Just finished my 50th full leather binding and the number hit me

I was cleaning up my bench and counted the finished projects on my shelf. Fifty books, all done with hand-sewn headbands and leather covers. It took me over three years to get here, starting with that awful first one where I cut the leather too short. That number feels real in a way my other projects don't. Has anyone else had a count that made them stop and think about how far they've come?

3 comments

3 Comments

shane_wilson2mo ago

My buddy who restores old radios hit 100 units last month. He showed me his log book, every single one with the repair notes and a photo. Said he just sat there staring at the stack of them in his garage, thinking about the first one he totally fried by crossing the wrong wires.

nancy3512mo ago

Wonder if he ever found the first radio he fried to fix it again.

benk261mo ago

My buddy Mike hit 200 restorations on old tube radios last spring and he told me about this exact feeling. He was reorganizing his workshop and found the first one he ever fixed, this beat up 1950s Zenith that worked for like 10 minutes before smoking out. He said he just held that radio and remembered how he soldered the wrong capacitor in, blew a fuse, and spent three days tracing wires. @nancy351, your comment about the fried radio reminds me of that because Mike still has that first one in a box under his bench, refuses to throw it away even though it's basically a paperweight now. He said hitting 100 felt like a fluke but 200 gave him that same pause like "holy crap did I actually do all that.