Grand Meadow Artisan Creates Handmade, Permanent Leather Goods

GRAND MEADOW –  In 2022, Zech Sindt traded in his house-building hammer for a stitching needle to create leather goods. Despite the drastic change, he kept the mindset that he is creating something permanent to last through generations.

Today, he is entering his second full year as Bluffland Leather Co., which he runs out of his house in Grand Meadow. He mostly sells his goods at shows — he attended 30 last year and hopes to do 50 this year — along with some online sales.

The idea for the change came during his 27 years in construction when he bought leather tool pouches that would last less than a year. He thought that was strange because he recalled that his parents still had leather items that were handed down from his great-grandfather.

“You know, leather should last,” he said. “So, I started making my own stuff.”

It was trial and error at first. “I gave a lot of wallets away before I actually got good at them,” he said.

Now, he not only makes quality wallets and purses, his biggest sellers, but also backpacks, briefcases, holsters and many custom items. Everything he does has an American Western-oriented theme, although he does a lot of variations in vivid colors and has some one-of-a-kind purse designs.

Wallets are one of the most popular items from Bluffland Leather Co. (Photo by David Phillips)

Slow and steady pace

Although he figured out a lot about leather-making on his own, a key point was finding someone to teach him how to saddle stitch, a dying craft.

For example, in making a wallet, he first uses a compass set to mark the distance before using stitching forks, sometimes called chisels, that have six prongs to punch holes in the leather. When he gets to a corner, he uses a two-front chisel to keep everything straight. In saddle stitching, he uses two needles to pull the thread through each hole one at a time.

The hand process takes more time and adds to the cost, but he plans to stick to traditional leather-working as much as possible.

“Everything I make is hand cut, hand stained, hand stitched,” he said. “Other people hand cut, hand stain, but I’m the only one in this area that hand stitches everything. Everybody else uses machines. So, I know that my stuff is going to outlast my own life.”

Some of his items are also hand-carved, using a knife or punches. This process also requires some patience, often multiple days, because the leather needs to be wet throughout the process.

Visitors check out the handmade leather goods at the Bluffland Leather Co. booth during the Dilly Dally Minnesota Market in Rochester in January. (Photo by David Phillips)

“When I set out on a project like that, I need to clear my calendar for a while,” he said. “Because you get it wet, and once you get it wet, you don’t want to let it dry because if it dries out, you’re never going to get it back to that same consistency again that makes it good to work with. So, when I start a project like that, seriously, I don’t stop until it stops.”

At times, he also uses a basketweave stamp, which is a fraction of an inch long, to press into wet leather to make a weave design, another time-consuming process.

Process gentler to environment and more ethical labor

Sindt gets his oil-tanned leather from The Leather Guy in St. Charles and his vegetable-tanned leather from Tandy Leather in Minneapolis. He prefers these two varieties of leather, which use natural ingredients, compared to chrome-tanned leather, which is softer, faster and cheaper, but uses chromium-based agents that may have detrimental environmental side effects in the processing. The chrome leather also doesn’t last as long.

The veg leather, as he calls it, uses a traditional method with products often from trees. “It’s the most natural. It’s what humans have used for thousands of years,” he said.

The Sindts own Bluffland Leather Co. in Grand Meadow. (Photo from BlufflandLeather.com.)

An advantage of hand-made leather products is that people know where they come from, added Sindt. He has gained an appreciation for that through experience as his wife is from Cambodia, so he has traveled there frequently.

“I’ve seen how the sweatshops work there,” he said. “They have giant factories and they will only hire women, and all of these women are working 12-hour days for $200 a month, and they never get a break, six or seven days a week. We don’t realize here that when we’re negotiating to pay $5 for a T-shirt, it’s some poor slave making that stuff.”

His experience seeing that up close prompts him to put his time, thought and creativity into every piece of his work. “Every single thing I make, it means something to me,” he said. “I’ve seen the other side, and it devastates life. If I can sell one purse, that saves one person from buying something that was made in a sweatshop.”

Creative process evolves

Like construction, the leather-making process is more geared toward functionality, but Sindt said that as he gains more expertise, he has come to enjoy the artistic side of the work.

One of his favorite things to play with is color. He uses leather dye from Angelus, a family business in California, because he feels it makes the colors pop. Although his main colors are light brown, dark brown, black, and oxblood, or maroon, he also has some bright reds, greens and others.

Round purses in a variety of colors often stop visitors passing by the booth of Bluffland Leather Co. (Photo by David Phillips)

Some of the more vibrant colors go in his purses that are unique. His round purses, which attract a lot of attention from visitors at shows, come in a variety of colors. He said a lot of women have round purses, such as ones made by A-Esque, but none are handmade.

He also has some show-stopping saddlebags with a unique design as he tries to go for items that nobody else makes.

This handmade leather backpack took about three days for Zech Sindt to make. (Photo by David Phillips)

“I am higher in price because it’s all handmade. I refuse to compromise,” he said. “I really try to educate the public. If I get somebody who’s interested, I try to educate them on what they’re buying. What I sell is different than anybody else, even another leather vendor right next to me.”

He also does a lot of custom work, as much as 50 percent of his business. For example, sometimes wives will give him photographs of their husbands’ wallets that are falling apart, and he will create a new one that may not be exactly the same but have the same organizational components. Other times, he will need to do research to try to recreate a historical piece, such as the belt he made for someone who had a Union buckle from the Civil War.

He recalls one time a lady from Texas had him make a custom clutch to keep in her purse. It ended up being really thick, with 20-some card pockets and two phone holders.

“Next thing I know, her friends are hitting me up,” he said. “I custom made like four of these things, each one having its own unique brand. They got into a competition with each other.”

While the artistic aspect and usefulness of the products make his new craft appealing, the most satisfying part, he said, is the permanence.

“I know every piece I make is going to last a lifetime,” he said. “If they don’t want it anymore, they’re going to sell it. They’re not going to throw it away. That’s the type of work that I do.

“It’s kind of interesting when you think about it, because I built homes that you don’t just throw away. And now I’m kind of doing the same thing.”