The following record details the creation of a leather bag, originally thought of as a bag made suitable for HAM radio Parks on the Air (POTA) or Summits on the Air (SOTA) pursuits. The measurements of the bag were tailored to a Yaesu HAM radio including the various required accessories in order to perform QSLs on the move.

This is a low twisted reality item with no deviation. All the materials used are of the same development stage without any aberrations.

• leatherworking tools,
• thread,
• leather,
• a few buckles

Eletronics typically have a parallelepiped shape, which makes the tailoring fairly easy, given that all the sheets have to be rectangular and symmetric to each other. With the measurements of the radio and its components in hand, the rest becomes an exercise to cut sheets on straight lines. With the sheets cut, the sheets also need to be perforated in order to make it easier to stitch the pieces together.

The buckles that were acquired are black and it was considered that a red color would suit the leather bag best, such that the buckles were first filed down using a rotary tool, then cleaned up using some sandpaper and then painted. The painting process involved first using some primer, then applying the red paint and on top of that some varnish in order to make the color glossy, permanent and resistant to rain.

The bag was designed to have a completely detachable top cover with the top cover being wrapped on top of the bag, and then held down by longer straps of leather that run through the buckles in order to hold the bag closed. It was deemed that doing this has the advantage of the bag being suitable for casual wear, without needing to be closed too tightly, but also closed very tightly in case the bag is full and the top cover must mold over the contents of the bag.

Just like all the margins, the eyelets will be sewn on the edges in order to reinforce the structure, which is possibly the largest amount of work that will be expended for this project.

The straps themselves are cut down to fit the buckles and they will be made as long as necessary to almost surround the entire bag.

After the long process of stitching all the edges, the bag is then oiled thoroughly with some organic engine grease based on petrol. Ideally, the grease will end up seeping into the leather and provide a better resistance to various outside factors such as water, dust, etc. Additionally, the dark grease will end up tinting the leather but in a very organic way without having to actually use paint for the same job and it will darken the aspect of the leather naturally.

The same procedure is applied to the straps, that now have been sewn on the edges and then perforated in order to insert rivets that will fit the tongue of the buckles, with the same grease being applied on the surface of the leather.

The cover of the bag and the straps are then wrapped up with the interior exposed and the grease on the inside.

The cover, straps and the bag itself, after being greased up, are then inserted into an air fryer for a few minutes, just up to the moment when the leather smells burnt. This speeds up the absorption process of the grease and makes the leather look a little more rugged. Furthermore, the process will expose any flaws, if any, in the stitching that should, given good thread, not burn during the process of cooking the leather.

The process is repeated several times, based on need and roughly the indicator is followed that the leather should at the end of the process not feel greasy anymore. However, the overall aspect and tint of the leather is also an indicator and it should be easy to tell when the leather has had enough.

The bag itself, or the straps or the cover can be cooked individually and exchanged with the order not mattering much.

The next part is to create a shoulder strap. Even though leathercrafting is nice, the strap should be composed of a material more durable to friction. A good material for that job is silk, and a shoulder strap is acquired that is sold separately as a generic item to be fitted to any bag.

The choice made isn't so bad. Clearly the leather on the strap itself is faux leather and it is even easy to tell from the image. However, those leather parts can be replaced or even redesigned if necessary. Another problem is that whilst gold is not a bad match for brown leather, the metal parts and buckles will need to be removed in order to be repainted to red in order to suit the rest of the design and be consistent. The color of the should strap, beige seems to be a perfect match for the brown leather such that no changes are necessary.

In order to replace the "faux leather", the strap is disassembled by cutting the stitching with a cutter, and then some stencils are created using the piece of "faux leather" that has been removed.

With the shape traced onto the real leather, the real leather is then cut using scissors to roughly match the shape of the original piece.

The result is pretty good, with the form nearly matching the original perfectly. After cutting, the pieces are folded onto each other and then cut again in order to obtain a perfect symmetric shape for both pieces.

However, there is no obligation to be entirely faithful to the original piece, such that some improvisation is acceptable. Clearly, even a straight piece of leather without the curves would have been suitable and perhaps even easier to manage.

The shoulder strap is now re-assembled again, thanks to some seamstressing given that an extendable strap (shoulder-or not) does not seem to be that trivial and there is some technology behind how a strap works.

Looks like a portable witch house.