How long does it take to make a briefcase?

This post will not have that many pictures. That's because I did not take that many. Not because I did not have anything new to show but because I did not want to waste any time taking a lot of pictures. I wanted to see how long it actually took to make a briefcase. People often ask me "how long does it take to make a briefcase like that". Normally I would say that it takes a looong time.. somewhere between 50-100 hours maybe. To be honest I really had no clue as to how many hours it took. But I do now.

It took 41 hours using a total of 53 sessions.

I think that's a decent number. This build was a bit different than normal as I used my new lasercut acrylic templates which saved me a couple of hours.


This is the first briefcase made using a laser cut acrylic template.

I got some weights that I use to hold things in place. They are actually really handy and I use them more than I thought I would.

This is how I marked the round cut in at the top of the pocket.

The pocket is made so that it can expand. I think it is really nice as when it's not in use it is really thin

I made this clamp that is secured to the ceiling with elastic cord.

I tried to make the handle straight and then wet the hole thing and bend it.

The pockets I ended up with was not the expanding ones at the customer decided these were better:

Total weight of the bag without the shoulder strap: 2220g

Prototype of the expanding pockets. The next briefcase will have these