About Will Ghormley

A Life in Leather

I'm Will Ghormley and I make all of this myself. Everything I craft is hand-made for my customers. I cut each item from the hide when it's ordered. It's worked and tooled right here at my bench. I dye and oil and clamp it in my stitching pony to sew by hand.

I started crafting leather almost 40 years ago. Most of the photos you will see are stock items I manufacture for my catalogue, but it is custom work that has built my business. If you don't see exactly what you want in the stock orders, I'm more than willing to create something to your specifications. Sketch something out, send me a copy of a photo, or tell me what movie you saw it in.

The Shop

When you walk into my shop, the first thing most people say is, "This place is like a museum!" The next thing they say is, "How do you work in this little room?"

My shop is a small room in the back of my house, about twelve foot square, more or less. The 9' ceiling is covered with five, two-bulb, 4' florescent light banks with expensive bulbs that imitate natural sunlight. The lights are important to get true color representations in the work.

A large table top, 8' x 4', with under-table leather storage, takes up the bulk of the room. Stirrup blanks, go-pack, canteens, camp shovel, bits, cinchas, small traps, tomahawks, and patterns for future carved leather paintings hang all over the walls.

It also doubles as my blacksmith shop, till I get my blacksmith lean-to built out back. Pictures and cards my youngest sons have made, decorate most of the open spaces in my shop. A photo of my oldest daughter, (who was seldom around), is on a stick so we could hold up her face between us for family photos. We call it, "Sarah on a stick."