Custom Leather Tool Roll

Riding classic motorcycles with friends invariably involves roadside repairs. And roadside repairs means having tools available to get you going again.

Having had a few “off-the-shelf” tool rolls over the years, none really carried what I wanted, how I wanted.

It was time to build out my ultimate tool kit. This specific kit is really the result of many roadside repairs - after a while you figure out what is essential.

Of course, this is different for everyone, so use this Instructable as a guide for your own tool roll, or use the same approach to build a tool roll for woodworking chisels or chef’s knives.

I've listed some suitable Amazon links to tools you might need. Obviously many of the common tools can be purchased anywhere.

If you have zero tools, but want to get started, the kits are an economical option. Something like this is perfectly fine for a first-time beginner. You can add to the kit or buy higher quality versions of the tools later.

1. Box cutter
2. Steel ruler or straight edge (I used 300mm and 600mm rulers)
3. Awl, scribe, large needle or similar for marking out, anything to scratch the leather surface
4. Self-healing cutting mat
5. Stitching chisel, a four prong is the bare minimum, but they often come in kits
6. Mallet or hammer
7. Plastic kitchen chopping board for punching onto.
8. Wad punch or rotary punch. Buy wad punches if you have nothing, but want to make a tool roll. We need to punch holes further from the leather edge than a rotary punch can handle.
9. Leather needles
10. Waxed thread, 1.0mm
11. Leather dye
12. Lighter or matches
13. Hand slicker

This will vary depending on your bike and the types of repairs you might need to tackle. But this kit should suit all the roadside repairs I might encounter.

A couple of informative notes. Firstly, I used a scrap of plastic plumbing pipe and associated caps to store a set of sockets. This was really a shortcut so I didn’t have to make individual pockets for each socket.

The small circular tin contains a cable repair kit to temporarily replace a broken brake, throttle or clutch cable. While it could have packed down into a smaller package, I use the tin to store other small items, like a small roll of electrical tape and the cable for my test light.

I started by laying out the tools, aiming to keep the tool roll compact. The photos show the final layout.

On the card under the tools, I arbitrarily assigned spacing between them and sketched in what would become stitch lines.

The spacing was a complete guess. Right from the start, I knew I faced the possibility of dozens of hours making the tool roll only to find some tools wouldn’t fit. Guess what! Some didn’t, but you’ll have to work through the Instructable to see how I overcame these problems.

However, I made sure the pockets on both sides had stitching that lined up. So, every second pocket or so on either side was precisely aligned. I figured this would be necessary to roll the contraption. If none of the pockets and stitching were aligned, it might prove difficult or even impossible to roll up.

I made sure I left an allowance at each end for the stitch seam without encroaching on the pocket dimensions.

With the cards cut out, I now had patterns for the pockets. As you can see from the layout photo, the foolscap stationary folder I used was a good width for the tool roll.

I only had a single piece of leather to use for this project, nominally 2.0-2.5mm thick (5 - 6 oz). I figured I would have the top or grain side visible on the outside of the tool roll, and the flesh side on the inside.

Around the perimeter of the patterns, I scribed some marks to help me cut them out. These are fairly simple pieces, but a couple of tips I picked up:

Cheap box-cutter type knives are adequate, but break off the blade to expose a fresh cutting edge before cutting your expensive leather. Use anything relatively flat and circular as a cutting guide on curves. Metal works best as the knife blade will trace the edge nicely. Larger coins are a great addition to your leatherworking kit for this purpose.

Using both the measurements between each pocket and the stitch lines I’d marked on the patterns, I scribed some lines on the surface of the pieces to be used for the pockets.

And using some calipers, I scribed in a line parallel to the bottom of the pockets. Calipers made the job quick and easy, but a ruler and scribe would suffice. I used 4mm for this stitching offset dimension from the edge of the leather. No good reason; it just looked “right”.

Since I had a double layer of leather to work with, I thought I might make the job a little easier by punching in the stitching holes in the pocket pieces. Then once it was glued to the main body, I’d just have to use the existing holes as a guide to punch through the body.

So, time for punching. I have two stitching chisels, a four prong and two prong. For long straight stitching lines, more prongs speeds up the job, but the price increases dramatically. I had no plans to purchase more tools, so I took my time and tried (failed!) to punch accurate lines.

I lined up my stitching chisel with one prong over the edge of the pocket. I knew I’d want to have the first stitch extend over the edge of the pocket, so I ensured the stitching holes were aligned properly by starting at the top of the pocket each time.

My particular stitching chisels were manufactured with a reasonable point on the chisels, so it was mostly possible to align the chisel points on the scribed line I’d made. This required some care and attention - rushing ensured crooked stitch lines!

To keep the spacing constant, you can insert the first prong on the chisel in the last hole of the previous group. Yes, you only punch three new holes, but the resulting hole spacing is perfect.

I overlooked taking photos, but I also burnished the edges of the pockets. I just used water and a hand slicker and elbow grease.

In advance of the next step, I wanted to prepare the straps.

For the straps, I purchased a pair of 32mm (1-¼”) belt blanks. To cut my own straps, I’d need another much heavier hide, and I’d need a strap cutter, neither of which I wanted to purchase for this project. Ready-to-use belt blanks were only a few dollars each.

Knowing the general size of my tool roll, a heavy 32mm belt felt about the right size. If you’re making a smaller tool, chisel or knife roll, you could substitute 25mm or 19mm belts. A complete belt is far too long for this task, but I didn’t know exactly how long it needed to be, nor whether I could use one belt for both straps. I purchased two belt blanks.

When I purchased the blanks, I also picked up 32mm stainless steel belt buckles and keepers. I already had nickel plated rivets on hand, so I aimed to keep the finish of the hardware similar. Brass hardware and rivets would be another option that would look great against the leather.

To fit the buckle and keeper, you need to prepare one end of the belt to suit. The photos show the layout. From the end of the belt, marks are made at the following distances:

• 0.5”
• 1.5”
• 2.0”
• 3.0”
• 3.5”
• 4.0”

Using the wad or rotary punch, punch out holes at all those locations. Then with a knife and steel ruler, join the holes at the 2.0” and 3.0” positions to make a slot, as per the photo.

The next photo shows how the buckle and keeper are assembled to the belt. When the belt wraps around the buckle, the holes align to allow rivets to secure the belt.

I cut this pattern on both belt blanks.

Since I used plain vegetable tanned leather for the roll and the straps, it needed some color. I had this “Mahogany” leather die that I’d picked up previously. Its more red than brown, but its all I had and once its applied, I figured it was too late to change it, unless I re-dyed the tool roll black.

The dye rapidly soaks into the leather, and the first strokes of the applicator result in heavy dye, and lighter coverage as the applicator is unloaded. This is evident in the photos. I wasn’t happy with the “streaky” finish when I first completed it, but by the end of the project it wasn’t as obvious.

The grain-side of the main body of the tool roll, both pockets and both belts were dyed. I waited 24 hours until I continued.

With the pockets overlaid on the main body, I laid out the belts over the top to determine the final location of the straps.

This was a highly technical process involving eyeballs and a ruler. Because I was aiming to rivet the belt to the body of the tool roll, I knew I’d need access to the rear of the rivet with some sort of backing anvil.

By inspection, the straps “looked right” when they were both 75mm from the edge, and by pure coincidence, the gap between the straps was close enough to 150mm.

However, this resulted in one belt located under a pocket. I had a plan to work around this (more on this later), but the first step was to punch in a set of holes to match the belt in the main body of the tool roll.

I thought two rivets to secure the strap to the body might be insufficient, so I added two more holes to the belt and the tool roll body to double the rivet count on each strap. Since the tool roll, well, rolls up, you can’t fix the strap all the way - it needs to only wrap around once rolled up.

In advance of stitching the pockets to the body, I needed to punch the holes through the pockets and onto the main body of the tool roll.

To ensure the pocket didn’t move around while punching the stitch holes, I decided to glue the pockets to the body.

First step was to transfer some marks (I just used a pencil) to indicate the stitch lines - just so I knew where to apply the glue.

I used a regular contact cement from the hardware store, and applied the strips of glue with a popsicle stick.

I only applied glue to the flesh side of the main body, let it dry for 5 minutes, then aligned the pockets. I stacked a piece of MDF on top of the pockets and added some heavy weights, and waited 24 hours for the glue to dry before proceeding.

Now the pocket was secured to the backing, it was time to punch stitching holes through the main body using the pocket stitch holes as a guide.

I aimed to do the stitching in stages. I wanted to avoid having the pockets move relative to the main body at all. They shouldn’t, being glued down, but it made sense to punch and stitch the long edges first, and progress from there.

The “experts” use something called a stitching pony to hold leather securely during stitching. I’ve made one from scrap pieces of timber, but a pony is not much help when stitching such a large project.

To secure the tool roll while I was tugging on the threads, I simply laid the tool roll on the bench with the stitch line overhanging the edge - so I could access the stitch line from the top and bottom. Then I wrapped a scrap of plywood with a scrap of leather and clamped it over the tool roll to the bench surface. The scrap leather simply protected my project from any marring. You could use some heavy cloth, or rubber or other material as a substitute.

The stitching technique I used is called “saddle stitch”. There are lots of great Instructables teaching saddle stitching; you can find a selection here. I’ll summarise the steps:

1. Measure and cut a length of thread to suit the length of the stitch. A common guideline I’ve seen is measure thread equal to four times the length of the stitch. I prefer a little more, so I use four and a half times the stitch length.
2. Thread each end of the thread through a needle and push the needle through the centre of the thread and pull tight. This secures the thread to the needle.
3. Thread one needle through the first hole.
4. Equal up the length of thread either side of the leather. Each needle now needs to pass through the next hole.
5. Take one needle, and pass it through the next hole.
6. Take the needle on the other side, and pass it through the same hole.
7. Pull both threads through and give them a slight tug. This will tension and set the stitch.
8. Repeat until you reach the end of the stitch line. I tend to tie off one thread, and loop the other back so both are on the same side of the leather. Refer the pictures.
9. Trim the thread leaving around 3mm.
10. Use a flame to melt the wax and burn the thread down. Rub the hot end of the thread before it cools and mash it down with the stitching. The hot wax will bond the end of the thread to the other stitching.
11. On completion of the stitch line, use a mallet or hammer and lightly tap down on the thread in the stitch line. This improves the appearance of the stitch.

This project contains a LOT of stitching. I estimated I could stitch about 20mm per minute, and perhaps 3 minutes to prepare and finish off each line of stitching. I haven’t dared measured the total stitch length to calculate how much time I invested!

Of course, you could machine stitch such a project, but a regular domestic sewing machine simply cannot pierce heavy leather. Specialised sewing machines for leather are certainly available. Have you got one? Me neither! So hand stitching it is!

I used no particular pattern but I simply worked my way down each pocket edge over a number of evenings until I was finally complete.

At this point, I excitedly began to assemble my tool roll to test the fit of all my kit.

Arrrgh! Some of the pockets were simply too narrow to fit the assigned tools 😭😭😭😭

The project was too far advanced to consider scrapping, so I looked for options to salvage it.

The obvious step was to stretch the leather to accept the tools, and the way to facilitate this is soaking the leather in water.

Having wet-moulded a case for a Leatherman tool in a previous project, I was confident this process would help.

So I filled a bucket with regular tap water, and dropped one end of the tool roll in. After two minutes, I rotated the tool roll 180 degrees and soaked the other end for two minutes.

Then it was back to the bench. While the pockets were still tight, the leather certainly allowed (nearly all) of the tools to be squeezed into their assigned pockets.

In the case of the adjustable wrench, I found I’d grossly underestimated the pocket size I needed. There was NO WAY it was ever going to fit.

I rearranged some of the tools in the vicinity, and ditched the piece of spare electrical cable I’d prepared. I then figured I’d unstitch one pocket seam and use the double-sized pocket for the adjustable wrench.

One I’d settled on the tool arrangement, I left the tools installed overnight in the wet leather tool roll. There is a slight risk you could start rusting tools due to the water but my tool selection was generally nickel plated or stainless steel.

The next morning, I stripped all the tools out and hung the tool roll out to dry completely. This took another 24 hours.

Once I installed the straps, I’d lose access to the leather under them, and the back of the strap in this area, so I decided to apply some leather protection.

The tool roll was quite stiff from being soaked in water then dried, so I figured a few coats of conditioner would eventually be required.

For the first coat, I used some conditioner on hand. I’m not an expert in this area, but since the tool roll would potentially get wet while strapped to my bike, I figured the leather needed some water protection.

Other leather conditioners and dubbin I had on hand all seemed to contain some combination of oil or waxes and all promoted some ability to “repel water”.

I rubbed in the waxy conditioner completely on both sides of the tool roll main body, and both sides of the leather straps, and again left them overnight.

The next morning, a quick buff with a piece of rag brought up some shine on the leather.

I cut the first thread at each end of the pocket I wanted to delete, and picked out the thread. Now the adjustable wrench had a suitable home in the double pocket.

To tidy up the corners of the main body, I used the plastic cap from the socket storage as a template and trimmed the corners. Cutting straight segments is easier than attempting to follow the template precisely. A piece of sandpaper helps to smooth the curve nicely.

The long edges of the pockets where they met the tool roll body were not great. Cutting both dead straight then aligning them together perfectly is pretty challenging.

In hindsight, I could have cut both the long edge of the pockets and the main body “oversize” and trimmed them to final dimension after gluing and stitching. I’d definitely do this if I made another tool roll.

However, I have a belt sander, so I was able to carefully sand the edges of the tool roll to a reasonable finish.

Then I burnished the entire perimeter of the tool roll to seal and tidy all the edges.

It was finally time to install the straps.

Using regular rivets is easy enough. They come in two pieces and need to be compressed together. I have a kit to set rivets and press studs but they’re not essential for this job. A hammer and a hard surface is perfectly adequate, however you’ll likely flatten the heads of the domed rivet. If you do this carefully you can squash all rivets equally and its less noticeable!

Remember I had located rivets behind the pocket where I had limited access. I figured I would do the “easy” strap for practice before I tacked this one.

I fitted a buckle to the first strap, folded the strap over and aligned the punched holes in the strap and main tool roll body. Then I slipped the dome side of the rivet in from the strap side, and the rivet back in from the inside of the tool roll. Placing a block of hardwood under the tool roll directly beneath the rivet back, I used my mallet to join the rivet halves. This took some hammering force; I had to compress two layers of belt, the pocket and the tool roll body enough for the rivets to set.

For the strap holes obscured by the pocket, I needed a slightly different approach. First, I grabbed the rivet backs in my Leatherman pliers, and was able to maneuver them down the pocket into position. The rivets really need a hard metal surface behind them, so I fished through my steel scrap bin and located a narrow sliver of 6mm plate. Well, I located a few different pieces, but the one pictured was the one that fit down the pocket behind the rivet.

With this steel backing in place, I was able to set the rivets one at a time, moving the backing piece behind each rivet in turn.

Now was the moment of truth! All the tools were re-installed and voila! The tool roll was rolled into a roll!

I fed the straps through the buckle, pulled firmly and marked a hole position in each strap. With my rotary punch, i knocked these holes out, and two additional holes either side on 25mm centres.

With all the holes punched, I measured 50mm from the first hole, trimmed the straps to length and burnished the cut edges.

A quick touch up of mahogany dye around the perimeter of the tool roll and the cut edge of the straps finished it off.

And here is a final photo of the tool roll strapped to my bike.

If I had to guess, I’d estimate I spent 20 hours on this project. While it might not look like a beginner project, the tool list is short and the techniques are simple, so you should definitely take a shot at it! You’ll learn lots, and make a functional leathercraft item for you or a friend!