Anna Young
- Sep 18, 2015
- 4 min read

A USAAF case for restoration

In the past I have been asked to restore family heirlooms and I have always said no. But when a Gentleman in the USA asked me to restore his heirloom case that had been used in the second World War.

After some discussion I found that the case was used by one of “Darby’s Rangers” I was hooked and the case was sent from the USA to the UK.

These pictures were taken before the case was sent to me on arrival I lathered it in mink oil and left it to soak for a few days.

The thread did not put up much of a fight I could possibly have just pulled it apart but the leather was thin in places and I did not wish to risk tearing it so I cut every strand by hand. After that I had to pull out all the little pieces it took a couple of days to finish it all

It still fits in its box

As the leather was well worn and following discussions with the owner we decided to line the inside in lightweight kip leather to give it some much needed support and a new lease of life.

Unfortunately one of the straps had snapped and to be brutally honest they were knackered so a pair of straps were required.

These are the tools used to create a strap one gives the neat little grove and the other rounds off the corners. I must admit I had to borrow this picture from another post as todays picture came out very dark

Here is the new strap beside the old

Time to start messing about with some dye

Getting closer

The special thread for this case arrived yesterday if anyone is interested it is Barbour four ply reverse twist linen thread the experts tell me that this is likely to be similar to the original thread.

I have started looking at re assembly I have started with the lining for the gusset piece which I have wet moulded to the shape of the existing piece.

When veg tanned leather is wet it can be moulded to the desired shape and when it dries out it will hold that shape

I have also put the internal dividers in place and left the whole thing to dry overnight then I will use a latex glue to fix the original piece to the new liner.

Here is the liner and original before gluing

I was cleaning the dividers ready to start re assembly when I noticed that the two pieces that made up each divider had started to separate in a number of places but especially along the top.

Rather than just add some glue along the edge I opened up the joint and glued as far down as possible. Then I clamped the edges down to seal the edge. I used beeswax to polish the edges then I gave the sides a polish with Carnauba wax.

In order to protect the leather I gave the heavily worn areas a touch up with some dye to restore some colour to those areas.

Adding the dye to the worn areas meant I did not have to distress the replacement straps to match

I am pretty happy with the colour match of the straps to the rear and front flap of the case.

Here is a trial fit of the front and rear sections

The next step was to begin sewing the dividers into the gusset piece for this I used my latest creation it is a saddlers clam made from wine barrel staves and a couple of pieces of 2 x 1 inch oak and a few scraps of leather.

The case has been machine sewn on more than one occasion these holes are much smaller than those required for hand sewing so I have made new holes with an awl.

After sewing the centre dividers into the gusset piece I started to work out how the back and front pieces would join the gusset piece.

I started by gluing the back panel in place and once happy with the position I allowed the glue to dry then began sewing the back panel in place.

The next step was to test fit the front panel the process was the same as the back panel gluing and the sewing.

I have had a few issues with the colour I finally realised that what I thought was due to my phone camera settings actually turned out to be a background tint in the saddle tan dye. I mixed a dilute solution of darker dye and brought the tone back closer to the original.

Here is the case fully sewn together ready to have the edges sanded and polished.