Tin Foil Hat Wallets and more leather craft updates

I went to a talk ages ago at DefCon that discussed “drive by” attacks for RFID credit cards. My bank refuses to send me a card without “tap to pay” so I started making my own Wallets to protect myself. This Tin Foil Hat Wallets TM building is really why I started Leather craft, and here is my latest.

Tin Foil Hat Wallets TM

TinFoilHat_Wallet_MissionDarknes_TitanRF

I use a single layer of Mission Darkness TitanRF Faraday fabric bonded to the outer shell to provide the protection for the wallet contents. My last 3 Personal wallets used this construction technique. I am just now getting into the electronics of RF testing as being from Missouri the “Show Me State” I don’t believe anything I have not seen for myself. I will update accordingly as I determine the fitness of this Faraday fabric. I will post an electronics blog post once this is proven good.

You can see the improvement in the new form factor on the right over my last revision which went a year. The new “card wallet bi-fold” doesn’t have a bill’s pocket which was a hang up for me in the past. I just don’t carry cash like I used to. The old revision had the Titan RF in the cash pocket.

I will miss the Natural Veg-Tan patina but like the combination of the Wicket and Craig Slate Skirting sourced from District Leather Supply and Sunguard Sunflower from Sailrite made a much nicer compact wallet. The Skirting is very nice to the touch, and I see myself using some more of Wicket and Craig’s fine leather in the future. District Leather treats even small crafters like myself very well, and my orders from them have always processed promptly. It is why I do business with companies like them and Sailrite. Treating the small guy like one of your regular large volume customers always gains my business.

Sewing at the Limits for Leather Craft and more

I made the decision over a year ago to go with the Sailrite Ultrafeed LSZ-1 It is a great compromise for hobbyist like myself. I want a cylinder arm machine but would never do with out my LSZ-1. I push the boundaries of sanity sewing things it may have never been designed to sew, but it has taken everything I have thrown at it and only broken down once. Sailrite made it right by sending me a replacement next day even after I told them what I was doing. I self repaired it and it continues to amaze me. They provide great YouTube videos for their customers on How To sew and repair. Here I sewed 3 layers of 5.5-6 Oz Wickett and Craig Skirting, just over 6MM about 1/4 of an inch. It handled it. I did get the thread tension mal-adjusted so it was not the prettiest stitching as after pulling the first attempt the existing holes in the leather caused the needle to wander and break a few times. Operator error.

You can see here during my testing before I messed up the tension adjustment. Smooth even stitching and even backed up into existing holes evenly on top with the Size 22 needle. The bottom with the Size 20 was fraying the V92 size poly thread just a touch, so I moved up a size.

Hybrid Sewing

I Decided on the Ultrafeed LSZ-1 because I do a lot of hybrid sewing so it was a great compromise. Even if I push its limits. This padded chrome book case is an example. Canvas and leather sewn with a rubber backed carpet padding sandwich construction. Zig-Zag stitches to keep the padding in place in the panels and leather accents and gussets. I even used binding to give the inside a finished look with the Sailrite binding attachment. I could have gotten a bigger machine but would have had to give up zig-zag and sewing more delicate things with smaller threads. I just have to get creative on setup to sew some things like the leather handle loops.

CanvasAndLeather_ChromebookCase_zig_zag — CanvasAndLeather_ChromebookCase

Up Coming Leather projects

I have been testing steel rule dies to click out Leather craft project parts as I may start gifting or selling small scale goods. Here is a teaser of the Journal covers, card wallets, and flap top card wallets I’m testing construction on. Tin Foil Hat wallets TM will be as always a special request item. I tested pre-punched stitching holes too, but my hand sewing is worse that improper tensioned machine sewing. Not to mention I would have to charge a ton for my time. I could always sell kits like the people on that annoying pin subscription site which clogs google image search with mandatory sign up request before you can see image. Must be good business as he who pays google the most gets the top two pages of search results.