There were a few sources of inspiration for this one. First of all, I’ve been wanting to make boxes for a while. Secondly I really like the pen cases with a divider and this was a chance to make something similar. Lastly my dice no longer fit in their pouch, so I needed a better solution.
The Insert
I used 1mm Zermatt for the insert. I marked where I wanted the folds to be, then skived the flesh side of the fold. A channelling tool like a U-gouge would have worked as well. I laminated the pieces that needed to be laminated to form the walls of the rows.
When I was confident that the lamination would hold, I rounded the corners. I would finish sticking a base to it and edge painting it towards the end of the project.
The Drawer
Leather I used was 2.6mm black Saffiano. I started off with a base, and four side pieces. I mitred all the edges that would be touching, making sure not to mitre the tops of the side pieces.
Since it’s almost impossible to see marks on Saffiano, I put down painters tape and punched through that. I used pricking irons to mark the holes, and awled them through.
Side panel being awled
Matching side pieces with equal number of holes
I made sure to count the holes and mark and awl corresponding awls between the base and side pieces. Don’t forget to awl the edges where the side panels will meet.
All main edges punched
All edges marked and awled
With everything awled it’s time to glue the mitres on both sides and stick them. I used a needle to line up the holes. I didn’t particularly let the glue set, just started stitching as soon as the edge was holding itself in position. I kept my tape labels in place to ensure the correct pieces would get matched up.
One edge stitched
Mitre edge in detail
Warning: Depending on how dense the leather is your finger pads will hurt from pulling the needle through. Be prepared and take breaks when you need to.
After stitching all the sides and edges I sanded everything that would need to be edge painted. I mixed edge paint to a close shade of brown for the dividers, and used plain black to paint the drawer box and dividers.
The outer casing
Still using mitred edges I marked the holes the same way. However I awled these holes at a 45 degree angle instead of straight down. This made it easier to stitch as finding the corresponding hole on the other mitred piece was much easier. Next time though I’d move the holes further inside, because I ended up ripping a few holes since the leather wasn’t very thick where the holes exited.
