How long do you keep leather over a mold in a press, or vacuum, or clamped?

[Regis]

How long do you keep leather over a mold in a press, or vacuum, or clamped? Do you keep it untill dry or specific time or specific pressure or ?? I clamped a knife case over night and a holster for about an hour and got same results. They were fairly well formed but, seemed to loose some of the detail during assembly. I did wait until they were dry before sewing. I wet them pretty well (completely thoughout) under the faucet but, did not emerse them. Shook off some of the water and clamped them. Both were 7/8 oz

Appreciate any tips.

Regis

[Luke Hatley]

REGIS, when i do my Canteens, they are not in the mold over

30 min. i do blow them with a heat gun, and i will not start the sewing

untill the next day. Now if i was in a hurry i could start working on

the molded item, but a lot of handling, i would loose some of the molded

shape.

[MikeG]

Interesting - I've always let my projects dry thoroughly (overnight) on the form, but that might be because I work so slow . . .

I went back & checked "The Art of Making Lether Cases" by Stohlman, and his instructions say to let the leather "thoroughly dry." When I make a case, it is usually pretty flimsy until the back is stitched on and then the entire case gets its strength. I've never had anything lose its shape during the finishing so that it didn't come out the way I wanted it to, though.

Luke, I will have to try working something without letting it dry & see how that goes. It would certainly speed up a project.

[larryO]

A lot depends on the type of tannage, and how long the leather was processed in order to figure out how well a leather will hold the press. There are lots of different methods you could use to stiffen your moulded leather after it has dried as well. Some of these techniques might give you the effect you desire.

Check Waterer's Leather and the Warrior for lots more information, and specific techniques for post moulding treatment.

A google search for "Cuir Bouilli" will lead you to sites which may be of interest as well.

Good luck!

larryO

[suem]

When I learned to make medieval leather water bottles/canteens whatever you'd like to call them. We were taught to soak the leather bottle thoroughly, fill with clean sandbox sand, put it in the sun to dry.

In the case of these bottles the outside was sealed with paraffin. With the sand still inside and the bottle now dry we corked the top and dipped the bottle in the liquid paraffin, when that was cool and the bottle quite hard we dumped the sand and then went to the next step of sealing the inside with beeswax, or a couple of other possibilities up to envirotex if you wanted to be able to put hot liquids in your creation.

I don't know if that helped but I hope it did. I agree when you wet leather you seem to lose a bit of the fine details of your artwork.

[Dwight]

I use molds for my magazine carriers, . . . and I have a hydraulic press for some holsters.

Neither one gets more than 1 full minute of mold time or press time. If the leather isn't stretched where I want it by then, . . . it ain't gonna stretch.

But after molding, . . . I look for flaws, . . . maybe a piece of exterrranious junk made an erronious impression, . . . I'll smooth that out. They come out easy while the piece is still wet.

Then I hang up to dry, . . . when they get rock hard, desert dry, . . . I go back to work on them. That is usually no less than 24 hours, . . .

May God bless,

Dwight