Sixth Grade Shoe Day.

My son had to "invent" shoes for Sixth Grade assignment. He got to my shop after school, I left for a meeting, and here's what he came up with.  Should have taken more pictures but I wasn't even in the room for most of his build!

One minor problem here... Can you see it?



It was pretty funny. I was out back observing the woods teacher and some students finish up for the day on a shed they are building. He came out and said "I've got 2 left feet"... Took me a minute to figure out what he meant!

I drilled the rivets out for him and he finished them up.







They have to wear them all day tomorrow at school. Should be interesting to see how well they hold up! I see a couple of potential fail points- the rivets holding the leather together are probably going to pull out but he'll live and learn.

Only one smushed finger out of the deal too!



I'm pretty impressed. I was worried he was going to cut himself on the metal, but he cut out both soles all by himself with the aviation snips. I sanded off the edges but other than that he designed and built them all by himself out of scraps from the shop.  Took him maybe an hour yesterday to get the soles cut out and he spent almost 3 hours tonight cutting leather, punching holes, and riveting it all together.  I think it took him a while to figure out a latch mechanism on the first one, but the second one seemed to go faster.

Some LEATHER.

Been working on this case for my wife's Ipad in hopes that the next time my boys drop it, I wont have to replace the digitizer... (you may have read about the replacement process a few posts ago).

I had done some 'figurin a year or so ago.  Just think, if I'da built it then I wouldn't have had to replace the screen!  Laid it out and started cutting.





Tried something new- molding the leather by soaking it and keeping it formed to the shape I wanted until it dried out. Had to make an Ipad "blank" to hold the shape but it seems to have worked pretty well!  Also the first time I've ever used a stitching awl.  Pretty sad considering I teach leather working in one of my classes...





All molded and ready for some stain / super sheen.



Viola.  I used Range Tan for the stain and whatever Tandy sells as Super Sheen- Superflow something or other...  *LOVE* how the color turned out, kind of has a distressed look.







Can you see the one thing I forgot to do?!!?





Yup, its missing the hole for the charger.  Oh well... Don't think it will be to hard to pull a few stitches out and cut a hole there.



Might still add a handle and make a few changes but she's going to use it for a while and we'll see how it works.  Almost makes me want to give up the Stainless Steel one I made for mine!  The leather sure is lighter!