Rascal: my newest heart throb, smoothbore taking a .520 round ball and about 60 grains FF. Greased paper cartridges. Yeah, I hadda make a new bag. Now the bag and gun are finished and all dressed up with nowhere to go. Thank You, Wuhan Province.
Time to clean up the shop and get rid of some leather scraps. So I made a really crass, basic bag where the only frill was the rolled edge on the front of the pouch. Since the oil was beginning to settle on my Singer Patcher (which is a bad thing) The only thing hand stitched would be the edge of the flap. That’ll make for a good sulk while I am under house arrest without having committed a crime. Besides, the front wall of the pouch is a great place to load up on a rolled edge.
To roll an edge start with a strip that is a little longer than the edge of the frontpiece. If the strip is of a lighter weight than the bag, you can get away with anything up to an inch wide. If the leather is the same thickness as the bag face or is a stiffer cowhide, then you ought to think about skiving the strip
I like to cut a couple of notches dead center on the strip because I don’t want it to bunch up where the face of the front of the bag bends and I am too lazy to carefully nurse and knead the strip the way I would on a higher quality piece. Besides, this bag is going to look like a hack job that some sodbuster would have made for himself, so there is no sophistication of using different leathers.
Now comes it the Contact Cement. An eighth of an inch on both pieces is all you need. Stitch it about a quarter inch from the edge. Then gop up both the entire strip and a margin inside the front piece where they will meet once rolled. Don’t take any prisoners here. The contact cement is going to help the strip sit evenly when you roll it, exercising a little care, so work with patience and care. I like to start at the middle and work outward on both sides of those notches.
If you’re lazy enough to use a Singer Patcher from around 1908 rather than hand stitch, the rule of thumb is to keep the edge of the footer just below the round of the roll. Sew on the out side face of the frontpiece so you can do that. Remember you are also pinning any lining you may have put in while closing this part.
Tap and gently pound the roll and the edge with your hammer or a bouncer or boning tool if you need to even it out. You can see where the left side is more even than the right,,,
I didn’t spend all day on that, because cheating with the sewing machine is going to preclude my ever daring to sell a bag like this. It’ll be a foul weather bag, maybe. Every so often I like to tick off my Old Masters Ghost by doing something crummy like this. So I ran the patcher too fast. You can see that on the left side of the secondary pouch, up at the top by the hammer. If you have or use a patcher, and especially if your new at it, going too fast is one of the most frequent and costly mistakes you can make. Thought I’d show what that looks like and how it ruins the look of the whole bag
I Kluged a screw driver/ knapper out of some antler and a piece of scrap brass, made a knife with a forged blade and file handle and that will also act as a starter, made a cloth bag to hold about 18 rounds of greased paper cartridges inside the bag and Bob’s your Uncle.
If there’s a day where I am not on site and part of the posing and fashion show re-enactors do so well, then this ugly duckling will probably be out there with me.
Tight Stitches
Capgun
