steveb leatherworks: the blather

Made a quick stop at the Sycamore, knocked down a Dagowood. Killer!

Fred wanted a fin. we started off discussing some Steal Your Face Grateful Dead theme. I said, “sure Fred, we can do that, but why – it’s been done a million times”. We wound up with this idea – a pretty crazy stamped up the wazoo textured Fin wallet with a nice stainless chain and a beauty of an interior. It came out nice. Once of the benefits of getting sets of tool from my toolmaker is that i can mix up patterns because they share dimensions – fun to do and it looks pretty cool, definitely different!

So Fred got his wallet and wrote:
Got it Saturday, looks great thanks a lot. How much for a belt?

I love my customers and all of their effusive wordiness!!

I love getting pics of my stickas on stuff. if i think of all the ones i have printed, sold given away and handed out over the years, i’d think they’d be everywhere… If you got one of my stickas on your stuff – send me a pic of it!

Ralph wanted a sheath made for a brand new moderately fancy folder he had just gotten. He wanted it black, he wanted it “fat end towards the bottom and he wanted a lightning bolt applied to it. No problem for this 4 or 5 time returning customer. Simple clean and small, it cam out nice. Thanks Ralph, I appreciate the work.

Shank, Pupkin and I busted out for the first time as a team a few weeks ago. Ran up to Huckleberry, it felt real good although Shank reminded us with fairings to hide behind and electric coats to swaddle our baby soft bodies – that it was kinda cold. I hear ya Shank – time to break open that dusty creaky excuse for a wallet and get yourself a removable windhield – ya think? 

I dont make alot of stuff for myself. Most of what i wear and use is prototype work, usually it is a little rough design and detail wise ..a work still in progress. I usually try something new at the same time  that i am working out a new design – a new material,  a new piece of hardware, a new dye, etc – so really it is prototyping at its finest. I use what I made and correct the details in the “next one”, so by the time it is ready for a customer, it really is ready and shows that some time has been taken to make sure the details have been thought out.

Then, sometimes, I just get a wild hair and knock something out – zip/bam. These dash pouches came out of  the shop this winter as a replacement to the pathetic vinyl pleather junk that H-D sells. So I made these out of some really thick (too thick as it turns out) leather, riveted in some gussets and put them on the bike. Looked good.

After one ride, I hated them, even though they looked good and were a massive improvement over the H-D solution. Why?

Well, these “new” batwing fairings sit high (unlike my old evo bagger), you really cant put anything on the top edge of the inner fairing without impeding your road vision. I hate impeding my vision, so took a quick spin just to make sure –  without any junk on the dash and found i liked it alot better. So i took off the nice new dash pouches i made. Into the box they go.

Another unintended consequence of putting these beauties on the dash were vibrations from yet even more crap on the bike. I understand now why H-D uses pleather, it has no weight and doesn’t vibrate (because it has no mass)…

Some things are better left alone. 

Saw this car type thing on the street, just the other day…call me crazy but I don’t think that this is so “SMART”. Driving around NYC streets in one of these silly little electric death traps is plain dangerous.. especially when the going gets tough and metal meets..ahhhh.. plastic and foam rubber. Talk about “Unsafe at any Speed” – where is Ralph Nader when ya need him most?

SMART Car? not so much, methinks

 Paying props to Eddie tonight, one handsome devil of a sailor. I know he was someone special to Mickey (my Mom) – there were quite a few pictures and mentions of him in photo albums and diary entries of the time. I am pretty sure he didn’t survive the war based on  what i can piece together. I think this pic comes from 1943. All that was on the back of this small square print was his name. I have a few other prints with him and a few of his pals recorded for posterity. What strikes me about these images and the faces is their youth and pride. You cant help but wonder had he survived, what would have Eddie been doing? Biker? Baker? Billionaire?

someone special to someone special

So, I don’t know about all of youse, but I dont get to see my friends nearly as much as I’d like to. Work, family, our own “chores o’ life” and our own individual circuits of activity often conspire to keep us from the folks we’d most like to see and spend time with. Peckering at a keyboard or holding a brain irradiator (cell phone) in hand just doesn’t do it for me.. and actually i hate talking on the phone.. calls rarely exceed 1:30 if you were to look at my bill. But I have to admit, I do love technology in one regard, it allows me to stay connected with my crew, flung far and wide – kind of like a car to car wave, a text keeps us in line of sight of one another, if not in lock-step.

went off a bit here…ok, anyway..

One of my favorite people is big-boy, rock star of the urban sprawl, land of concrete and overall operator and chief negotiator of the here to hey now. He is someone I definitely don’t get to see enough of, so when the opportunity appears for us to connect, i tend to shuffle the calendar of chores and obligations to make it happen. I always have a smile on my face after seeing mr. bigs. 

So i am a shutterbug, I am a NYC’er, I love adventure, I absolutely love doing cool weird off the wall stuff, and I happen to know that Mr. Bigglesworth can dish up some adventure few can – a tour of the underground world of NYC – the trains and tracks that crisscross under NY – the freaking subway…really an ancient place if you think about it…  I asks, can ya, can ya -huh, huh….”yea, ok” he says…and we set it on the calendar.

Well we went on tour of some really cool spots. I was blown away. After getting a rundown on safety precautions (this is a place you want to play safe and NOT fuck around), we were on our way. I will say it again – this is a dangerous place and you do NOT want to try this  on your own, actually – you really don’t want to do it all. OK? Capiche?

In a word – wow – this is a photog’s dreamland with the right gear and surprisingly complex and interesting in almost every regard. Alot of history in terms of hieroglyphs, eye candy, and sense of being in the true heart of the beast all registered on me. But, make no mistake this is a  place you’ve got to pay major attention.. and in this regard, I give Bigs major props – he has been down in the tube before, knows how to handle himself and I thank him for giving this NYC native a safe thrill few have had. It was really cool and I hope to go back someday…it was that nuts and that cool.

Thanks again Bigglesworth! You are the best and it was great to see you.

If you all want to see the full set of shots, go to my Flickr site: http://www.flickr.com/photos/steevenb43/sets/72157616020907730/ 

Good personal friend Jeb had a nice blade he wanted a hi-ride sheath for. Made this for him. Came out sweet, cool colors, funky sheath backing that holds tight to a belt,  real good cam lock that holds the blade tight, even if upside down or grabbed by someone else. if you going to wear a vest or jacket all that peeks out the bottom is a little bit…and it is real easy to wear if your in and out of cars all day. Definetly a professionals sheath.

Now in subsequent followup to make sure he had the goods in hand, i came to learn that he was not thrilled with it…huh? why I asked?

As it happens, Jeb is always at his blade, reaching for it regularly and wanted a true slip sheath, that didn’t lock the blade as tightly as the one i had made, he wanted one that allowed an easy two finger pull…oh boy…we didn’t spend alot of time talking about how he wanted the sheath to work, specifically how he wanted to wear it in what position, etc…we kind of had a quick bla bla on cell phones and it was weeks later that I got the blade, working off of recollections..NOT the right way to do it… which is why I ask ALL of my normal customers to “put it in an email” so i can be sure I understand what your looking for. There is alot of specificity in an email and there is no misunderstanding an email or forgetting.. devil is in the details… I know better than to wing it, and I broke my own rules.

So once again – lesson learned, Jeb has a beauty of a sheath that doesn’t work the way he wanted, and I spent alot of time on something that is going to sit in a drawer..bums me out  and THAT friends is why i always point you towards emails and the little nitty gritty details that can make or break the utility of something allowing it to  work and appear just the way you want it….and i want it that way too!

So anyway I was pissed, i told him to throw it out it or chop it up or put it in the goddamn disposal, and no charge and i was sorry. I have a feeling he might try to “fix it” and since that will be impossible, i suspect this blade will come back for another sheath and this time i will be paying much more attention to the devilish details….

I think our obsession with messaging and screen based stimulation has reached a new and absurd height. This picture below was taken in Union Square Park/ NYC.  The building is the Shake Shack – a pretty good place to get a snack believe it or not, even thought the park itself is a squirrel and rat infested box of dirt. The tables at the Shack are pretty excellent for people watching and the park is ringed by benches where you can vie with obnoxious Eurotrash tourists,  the homeless, the insane and indigent and territorial squirrels to get a seat…providing even better people watching. I like this place when i have some time to kill and the weather is good.

Funny  (well not really), I was at the dentist not too long ago and as i sat down in the chair, I saw that they had installed flat screen TV’s in front of each chair, to “entertain” during treatment. I can barely handle CNN normally,  but put it in front of me while I am in the dentists chair…and I know it wont be good…. ironically it was the first time I have gotten to “hold” the remote in a real long time and i used it for one thing – to turn the damn box off.  

great news

Well, I  know its really bad now, geez –  this economy is so farked the rich folks are gittin riddy to leave land.
I have a feeling this is one of the AIG guys who had to give his bonus back, for fear of being outed
….oh the shame.

so – trust is still in fashion in some spots. I love stopping by country stores. This one is not too far from the secret location. Their fresh eggs are quite good and the veggies when in season – rock. All hail the country store – where “honest abe” rules the roost. Welcome to America. 

I don’t know about all of youse, but I am pretty much done with winter.  I say, lets put March behind us and look forward to Spring and all the positive things that come with it… riding, road tripping spending time out doors and lets not forget, bbq’ing![youtube]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=q2bajYrCtEM[/youtube]

Met a real character today – a genuine English “horologist” who only works on maintaining ancient clockworks. Very cool guy took the time to answer some questions and let me snap a few images. Nice way to spend some time. 

Co-mingling and getting along…works. Here we’ve got a a prettied up Street Glide squatting next to a stealth black something-or-other Japanese rocket bike outside a local gym… both parked illegally on the sidewalk. Flashing a unified show of “i dont give a crap, I’ll park wherever i damn well please” and a bit o’ the dark black…on a cool early spring day…

It is good to see bikes of different persuasions playing nice and being used for local errands…I took a minute and scoped the yamaha – there are some really nice techy bits on these new bombers, just look at the radial brakes… and if i had the time and space, I could see taking some of this stuff and applying it to a nice HD chassis. But for now I will just look…and scheme.

Saw this piece of vintage British street meat in Brooklyn recently.
From what I understand the owner leaves it outside year round and blasts about the streets on it like a man possessed.

Sleeping when your anyplace but your own comfy bed, at home, insures that some sick bastid is going to take your picture and distribute it. Seems military folks have no problem or qualms about nodding anywhere, anytime – so they make easy targets. It also seems that they take great delight in pranking each other…. and so I will keep this contributor of these images anonymous to avoid retaliation! Mickey had her time sleeping in transit too.. nearly 60 years ago, guess not alot has changed for, military folk in the last 60+ years.  

It’s true,  every boy loves his junk – I am no exception. I love junk, and i dig junkyards, junkstores and all manner of falling down and decrepit crap. I shit thee not – just look at my flickr stream to get my drift. I dig metal especially and have been in need of lots of bits pieces and parts over the years – and when i need the goods, i go to planet Vulcan. The have stuff like stainless  bar stock in 5″ diameter rounds, track for conveyors, stage lights from the turn of the century, and a set of HD rims,  controls for industrial equipment.and asstd. cast iron stoves from the 1800’s, piled next to stainless aerospace crap…ha…stuff comes in and magically it disappears..to who knows where

So local to me is all manner of industry – at least there used to be. Seems most of the manufacturing prowess that used to part of Americana has disappeared from here like it has elsewhere. So all the detritus of industry gets taken apart and sold by the gram, dram, ounce and pound and it winds up in places, basically break in bulk points like Vulcan. Problem is you dont know if the piece your taking home is from a nuclear waste site or a milk plant – so i tend to tread  lightly at Vulcan.

Found this slick indian on the street when i was out running around on the bike. Owner told me it is a 1947. I see he made made some critical charging system updates – hooyah. The full face helmet is in questionable taste, but given his extreme class in rides..I will forgive. This was a young guy to boot…

i get requests from folks that are  behind bars for schwag, brochures, etc. Well today i got a returned sticker in an ominous looking package. Guess this gent isnt allowed to have stockers. Bummer, mine are nice.

Dan’s belt from back in the day – clean, simple – timeless. tasty bit of stamping, some hand-done stitching. Nickel silver buckle with keeper and billet rivets. Beauty of a thick belt, 1.5″ wide – worn daily, for years now –  it is…much loved.

The queen and i went to a very nice dinner party for 50  at a very nice and tony place. This dinner soiree was in honor of a pals milestone birthday party, the party given to him by his wife. The spot, LeCirque is a very fancy pants kinda upscale NYC joint if ever there was one. This was not steveb taking ya to Grays’s Papaya, know what I mean, jellybean?

It was the first time ever this place had a stirpper pole (with 2 lovely and sweaty pole finaglers, hey now) and a belly dancer to add that extra zing! – all just for us! My pals wife, Nareda set it all (is that love or what?) up, I dont know how she got the restaurant to go along with it, it was wild.  The restaurant staff could not stay away either, and they lined the hall, mouths hanging open like stunned fish, it was great.

Very memorable, we all agreed. Alot of smiles and alot of laughs added up to a real good time. I am glad I left my camera at home. Thanks Nareda!!

So, one of my new customers has some funny ideas about tourpak Dog travel. Kind of odd, a little weird, but definitely cool.  Rover just got his “doggles” so he is set for the coming season. Good thing he isnt a big big dog…he fits the box perfect.