a cord into the sides for exra strength.

Alan Edwards

That is great now we need to get together and figure out how to pattern full leather hoods. Do you think that the lever covers will slid down? Was that because of the cold? Did some work at an auto upolstery shop when I was a kid, find one and they have a couple of sizes of piping. You can use solid copper wire too.

sailorbenjamin

Wow. Hmm. Maybe I gotta try this.

CMC SanDiego

I took some scraps once, stitched them together and put them on some moustache handlebars. I glued wool felt to the back of them first to give me a little padding, and to give the seams something to sink into a little bit.


The leather has faded (on some of the scraps) so it's more obvious now that it wasn't all from the same dye lot.

jeirvine 

Very nice. More details on how to do the actual stitching would be swell. Thanks!

zandoval 

Hey - This is great - More pics - I'm gonna try it...

rootboy 

Very interesting project. I've coveted a sewing machine that will sew leather, even though I would rarely use it. But, when you need it. May I ask, what machine is that? Looks nice. Thx.

shipwreck

I will take some pics of the stitching today. Thought I had some. not sure I did it "right", but it looks good. One side has a short gap, because the leather did not stretch as much in one spot.
The machine is just an old brother form the sixtys/seventys? It will punch through about sixteen layers of denim, but its not an industrial. Just more oomph than any new machine I have encountered.(I restore and give away/sell old machines.) I did not even have to use a leather needle on this leather.

CMC, that looks cool. When my father came into my workshop last night and saw what I did, he asked me to do his X-19 steering wheel. Thing I will do what you did and stitch some Italian leather together. I like that.