preventing leather from streching

[Vikti]

Hi all,

I'm starting on a cell phone case and I was wondering if it would be better to cut out the pattern before attaching the leather to a backing or going ahead and attaching the leather to the backing, do all my tooling and then cut out the pattern?

Thanks

[Randy Cornelius]

If you are sure your pattern is the right size you can cut out the pattern before you tool. Or you can tool the piece then cut it out. Both ways will work. If it is a small project it maybe better to tool the pieces before you cut them. But something as large as a cell phone holder would be on a fairly large piece of leather if you did not cut them out first. Also you may add additional wast to the side of leather you cut from. To keep these pieces from stretching while you tool... There are seveal methods I have tried several but what I like the best and seems to work the best is glueing down to plexiglass with rubber cememt while tooling. The the piece completly dry. I even apply dye and finish before I pull it off the plexiglass. The only down side to this is the it will leave a coating of rubber cememt on the backside of the leather. If you are going to line the piece with another piece of leather this is of no concern as it will be covered. But if not here is what you can do if the piece will not be lined. Take 3-M packing tape and apply the tape to the backside of the piece, overlap the rows until completely covered. Apply the rubber cement to the packing tape and to the plexiglass and glue them down after they become tacky. Now after you are all done you can pull off the tape and there is no glue residue on the backside of the leather.

When I tool belts I use the tape method without the plexiglass as it hold well enough to keep the shape of the leather.

Hope this helps.

Randy

[hidepounder]

Vikti,

I would cut out the piece to be tooled and glue it to a piece of 1/4" acrylic with rubber cement. Be sure to case the leather, slick it and cut it to shape first. When you're finished with it, strip it off of the acrylic, glue it to the lining (oversized) and then trim the lining to fit. You'll find that gluing to the acrylic will preserve the dimensions of the piece and it will go together much more easily. You definitely do not want to tool with the lining in place because you cannot control the stretch and the tooling will telegraph through to the lining. Using packing tape on the back of the tooled piece is an easy and inexpensive alternative to acrylic to control stretch, but it does not work as well. I only use it on belts or headstalls where the length of the piece makes it impractical to glue to the acrylic.

Hope this helps,

Bob

[Deb59]

Another Idea is to visit your local Veterinary and see if there is any old X-Ray Film they will let you have. Rinse the film off and when it is dry you have a nice light weight piece you can use over and over again just like the plexiglass. Follow the same methods Randy mentioned above to attach your leather. (Randy gave me the plexiglass tip in a class I helped him with, and one of the members of our guild gave me the xray film idea.) Both methods work well.

Happy Tooling - Deb

[Stan]

I often cut the piece of leather a tad too large, do my tooling, and then cut to size. Stan

[RLong830]

There are some good ideas here. I use the stufff that you line your kitchen drawers with. I don't recall the name, but you can get rolls of it at Wal-Mart cheap. It is sticky on one side, but easy to remove when you are done.   Just thought of the name is "contact paper"!!  man how the brain gets slower every year

Edited March 24, 2010 by RLong830