Lyman Bag test run, trials, concerns & success. (pic heavy)

Seems like this should be a simple project. I've made "fancier" more complex leather bags. I always make a pattern, and then a test template out of cardboard, stiff fabric, or felt, of any new project to see how things fit together and in what order. Everything seemed to work out fine through this point. I don't have the weight/thickness of veg tan that I would really like to use for this bag so I decided to use a much thinner more flexible leather that is precolored and finished that I really like the look of once oiled or greased, and because it is so thin, make the belt loops out of some very stiff odd scrap leather I have on hand. Still somewhat just a test run I guess.

As I said the template worked out well. So, I cut my leather. Time to test the new stitching clam. Wait. When the center divider is inserted, the edges don't line up anymore. The fold across the bottom didn't allow for the thickness of the divider. Trimming a little off the bottom of the divider, but keeping the top edge in the same place as originally designed when assembling helped somewhat. In the future with an "unturned" bag with a divider like this, I will cut the divider a little large and trim it to the edges of the front and back panels post-assembly. Also, I will adjust my pattern to allow for the fold across the bottom to absorb the thickness of the leather. I had already used the stitching wheel to place my stitch line and it is right where I would want it for the finished product in relation to the edge. But, this does not allow me to correct for the misaligned edges by sanding them once stitched. Oh well, it is a "test run" and learning to solve problems, or hide them, is part of the learning process. Here is where we were at so far.

Doesn't look too horrible in these pics, I will be able to make some edge correction by sanding, but not as much as I would like. Next problem. I didn't want to have to try and sew from inside the assembled bag to attach the button, so I plotted it's location on my template and  attached it, and cut the button hole in the flap, before I stitched the bag together. Looks okay in that 1st image. But, once something is put in the bag, the button hole wouldn't reach the button. I should have known better as I've seen this issue before where the flap looks nice, looks proportional, on the empty bag, but when the bag is full, the flap is too small to do it's job. I have an otherwise really nice double bag shot pouch that I bought that has this problem. I usually leave the flaps of my shoulder slung bags oversize until I can see how they will lie once the bag is turned and/or full.  Duh.

The plan was now to continue on with wet molding, determine how far short I was falling, then cut the flap off to the forward side of the fold. Then I would cut a new flap long enough, stitch it to the "hinge" and then determine placement of the button hole and cut it.

Wet molding,

maybe I did something right with my stitching because it holds water. lol.

Wet molding was accomplished with plastic bags of birdshot in the front and back pockets. Slightly more shot in the front.

Notice anything unexpected? Yup. Things stretched just right in the process that the flap problem worked itself out.

Once dry I sanded the edges as far as I could. They came closer to what I would want than I expected, but definitely not up to standards. Then hit the edges with black Fiebing's dye. When that was dry I gave them a good dose of beeswax and burnished them the best I could given the gaps in places.

Into the oven it went at the oven's lowest setting with 2 other leather projects in need of mink oil or neet's foot oil. This got mink oil, and called finished.

I tried to make the belt loops as large and wide as possible to possibly allow for using this on a sash instead of a belt. I also didn't fold over the top of the loop because with the already thin leather of the bag I didn't want to add more possibilities for the bag to flop forward at the top.

Thanks for looking. I hope some of my missteps save someone else the same.