The workshop behind the cutting lists

Last updated 2026-09-18 · Bagpipes Hidecraft · [email protected]

Bagpipes Hidecraft is a two-bench leather workshop working almost entirely in vegetable-tanned cowhide: cutting, pricking, saddle stitching, hardware setting and finishing, all by hand.

What happens on this bench

We make wallets, card holders, belts, watch straps, collars, tool rolls, cases and bags, and we publish the working notes for each of them: the cut list in millimetres, the pricking-iron pitch, the thread size, the hardware count and the sequence the bench actually follows. The drawings on each work order are generated from the same numbers as the cut list, so the hole spacing you see is the hole spacing we stitch.

The name comes from the corner of the trade that is mostly leather and almost no stitching: bagpipe bags are cut from the same vegetable-tanned hide and have to hold air as well as hold shape. Working on one teaches you very quickly that a seam is not decoration.

How the records are written

Every work order is written after the piece is finished, not before. Dimensions are measured off the finished object with calipers or a steel rule. Where a number is a range — hide thickness, for example — it is because the material genuinely varies, not because we are being vague.

Kit profiles collect the reference data that gets used over and over: pitch against thread against hide weight, edge finishing by thickness, adhesive open times, hardware wear. They are the tables we keep taped to the bench wall, written out properly.

Corrections

If a number on this site is wrong, or a technique as written does not work on your bench, write to [email protected] with the page and what you measured. Corrections are published against the original record with the date they were made, because a reference table that quietly changes is worse than one that is wrong.

What this site is not

There is no sponsored content here, no affiliate links and no product placement. Tools are named by type and size rather than by brand, because the measurement is what matters and brands change. Nothing on this site is professional, medical or safety advice — leatherwork involves very sharp blades, solvent adhesives and heavy presses, and the responsibility for working safely is yours.