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Hello everyone! I am fairly new at leather craft. To this point I have made a few pouches, belts, journals and delved into leather carving - but I've always used veg-tan fresh leather. I found a brief case at a thrift store yesterday (covered in dust and quite lonely). I really liked the style of it, and would like to modify it (smaller mainly) into a handbag. So in taking on this challenge, I've run into some conundrums as aspected haha. As I mentioned I've never worked on old leather, and this leather does appear quite thirsty. But also appeared to be a moderate quality bag as far as machine made goes. It doesn't appear to have a thick finishing layer, the moment I spritzed some water on the bag the leather soaked it up. Photos below (first 3 original bag, last 2 since desconstruction). My main two questions (at this point) are: 1) glue...ideas on removal? The bag was originally partitioned into 2 compartments, I'd like 1 larger compartment for the handbag. So I basically just need to get rid of 1 strip of old glue down the middle. 2) cracking... I'd like to bend the leather in 1/2 where the "<=>" shaped leather pieces are positioned. On first inspection of the leather in the area I plan to bend, I noticed some cracking :/ (prior to me attempting to bend). Any thoughts on how I can prep this leather to accommodate bending/minimize further cracking? Thank you so much for any advice you can lend me in this endeavor!

Does anybody know how to get the crack leather finish on this picture? I've searched for a while but I can't find the process anywhere. R

Hello all, this is my first post here. I've been lurking for a while and I decided to get onto my first leather project. I'm making a leather journal out of 4 to 5 oz leather. I cased then tooled, dyed, oiled with with neatsfoot, and then finished with resolene. When I folded my leather to turn the leather sheet into a cover, the spine seemed to wrinkle and crack. Is there any way to minimize wrinkling along leather folds? Would molding the leather piece into a bookcover shape prior to tooling and dyeing help?