steveb leatherworks: the blather

I’ve mentioned it here before – i do alot of work for guys in the military. Come to think of it, I’d like to do more work for women in the military, but until that happens, the guys will do just fine.

So, I’ve been sent patches over the years by my customers in the armed forces. Got a nice collection of them, and the three that are pinned to the board right now are these beauties. I really love getting stuff from my peeps, things like this are great. 

Leather looks best when it gets a beating.. kinda like the crackly look of a bar brawlers face after 40 yrs. of boozing….(like that huh?)…it just gets better and more dramatic – it toughens up.

In my experience, Veg Tan leather tends to break in to a specific point pretty quickly – and then it tends to stay  at that point for awhile…like…years, as long as you show it some respect and take care of it. Dont ever over oil it or soak it through and through repeatedly or dry it with a hair dryer or lay it near a fire. Remember leather is skin, treat it like skin and you’ll be good. Keep it clean, a little moisturizer when it gets dry…keep it sealed with a little clear shoe polish to keep dirt out of the pores….common sense…use your bean.  Don’t do stupid shit like smearing mink oil and bacon fat on your stuff, youll clog the pores and all that shit attracts dirt and grit

Ya know,  I’ve been wearing my old prototype scrapper for years, there is just no killing that damn belt, ive sweated thorough it numerous times on road trips (a sure way to kill a piece of leather is to soak it in saline …) and it still rocks and gets compliments aplenty. I still wear  (years later) the very first thing  i made, a black belt, hand stitched, unlined, a little rough to say the least, but i like it, keeps me humble every time i pick it up….as rough as it is…lol..as a matter of fact I have my Decker All Seeing Eye buckle on the very first thing i attempted, i think its kind of fitting.

I was working on the dining room table in those days.  Only took spilling Black dye on the nice satin finish birch table once, to get me and my leather stuff banished into my bike shop…anyway, as usual I digress, part of the fun of letting me drive or lead….ask those that have followed me on a bike…

so anyway – Mike got this belt almost a year ago. Looks  to me like he wears  it every  day – very cool. It has that look of a piece of leather that has reached it stasis point for a while – take care of it Mark and it will last forever. Thanks for sending in the pics Mark.

oh man, I’ve cried me a river for the past 6mos and you’d think the cheap bastids who control the purse strings over here at the steveb co.inc, etc. would give a crap. But, noooo these shit heels in the front office with the solar powered calculators say to me – ” B, you are going to continue to put out that goddamn blog, on a daily frequency and you’re going to make it look good and your going to keep giving it away for free and your going to do it with a smile on your puss and your gonna keep using your speel check  – got it?…got it?” oh yeah and you know that big fat raise that was supposed to come your way? Ha – forget it, now GTFU and don’t come back”

So in an ongoing attempt to give you freeloaders even more sticky gooey and wholesome goodness, the Editorial staff  and the Art & Design team got together and had a bake sale and came up with enough scratch to buy the photographer, a real camera to supplant the little point and shoot  that has been the sole source of unique visual content….well…..forever. I love my litttle POS (point&shoot), but if ya want to play in the big leagues, ya got to make the bet and up-level. ‘sides, who can resist buying expensive electronic dingdonglers, not me, thats for sho….

Truth be told, i found out the the Exec team had stolen a watch or two out of the top draw and ebayed ’em off to pay for this stinker. I knew something was up, I mean how many goddamn muffins would you have to sell to cover the nut for this new unit….I figured about 5,000 muffins would have to fly off the shelf…. and the art&design team, well…they are just not that motivated when it comes to follow through. I mean look at Paco, our CSO, I mean he is the main sponsor of these corporate initiatives and look at him…head in the damn heater, useless i tell ya….

So yeah, the corp. photog is being sent to school to learn how to use this new rock machine – the venerable Nikon D90 with a 18-200 zoom. Here are a few shots taken today during a test. I see good things coming from this investment….

not the worst thing in the world

Not so bad – take a quick run out the back door before the day really starts.
Think on this view whilst your heading to work in your cage pilgrim.

Thanks for sharing Jason!

Shrinkage – the word hasn’t been the same since that fateful Seinfeld episode.[youtube]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ysEHVhliosw[/youtube]

But in this instance the shrinkage I am referring to is of the vegetable tanned leather type – the type of leather  that i favor for my work… veg tan leather shrinks if it is not sealed up tight to moisture. The only problem with sealing leather, is basically your turning it to plastic to seal it tight – not a look i find attractive – and my feeling is that if the leather shrinks, so be it – its leather – it snot metal for crying out loud…

This saga of shrinkage begins innocently enough and a few years ago. I was looking to dress up a few Harley bike parts with leather, and the points cover is a natural for this kind of treatment. Well truthfully, not so much, for some of the obvious reasons i will outline.

The points cover gets hot, it gets wet, it gets kicked by boots- and in general is ground zero in terms of heat, road debris, dust and dirt. These are not optimal conditions for leather – it begins to do weird stuff when you subject it to this kind of treatment…curling is one bad behavior that leather can exhibit in these circumstances. Leather likes cool, dry, clean.

So determined to figure out a way to make this work, i asked my friend Fabricator Kevin to help me out and make me a few blank steel backing plates for points covers (evo & tc) usage, all the right size holes in ‘em,  in the right positions..

So i got to getting and in short order  i am having issues, namely – how the hell do you attach leather to a metal plate?  In a word ya need to use – glue. Using rivets and mechanical devices adds depth, metal and doesn’t hold the leather to the backing plate across its whole surface. You wouldn’t think glue would be the solution – but believe me  – it is. The trick is  – what glue to use?

Well, I spent a bunch of cake and got me some glues and did a heap of ex-perimenting and found the right glue. I aint telling ya either – but it is some nasty shit – trust me on this.

But the point of this post is to show you how leather shrinks in this condition – it shrinks evenly across is whole surface. The leather  on this cover use to be flush with the metal edge of the plate….now?  There is a solid 1/8” shrinkage – that is alot of shrinkage …its pretty wild.

On some covers, where i know the customer i will leave it unsealed and simply remake the cover in a few years, but for folks who live far away – i seal them with Krylon Poly – seals em up tight and prevents…shrinkage…

heaven forbid, we got shrinkage

I’ve scored some pretty cool stuff in my years….
… worked and performed at all kinds of events (music, car, bike, sporting, art) , resulting in a collection of T-shirts
… traded and bartered whatever it was I had at the time that had value for things I wanted
… it is handy knowing and being friendly with talented people, scored some great paintings that way
… I am always wiling to put in the hustle to avoid paying retail 

BUT – this is a real prize score kids – a genuine Jeff Decker, Hippodrome Studios belt buckle “fresh off the belt” of none other than the man himself – Decker. I can’t touch Jeff’s fancy pants fine art work, his bronzes go for some major freight – but i’ve been hoping for some time now, that he would come up with something that the common man (like me) might be able to own. So you can imagine to my great delight that upon seeing the man open up his bag of goodies at the Indian Larry booth at the IMS show – pulling out a bunchs of little velvet bags and dumping out some really great pieces – some skullly items, suitable for your favorite stick/slap stick or 1/4 x20 threaded rod and an assortment of buckles, most of them having engines and wings and stuff like that…then I saw this…hey now!!

Oh man – the all seeing eye? – in Bronze and Stainless? in a 3″ round buckle? by Decker? that will take a 1.75″ billet? oh man, I know I’ve died gone to heaven…too good to be true. So I hacked the man for only a moment or two, and he wound up pulling this beauty off his own (poorly made and worn out) belt. So the deal is done, Decker gets a new belt from your truly and I got his buckle. far out. Ya know how its a genuine Decker? Check out his thumbprint on the back.

Stay tuned for the Decker belt….. got to make it a goody for Jeff, all kinds of folks will see it around his waist

Went to the IMS show on Friday in NYC. I was thinking that the plane that used the Hudson as a runway the night before, might cause a bit of travel hardship if i were inclined to take my car, so a smarter, more sensisble head prevailed and i took the train down to NYC.  The weather has been a bit nutty lately – warm, followed by a cold snap with snow, followed by rain…cycled over and over. Friday we were in a cold snap kinda way, so i dressed in the puffy down, the best damn kind of coat when it is cold  – the North Face 700 Nuptse, secret weapon in the war on cold.

Like to shout out to my friends at Advanstar, Jeff D, in particular, the show director who graciously set me up with a Press pass so i could get into the show before the crowds, snap a  few pics and shoot the shit with some friends in the business, before the  crowds got thick, as they are known to do here. saw my friends Andrew Rosa of Rosa’s Cycle Shop, Keino, of Keino Cycles, the Indian Larry/greasemonkey setup with Jeff Decker, as special guest, Paul Spradlin of Underground Cycles, Buzz from American Iron…hmmm…

I have a bunch of pics and will cycle through some of them over the next few days. Haven’t had the time to shoot the leather stuff going out the door, so let me entertain you with some of the latest moto news. I have a few installments coming up, if you want to see the latest steveb leatherwork gallery, click here

So i had this whole crazy story concocted on how i was comissioned by the royal hiney-ness of here to hey now to develop a proprietary cover for the ignition porthole on his evo. but ya know, I figured I’d let you masochists who read my crap off the hook and get away easy….this time….ya know,  it is the weekend, it is cold as hell and everyone i know is just stretched *that* much more than they need to be….

facts: these points covers are nice to dress up an area, not normally dressed up with leather and i think i figured out a way to make them last…at least no one has come back over the years….

backing steel – courtesy of fabricator kevin
model -evo (twin cam also available)
design – steveb
topcoat -Krylon poly
material – 8oz veg tan leather
customer – happy, came back for a wallet

So – I am pretty sure this is 1944, pics taken in Margate NJ. ” by the shore”.
Seeing as how Molle was an Aussie, I guess Mickey was partial to them, this fine handsome gent was one of many that hung out and courted her.
I notice the cigarette in her hand, she started smoking young, but come to think of it, by the the time she was that age she had seen alot of life, war, the world, death – and so in a way was far older than her years, at that point smoking was no big deal.

When i worked for American Iron Magazine I had the pleasure of judging a few bikes shows. At least I went into it thinking it would be a pleasure. Winds up, that judging a show, and really doing it right – requires alot of work. To boot, a deep knowledge of VTwins and bike construction is required if you’re going to do things respectfully. In the big leagues the stakes are high in terms of in, PR, bragging rights and muscle flexing recognition. There are few shows where builders really score big bucks – for the most part  – it is for ink, recognition and to show people what they got – a showcase of capability. In these shows you have pro’s mixing it up with amateurs – tough for the pro’s, but they tend to be the coolest, and as you would expect it is the amateurs that get all indignant and stupid when they dont “win”.

So I know bikes, i know how to scope details and what to look for, I get it and so does Chris, the editor of the magazine so at this specific event (Sturgis 2004?, maybe 05, I don’t  remember) the two of us team up to work with a friend LouisO (he was with Drag at the time), to judge the Custom Show at Thunder Road.  Unreal, the big crowds, heat, noise, dust… judging this was going to suck. 

So picture this..I got to the venue on the outskirts of Sturgis proper at 7am, after riding in from Rapid City, after gettting up the crack of dawn to get a decent breakfast in me before the day got away from me. I dont know about you – but I have got to have a decent breakfast, if I eat nothing else all day. A good brekkie gives me the foundation i need…anyway… we had been out late the night before, telling lies, so i was starting the day on half a tank anyway…

7am, its already hot as shit and the dust is already blowing..ferchrisakes – the doors open for registration (which I am running) at 9am – and already there is a line. Oh man, this is going to be a day…and it sure turns out to be one, lots of bikes registered in our show, it’s great, jamming attendance and the small team of 3 of us judging this beast.

Every single bike in the show gets the full treatment – on your knees, scope every detail, run your hand under fenders to feel welds, look for  wire ties and other lazy man solutions and looking for clean detailing, every single piece on the bike is viewed is reviewd and noted – on every bike.

Meanwhile – as you are doing this – all of the contestants are watching you, trying to talk to you, trying to tell you their story – trying to see if you will slip up and forget to check or note one thing on their bike. This is not a relaxed contest amongst friends, quite the opposite, people take this stuff very seriously indeed.

But some people are totally cool about it, like steve garn, the brew dude. Steve is one cool guy, mellow, smart, talented and funny. I am proud to call him a friend, and he has helped me out in the past with some pow coating. Brewdude says’ hey if I win cool, if not, I got to hang out and park inside all day for $50, and i got a shirt too’….love him

So anyway – i think i have a point to this story – or at least an amusing anecdote to share. So we get through this show, it is friggin 6pm or some shit, we’ve been at it all day in the heat, noise, dust, my knees are fucked, I am crippled, we’ve combed over more than 100 great bikes and have actually figured it out- we award like 30-40 trophies and are ready to wrap up the festivities when…a drunk comes to the stage and says ” why didn’t my bike win a trophy, its better than every piece of shit out there” hahaha

Yeah, this is what I need at this point, so i basically tell “mr. i been a drinking longnecks in da sun all damn day” ; that as good as his bike was, and it was a fine machine – there were others that were better – as hard as that might be to believe – and to back up and let us close up shop…keep in mind, the crowd is still there an we are stilll on stage and the microphone is live…hee hee…he spews some drunken venomous threats in our direction and I say…”hold on friend, hold on – and reach into the box of extra trophies I had with me on stage (always order extras of everything when your shipping to SD) and pull one out  and extra and hand it to him and say “here ya go, your a winner” good night – now go away”…the crowd laughs and this freaks him out – he doesn’t know what to do at this point…he stomps away….

Well now, would it make a good story if that was the end of Mr. Drunken Asshole’s pursuit of yours truly? Hell no! So Mr. Asshole comes back and keeps at it, pursuing me and then Chris as we are trying to get out of the venue on our bikes. He is a pretty big guy, there is no ignoring him – and this friends is why it is always smart to befriend your local LEO’s (if your not a criminal that is).

The sheriff of Thunder Road, Curt – had become a personal friend during our stay at the venue and so came to our rescue and got Mr. LongNeck escorted from the building so Chris and I could beat feet back to Rapid City – basic 12 hour day…we are dead…and people ask me if I like bike shows…to which i respond yeah, as long as I am not judging!! And ya know, I saw that guy later in the week and he apologized, which just goes to show ya what happens to nice guys when they drink in the sun all day…heh heh… instant asshole.

So Chris and I hammer back to Rapid on our loaner test bikes, right into one of the craziest rainstorms I’ve ridden through – ever (and I have gotten some good drownings, believe me) , bikes flipped over on the median, sheets on bodies in the rain, on 90, trucks running into barriers, cars flipped over..scary, butt cheek clenching ride ….and in South Dakota – there are no overpasses to hide under when the weather gets bad kids…. but that’s another story for another time.

People talk about what makes a biker. Or more to the point they talk about what a biker isn’t.
Most of this jaw-flappin’ is for the sake of divisiveness.
People love to categorize, they like to exclude. they like to rate, they like to compare and contrast.
We are all guilty of it… we draw the lines in the sands around us with the things we say….
“jap bikes suck”
“the old guys know dick, they should get the hell outta the way”
“Full dressers are for weiners, only chops, bobbers and cut-downs are man bikes”
“sportsters are for girls” 
“if you are’nt slap stickin’ you aint shit”
“real men work on their own shit”

Well, all i can say to that is “yea blah yea blah yeah” whatever, live and let live. 
Heres’ a clue for all the categorizers and folks focused on the accurate definition of cultural and style clues that identify a “real” biker from a “not-real” bikers – Real Bikers don’t care. As a matter of fact, you’ve probably never really seen a real biker. They are generally on the road, traveling – not giving much of a crap about the categorization challenges the marketers  or the wannabe experts and talker posers are encountering in their vicariously lived lives….

These pics are from a Sunday morning last November, about 45deg at 9am. These guys are bikers. They ride their bikes, they don’t care for the most part what other people think. Its why we are friends for all these years. Dennis, the old gray haired devil was already out of the Military building Triumph choppers when most of us were still pooping ourselves. One might look at him and think “old man, get outta my way”. Fact of the matter is, Dennis is a tough nut who is one of the nicest guys you’ll meet. I’ve seen him hold his own with the most intimidating looking fully sleeved mongrel talking durfee girders and the idiocy of dual carb triumph heads…..all while wearing some brand new leathers and riding a squeaky clean new pimping bike…making NO excuses or apologies at this point in his life. He likes his new leather, he’s earned it, he wears it when riding his bike…D is cool, I dig him. He could give a shit.

The other birds in the flock are the normal crew Shank, SteveP (with chappies), Andy and Freddy – all long time bikers who enjoy riding as much as they do each others company. What would we do without our bikes?  What would we do without our friends? 

seeing as how we are in a recession, depression, downturn, doldrums, lull, economic downturn and basic malaise. I thought in response I would test an “economy of verbiage”, as it is known i like to run my…keyboard. So here ya go, if this new format works for ya, let me know. it sures makes it simpler…as joe Friday said…”just the facts”…

item: belt
color: black
size: 1.75 to 1.5″ taper
buckle: HD (I supplied it) 
thread: white 
decoration: wack stamping 
customer: happy 
word count: modest!

This just came in over the steveb worldwide international and domestic news wire. 

TPJ Customs, supporter and friend of the steveb, leather network, has dominated a “judged class” (wtf class it is, I have no clue) at the Easyriders Show in Pomona. My boy Bryan just kills!! 

Now, please excuse the handwritten nature of the documented proof of this win.I know it looks sketchy, but Bryan and the TPJ army are stand-up. I personally vouch for their integrity and you KNOW what that means…

ahh, anyway, lets not go there….

you got a problem with handwritten?

…props out to TPJ!

the real deal-io - TPJ RULES!!!

Not much info here: The year 1942, these guys were  US sailors and they gave this pic to Mom.
I’ve seen these 2 in other photos, so I am assuming they were best friends, and hung together..
thick as thieves… they are  kids really, but the story’s I bet they could have told

[youtube]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=c4EH1Ny7_5s[/youtube]Read in Cyril’s blog today that Jerry Graves had died. What a shame – this was one young, talented and innovative bike builder that had a unique over the top wild style., a wild personal look and a fun super detailed flair.  All of the bikes that i saw that Graves built were wild…take this red beauty below that got him alot of attention back in 05 in Sturgis.  He was super jazzed to be recognized as the pic below shows….A funny story on how I came to know Graves.

Just as I am closing down and walking away from the registration table I hear a loud ruckus and see Graves and like 4 of his pals roll-up on some wild looking bikes – this red one actually was pretty tame for Graves, he had some outrageous machines in his crew. So I turnaround and walk back to tell them, “sorry, no deal – closed for the day, ya missed it”…and stop to look at the bikes.  

Shit, these machines were just too damn good to not let him into the show – and besides , this fierce looking warrior of a  guy was calm, cool, polite and just easy to speak to, he was ready to say “fuck it -lets go ride and drink”, which I loved…lol…..well, I let Graves and his boys into the show and they won a bunch of trophy’s and he got a Feature in the magazine out of it. Graves gave me the shirt off his back (see pic after show below) as a thanks for not being a dick and locking him out of the show because he showed up late… not like he didn’t need a reason to pose without a shirt on…lol

He came back the next year with some crazier shit, just to show us what he could do..and won some more trophy’s. Graves was a talented builder, he had a loyal crew and I liked him. I dont know what the particulars behind his death are.. but I know his friends and the people that knew him will miss him, he was a character.

Graves 2005 Sturgis, Thunder Road

Born in Frankfort, Indiana in 1971, 3rd generation biker
Started modifying his own bike at 16 years old
Built his 1st full-blown custom at 19 years old
Started building custom bikes for all his Dad’s friends.
Built most custom bikes in a 50 mile radius of his home (in Indiana)
Moved to Florida in 1999 to work for a custom bike builder
Opened “Graves Custom Cycles” in October 2002
http://www.gravescustomcycles.com/

Freewheel’d a skull over a cuppa joe recently
No scrap goes-a-wastin’ in the shop
4″ square called out for attention
Tough to freestyle with the swivel knife, it’s a fighter
Fun stuff, i prevailed – crude, but then…perfect
Feels good to turn scraps to trash

ha – in an effort to trim word count…should i write in gringo haiku form?

scrappy kind of skull

ok – being a major force in the global quest to improve the design, class quotient and overall utility of  leather stuff like wallets, belts, sheaths and other things of huge importance, honestly, is a burden.  I’ve found that i just cant do it alone. No one I know is willing to come out into the shop and work with me. It is always some crap about my “must have music” blaring work style and the fact that I have like 16sq.inches to work (I consider it efficent and cozy, thanks) keeps folks away. Well, maybe too… its the fact that i don’t answer the door when someone is knocking and always keep it locked,…maybe that has something to do with it too. Mere details. the way I see it, if you want “in” bad enough – you’ll do just about anything. Look at TV, to see my point. People will do anything in front of, and to get in front of… a global audience, no?

So, I have to go outside my small circle of hangers-on and groupies to get Quality Control talent. All kinds of things need tending, the nuclear powered steam sewing machines, the foundry for the buckles and rivets, we got the logging division cutting timber for shipping boxes and wood to build the ships we send our stuff to china in, we got the “on the Hoof ” workers, processing hides in tanneries, I got gin mills making cotton thread when they aint making gin..I mean  – we got it going on boyeee…no dust is settling on steveb leather works – no siree! 2009 is the year we just dominate. Get in or get the hell out of the way!

So to begin the year on the right foot – I fired my old Qual Control team – they sucked, they were lazy, they didn’t kiss nearly enough ass. They were doing all kinds of stupid shit – the Finance group invested our pension funds with that turd-burglar Madoff, so now I got to keep working…no quick and easy escape to the Berkshires for me I guess.. These losers did other stupid stuff, like not agreeing with me, challenging me on some of my “ideas” and other “not-so-smart” things, you don’t do if you’re interested in keeping your job.

Well, I hired some great HR talent to fill this gaping hole in our corporate hierarchy, and these big bananas cranked the handle a few times and we assembled this team of winners after a global search. It just so happens all 3 of these characters came form the same region of Western Pa – weird – but sometimes weird things happen. I mean we looked all over the world – and found the talent we need through a local ad in the paper, not even Craigs List, I mean we found this crack team through an ad in the paper!. Heidrick & Struggles be damned!

Like I said, I have high hopes for 2009. Here’s why!
We got the QC team in place, the economy is in great shape, our political system has never been in a finer state of tune, the dollar is strong! The world is filled with the spirit of global cooperation.

What do you say?

I say – Let’s Rock!

I’ve  been productive as hell  and here’s just one of the latest pieces to leave the shop. I am proud to introduce you to a very utilitarian piece o’ work – the steveb Front Pocket Jounal Cover. Amazing innovation it is – this front pocket. It allows you, the user, to put all kinds of stuff in there, like specifically a pad of square Post-its. The pocket is “built-up” with a welt, so a pad slips in and out easily.

Thats exactly what this pocket is for, as the intended user uses both Composition Books (no Moleskine books for Freddy) requiring I come up with yet another pattern and he is a fiend on post-its….I expect this book will be carried on his person everyday…logging jobs and estimates.

It is a beast and should last a lifetime..and I dont expect it will be well cared for…at all… all my boys are perfect product testers. They beat the crap out of what I make for them, knowing it’s “easily” fixed or replaced….yea… dont get my wrong, I love these guys…they are..as Shank would say…”the best”!

Actually, this special journal was made for a very special person as a gift, I made it for my pal Freddy. Ya see, I know I can mention it here, because none of my boys are computer savvy, and so no one local to me ever reads any of the crap I write about our escapades! Ha! Come to think of it, I should really take advantage of this more often and badmouth them in a flagrantly heinous manner….hmmm….

Anyway, one of the (if not the only) benefit of being my friend these days is that you, at some point are going to get a piece o’ leatherwork from me as a gift.  It used to be my friends would use my shop and tools, but these days, our motorcycles and mechanized stuff is newer and it just doesn’t break as often. Well, Fredddy has gotten all kinds of leathergoods from me over the years, and he has even (begrudgingly) paid for some of it, albeit at a very discounted rate. You can always count on your friends to haggle, right? It’s like sport.

So, here I was , being thoughful – and zingo, I am thinking a special birthday, a real milestone  – deserves a nice gift from one of your very best friends, no?  So here you have it, practical, pretty, thoughtful and free. Slam dunk!  Wanna bet, I get a wiseass remark along the lines of….”what? you cheapskate,  couldn’t BUY me a gift?”

Like I said, I love this guy.

Geez, where to begin with this set of classic shots from the family vault…..?

I don’t have all the particulars, damn I wish I did – this is one of those instances where I grew up with these pics -they were of Mickey (mom) and Max (grandpa) during the days of their performing the “act”  during WWII – but I never really had the presence of mind to drill down to the nitty gritty and extract the full details from either of them. I am not sure my sister has the granular specifics either (if you do – chime in on the comments). I know this version of the Act was a USO “for the troops” version and it toured throughout the European, Pacific and Asian theaters… albeit in different versions, garb and flavor. In Europe they had skates, in the Pacific – they were in grass skirts.  Sensible, no? I will spare you the grass skirts.

Seriously, I couldn’t make this shit up folks, it is waay to good – ya have to agree..!

The gist of this Act was that Max, the “goofy bird” tried woo’ing  Mickey the “pretty bird” with all sorts of wacky/zany/crazy antics.  A little weird, remember this is a father/daughter act – not that anyone cared or new for that matter….They both had special reeds in their mouths that allowed them to trill like birds and make all sorts of wild and expressive sounds. Max demo’d this for me in the basement of his house when i was, like 5 years old. it blew my mind – he really turned into a bird in front of my eyes – between the jumping around and the noise he made …wow….a great memory …just me and him.

Anyway, this team toured throughout the war and entertained, teased and amused a vast number of soldiers with their shenanigans. I’d pay a buck to see a movie of this stuff, it must have been precious – goofy and cute. A perfect distraction in a simple, brutal drawn out, beat the crap out of you kind of war. Thinking on the life these two led, I feel sad for Molle, Max’s wife. She was left back in the States, a displaced Australian in a new, alien country  that was in the middle of a war – with her only family off entertaining the troops and doing exciting things in exotic places. Her life must have sucked while her husband an daughter blazed trails out and about in the wild blue yonder.  I see it in some of the pics, she was left alone and she was lonely.  I am not going to scan these images, I am going to let those ghosts lie in a happy place. Years later – Molle was the best Grandmother a kid could ever want, but looking back at these images, man..it musta been tough.

But then, i think people in general (feel free to disagree, I am open to opinions here…)- were tougher back in those days and had what I could only characterize as….”true grit”. They dealt with it…no support groups, no drugs to ease the way, no “by the step” programs, no forums to share your “feelings & thinkings”, no newsgroups, no access to information. Life was a different game.  You lifted your chin, solidered on… and you didnt talk about it. Doesn’t sound so romantic or fun to me, sounds tough.

Here is a little something to delight.  Let it be known, I am always looking for something to do with scrap. So in this never ending quest, I came upon an improvement of the traditional corrugated coffee cup cuff and got to use the unloved scraps of good stuff that I loathe to throw out. I like little projects and I really like making things of great utility that see use every day. I dont know what it is about this kind of *simple, dumb* stuff, but i have always been more impressed by a simple useful thing than a fancy, gaudy, over-baked thing.

I go to the same trouble with these little nuggets as i do with a “full “piece – lined, stitched and treated with care. There is no such thing as a small project when it is for someone else.

Time frame : early 90’s
Duration: we were on the road for about a week
Players: Pupkin, Paulie-boy, Gavin & me
Bikes: 3 fxr’s and one softail.
Destination : NYC to Virgina Beach
Scenic Stops: H-D York PA, Assateague, Chincoteague, Ocean City, Skyline Drive, etc
Memorable moments that have endured: scrapple in Front Royal, crabs in MD, Chesapeake Bay Bridge Tunnel, Virginia Beach freak show, tobacco country encounters with locals, driving rain with crap rain suits.

It was a great trip, one of many we’ve taken over the years.

Thinning out a piece of leather (skiving) is a common and important chore when making something that needs to blend, or blend. Leather is not one of those things you can just bend sharply and not expect it to crack, so you need to skive. I have a few blades that can skive, you’ve already met the Mighty Giant, the razor blade plane – but here I am using a Blanchard tool, a french blade. Razor sharp, it allows me to take my time and nibble away on the piece I am trying to thin, slice by slice.

Recently received some pics of steveb gear in use…in this case it’s on the fire truck.. Fireman Beau was kind enough to send pics.

This leather has been put to hard use. That’s the idea.

If I could ask some of you slugs to please take some pictures (at work or not, c’mon be creative) of my stuff in use, I’d be “oh-so” appreciative!