Night Owl Leatherworks

Born and raised in San Diego California my life has consisted of some common themes. Love of the past consisting of most things "Americana", hand made/ crafted products from organic materials, mid century design, kounter kulture and surf culture.

 

After years of admiration for hand tooled motorcycle seats, belts, wallet and a variety of other traditional leather products, I decided to try my hand at leather working. To my great suprise, I seemed to have a pretty natural feel for the craft. With the help of other leather workers and the quality tools by folks like Chuck Smith, I'm continually growing and experimenting with new products and techniques. I began my leather working hobby by hand tooling and have developed a lot of my projects using a combination of tooling and laser engraving. I have found that there is definitely a right project for each type of tool.

 

Leather work has been a real challenge as immediate gratification is most often trumped by the need to exercise patience.

 

This obsession of mine has created my Night Owl persona and passion to create. This site is to share my work and hopefully entertain, inspire, and display the unique objects that can be created with leather as a medium. My leatherwork and laser engraving work is done on a limited basis for the public. The truth is I only have a limited amount of time to create objects for folks outside my circle of family and friends.

 

Mike Rauber

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