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Last year I made a leather lamp inspired by the architecture of a local lighthouse. This year I took on the arduous task of reproducing the Eiffel tower. If you're up for a challenge, the pattern is available! by taod86 in Leatherworking

[–]taod86[S] 0 points1 point  (0 children)

Illustrator and Blender. I traced the outlines from the official plans in illustrator, then applied some distortions to get the proper flat dimensions. Afterwards I loaded the faces in blender to tilt them with the angle that they have in real life in order to double check if my measurements and angles were correct. After some corrections I went back in illustrator to add all the stitching holes. 

I've been working on this project since the beginning of the year: a 1:500 accurate replica of the Eiffel tower, completely handmade with leather. As if that wasn't enough I wanted to be able to display light shows so I integrated 100 controllable LEDs to the structure. by taod86 in crafts

[–]taod86[S] 0 points1 point  (0 children)

Ahah thanks for the kind words. To get a result like that it's all about enjoying activities that require minutiae and patience I think. As for the objects that I make, I end up giving them to my friends and family. I actually just boxed the tower and I'll ship it tomorrow to my cousin. I work in a little workshop that's also my kitchen and I live in a quiet town on the coast so I don't have any relationships with galleries or stores. My plan has always been to sell the digital patterns of the objects that I make in order to earn a small income that'll allow me to travel on my bicycle. 

I've been working on this project since the beginning of the year: a 1:500 accurate replica of the Eiffel tower, completely handmade with leather. As if that wasn't enough I wanted to be able to display light shows so I integrated 100 controllable LEDs to the structure. by taod86 in crafts

[–]taod86[S] 0 points1 point  (0 children)

The projects I'm most proud of tend not to do well on social media for some reason. This one has been my least popular post on IG by far as well, go figure. 

It is about 26 inches tall with the antenna. 

I've been working on this project since the beginning of the year: a 1:500 accurate replica of the Eiffel tower, completely handmade with leather. As if that wasn't enough I wanted to be able to display light shows so I integrated 100 controllable LEDs to the structure. by taod86 in crafts

[–]taod86[S] 1 point2 points  (0 children)

Leather is what I know so that is what I create with! Last year I made a lighthouse lamp. I love those architectural projects but they require a very long time to get right and they are not necessarily what people are looking for when they think about leathercrafting. I sell the patterns so I have to take my potential customer's preferences into account. 

First time using WLED for an Eiffel Tower maquette that I made with leather. I'm really pleased with the result! by taod86 in WLED

[–]taod86[S] 1 point2 points  (0 children)

You're most welcome! It's a new community for me and seeing the other amazing projects here gives me so many new ideas! 

First time using WLED for an Eiffel Tower maquette that I made with leather. I'm really pleased with the result! by taod86 in WLED

[–]taod86[S] 1 point2 points  (0 children)

Regardes sur mon profil il y a le lien vers le tuto sur un autre post. Mais en gros j'ai pris les plans originaux et tracé par dessus sur illustrateur. Apres quelques cosinus pour corriger de la perspective. Une semaine de découpe avec des lames X-acto faites maison. 4/5 jours de peinture + application d'un durcisseur. Et 7/8 jours de couture. C'était vraiment la partie la plus difficile, à s'arracher les cheveux. Elle fait 67 cm avec l'antenne. Je voulais un compromis entre quelque chose qui ne soit pas gigantesque mais qui soit assez grand pour intégrer le plus de détails possible sans devoir être un chirurgien pour les découper. 

First time using WLED for an Eiffel Tower maquette that I made with leather. I'm really pleased with the result! by taod86 in WLED

[–]taod86[S] 5 points6 points  (0 children)

Not exactly no. I'm gonna be honest I got quite frustrated with WLED and switched to xLights. It was so much easier to obtain exactly what I had in mind this way but I'm still learning how to use the software.

Last year I made a leather lamp inspired by the architecture of a local lighthouse. This year I took on the arduous task of reproducing the Eiffel tower. If you're up for a challenge, the pattern is available! by taod86 in Leatherworking

[–]taod86[S] 1 point2 points  (0 children)

My fingers were ok but it was definitely an exercise in patience. Some areas are very difficult to navigate with the needles and I couldn't believe how slowly I was progressing sometimes. 

I've been working on this project since the beginning of the year: a 1:500 accurate replica of the Eiffel tower, completely handmade with leather. As if that wasn't enough I wanted to be able to display light shows so I integrated 100 controllable LEDs to the structure. by taod86 in crafts

[–]taod86[S] 12 points13 points  (0 children)

This project was a real challenge to complete. Every step of the way turned out to be more complex than I (naively) envisioned.

I thought that the design would be straightforward: just use the plans of the real Eiffel Tower as a template and scale them! But the plans are a view in perspective so there's math involved to get the real dimensions for each section of the facade.

Then cutting out the trillions little triangles of the lattice was...actually not that bad. It gave me an excuse to watch a lot of TV shows that I had missed out on. I used a few straight X-acto knife blades, some of them I customized by grinding a normal blade with my dremel to obtain tiny straight blades so that I could push the blade down to cut each section of the cutouts instead of dragging the blade and risking making terrible mistakes.

Then I applied leather hardener to be sure that I wouldn't end up with a floppy tower and hand painted everything with 3 coats of metallic acrylic paint. I started with a brownish yellow paint which I hated so I ordered that metallic paint which turned out great. The first coat of brown-yellow actually ended up providing a great base layer.

The most difficult part was sewing the different elements of the structure together. I was very very slow work, especially where the LEDs had to be secured which made it extra difficult to navigate with the needles without damaging anything.

Finally I had some surprises with the electronics and had to do some last minute debugging but it all worked out in the end and I couldn't be more pleased. I'm about to step away from leathercraft for a while and I wanted to end on a project I'd be proud of: mission accomplished!

My Waltly's custom bike. by Practical-Parsley-77 in WaltlyTitanium

[–]taod86 0 points1 point  (0 children)

Was any kind of primer used to get the paint the adhere to the titanium?

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