Quiver Build Along

[themiser3]

So about a week ago, I started to build myself a quiver.  I am very new to leather working having only done a few small items before now, but with the guidance of   this  I think that I can pull this off.  

Now, as of today, I have finally received all of the tools that I believe I'll need to complete this.  Also to keep in mind, in general, I hate any type of tooling design on leather.  I enjoy the natural look and feel of a well oiled leather, so that's what I'll be working towards.  

The overall design will be achieved from the above link.  

Currently I am here:
  [/url] [/IMG]  

The strips are going to be sewn along the inside of the quiver with 3/32 music wire for rigidity.  The quiver will be approximately 22" long with an open top and midsection for retrieval.  

More updates will hopefully be coming, but today is my birthday and next week is vacation.  I hope be done before vacation starts.  

Sean

[Roy from Pa]

Looking good, Sean

[bornofmud]

By music wire do you mean a guitar string?  Haven't heard of music wire before.  Looking forward to seeing more!

[themiser3]

Look at amazon for music wire.  It does include guitar string but is more related to the properties of being able to bend without taking set or creating a crease.  So it is able to flex and retain its strength and shape unlike copper wire, which when you bend it it stays that way.

[themiser3]

Here is the next phase partially done.  I got the top decorative piece cut and the stitching holes created in half of the top decorative piece.  This is my first time doing any sort of leather stitching, we'll see how it goes.  

 

 

 

I'll continue to do the holes on the bottom side and hopefully get this stitched shortly.  

Sean

[bornofmud]

Nice!  What do you use to make the holes?

[themiser3]

Leather stitching tools.

 

[themiser3]

The piece of leather I'm stitching on is a little thinner and wrinkled, so I decided to stitch the top half before putting the holes in the bottom half to ensure that everything would stay lined up appropriately.  If I had unpacked my woodshop yet, I would have clamped the piece down and worked it that way.  

As it was, I still made a mistake.  I got through with the first pass of single needle stitching and had an extra hole, turns out I missed one about 1/3 of the way in, so I had to pull it out back to that point and do it again.  I didn't get any pictures of the mistake, but here they are at this point.

 

 

Sean

[themiser3]

And the second half is finished.  I gotta go bowling now, so no more updates until tomorrow.  That whole stitching things takes so much longer than I anticipated.  

 

[scrub-buster]

Thanks for posting this.  I'll be watching the rest of the build.

[choochoou]

Hey sean where did you purchase the leather stitching tools .I've been trying to find the same ones.Thanks Joe

[themiser3]

Amazon.com, but you can also find them at any leather supply store as well.  Tandy Leather Factory is the one I'm most familiar with.  They sell on amazon as well as at their website.  

  http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B00CBRMRNI/ref=oh_details_o00_s01_i02?ie=UTF8&psc=1

[themiser3]

This morning I started working on the strips of leather that are being sewn to the inside of the quiver to house the music wire for strength and rigidity.  I am leaving the loops in the string every so often to allow me to pull more through if/when I need to.  I'm not entirely sure how much I'll need.  To keep everything in line, I started with the closed end of the piece, and am sewing as I go while I'm making the holes.  This will allow me to keep very straight lines.  Another way to help keep straight lines is to overlap your leather punch tool with two of the previous holes to keep everything in line.  

 

Here, you're seeing what will be the outside of the quiver.  You can add some additional character to the quiver by using a colored string.  I don't have a lot of options, so I'm using some Dacron B50 to do this.  I figure, if it holds up to shooting a bow, it'll do just fine on a quiver.  

 

Also, the leather can be dyed to give it more character.  I am thinking of trying a red berry dye for the accent pieces of leather prior to oiling the entire thing.  We'll see if that happens.  

Sean

[Pat B]

Sean, if you glue(contact cement) those leather strips in before you sew them in you might not need to add the wire reinforcement. That's what I did on the first one I built.

[themiser3]

Thanks for the advice, this is my first one and I decided before I started to follow the link listed in my first post.  Maybe when I make my next one for a friend (Probably for his birthday if I can get some more leather by then) I'll try some modifications to the design.  

Thanks,
Sean

[themiser3]

Last night I completed the two sleeves for the music wire.  Stitching leather has done a number on my fingertips, hopefully, if I keep doing this, I'll build up a nice callous to make this easier.

 

 

Goal for today is finish the bottom decorative strip and then get the whole thing molded into form and stitched.

[themiser3]

I finished the bottom additional piece of leather including a place that will allow me to slip a strap through.  In the original link provided, his is shorter, but this piece of leather already was going the right direction that a strap would hang, so I went with it.  

 

The next step will be to moisten the leather and then mold it into its desired shape to make the process of stitching it much easier.  

Sean

[themiser3]

After moistening the leather on both sides, I held and tied it into the form that is desired, using a hair dryer to quicken the drying process.

   

Now I am attempting to find the right tools to clamp the bottom together so that I can punch the holes to stitch it.  This is proving to be slightly more difficult than originally intended due to the fact that my wife and I just moved into our house and my wood shop is still in boxes with nowhere to go.  Hopefully, I'll find my tools I need shortly and can proceed with the work.  

Sean

[themiser3]

So at this point, I'm ready to start stitching the quiver into its final form.  This proved to be more difficult and time consuming than I originally thought.  Also, you'll notice in the pictures that I started the stitching at the base one way, and finished a completely different way.  

This is how I started the first stitch:
 

That was extremely difficult and not well formed, so I tried a different way. Instead of punching my holes through both pieces at once, I punched them through individually and then stitched them all together.  
 

Even the stitching was difficult due to the small spaces inside the quiver. I decided to go with a cross stitch to add a little more character. Also, when moistening and forming leather, I use anything that I have around that is the right size and shape, in this case, it was a tasting glass from the Sam Adams Brewery in Boston.    

 

The other end will be in my next post.

[KellyG]

Wow that is going to be awesome!