An Introduction to the Owner

Hi, my name is Richard Sadleir and I have been a Leathersmith now for over sixteen years. I was first introduced to Leathercraft by a good friend of mine named Masaki. We used to work together in a Japanese restaurant and he had made himself a pouch to store his docketbook for easier access. The owner of the restaurant really liked the pouch and got him to make one with the restaurant logo on it for each of the waiters. I had often admired the things that he used to make out of leather but I never thought that I would have the skills needed to be able to do it for myself.

Fast forward a couple of years and I found myself on the streets of Tokyo having been invited to Japan to attend Masaki's wedding. He was showing me around the town decided to introduce me to Toku Hans, the shop where he bought his Leathercraft tools, imagine a nine story department store that only caters for hobbys. He had to go off to take care of some wedding business and left me to explore the shop on my own. I eventually found myself in the Leathercraft section where a video of a lady making a wallet had just begun. I had not got a notion what the lady was saying but I was transfixed and still found myself in front of that television, watching that video, an hour and a half later. That video changed my life! I quickly decided that I was going to try and make my own wallet and gathered up the tools that I would need to do so. I made my way to the checkout and liberated a rather hefty chunck of my holiday money in paying for the tools. Over the next six weeks while making my way around Japan, I not only finished my wallet but in every major city that I visited I made a point of visiting the Toku Hans and purchased the tools that were not available in the others.

I got back to Ireland and my hobby progressed until I injured my back while working as a courier and I found myself out of work. Once it became clear that I would not be able to go back to working as a courier, I decided to try and turn my hobby into a profession. I am now working full-time making things out of leather and sharing the joy that I get out of doing so with others.