Wet mold height limits?

[John303]

I am new to anything concerning leather working, but am fascinated by the idea of wet molding. I was thinking of combining my 3d printing skills to make wet molds for simple trays to hold coasters that I laser engrave. What I cannot find are the limits for how tall wet molds can be? I have searched on tall/deep wet molding, but nothing really addresses this. Most of the commercial ones look to be about 3/4 - 1 inch tall, but some are made in pieces so that you can stack the inner mold part to get a taller result. But surely there is some practical limit? Can you make a leather cup 4" tall for instance. Any advice, or experience, is appreciated.

[fredk]

Depends on how stretchy your leather is. I've done about 2 inches. In theory, with very stretchy leather you could do a 4 inch cup

[John303]

1 minute ago, fredk said:

Depends on how stretchy your leather is. I've done about 2 inches. In theory, with very stretchy leather you could do a 4 inch cup

So, is stretchiness a function of thickness, the animal the leather came from, where on the animal it came from, or something else? Appreciate the help btw.

[Mablung]

1 hour ago, John303 said:

So, is stretchiness a function of thickness, the animal the leather came from, where on the animal it came from, or something else? Appreciate the help btw.

All of the above.  Thinner leather will stretch more easily, some kinds of hides stretch more easily than others, and the belly will stretch way more than the back (as an example).  The "All About Leather" subforum might be helpful to you.

[HandyDave]

Also when using a 2 piece style mold for molding leather you just got to make sure you have a big enough piece of leather to mold deeper pieces.