Thanks for all the comments!
Some people have asked and pm about the steps so here is my version:
The pieces that I used on this particular pen came from a large bag of leather I purchased at Hobby Lobby. They also have the interchangeable punch with the different size tips.
I first cut the leather in 1" wide strips and then starting cutting 1" inch strips from those, having a stack of 1 x 1 squares. I did this with the brown, black, and white to play around with the stacking on the tube for a particular look.
I then took a piece of 3/4 MDF and with the correct sized punch (the one I used on the cigar was tight to slip onto the 10mm tube), laid the strips on the MDF and punched the holes. It seems as if the MDF has enough give to it that it doesn't dull the punch but still enough rigidity to cut the leather cleanly.
I stacked the punched squares on the tube in the order I wanted. I made sure on the ends I had more than enough to go just past the tube, taking into account the clamping will compress the leather as you progress.
I only used medium CA and started building the layers just a few at a time. I did start about ¼" from the ends and anchored my first layer there. That way I could go back and fill in the ends as necessary. On most of the layers I used just a simple 12 inch bar clamp, one pad against the end of the tube, and the other pad pressured against a ½" or so i.d pipe that was compressing the layers uniformly around the tube. Does that make sense? Once completed, I soaked (and I mean "soaks till it drips") :biggrin: with thin CA and shots of accelerator. When I felt that all layers had soaked in enough CA, I trimmed the edges on a sander, and started turning with a small spindle gouge, the woodchuck, and then final shaping with a skew. All the time I was doing this, I would stop the lathe on a constant basis and if the leather looked "dry" I would soak and spray again. Once final shape was there, I sanded through 800-1200 and then coated it with BLO, and sanded again from about 600-1200 ( The BLO seemed to "raise" the leather somewhat like wood will do). After 8-10 coats of thin CA the first few and medium to finish it out this was the result.
Again, thanks for all the nice compliments.
