Will this work?

[Bird Lady]

16 minutes ago, fredk said:

When moulding it; give it a good soaking and a little bit of stretching. Clamp it up and let it dry. 

Resolene will work if can soak in, so usually not chrome tan

Floor wax ? do you men 'Mop & Glo'? despite what it says that is not a wax but an acrylic varnish

You can use acrylic paints on leather. Any paints. Don't go buying expensive ones. I use paints meant for plastic models. They're cheap. They'll only crack off if you put the paint on really thick, which you won't have to do

 

Thank you and everyone else for teaching me and answering my questions!

 

My family tended to never throw out cleaners, so I do have some of the old Johnson wax Future acrylic floor polish. Not sure though if I should quickly put it up on Ebay. lol. Someone else suggested avoiding chrome tan for my beaks - but it sounds like it's easily recognizable. Yay that. And it also sounds like I could keep using scraps then - even better!

Since I do have some of the old-school Future, would you suggest using that or the Resolene? Would you recommend diluting either one with 50/50 water?

If I used paint (I have that cheapo acrylic craft paint) would that help with the stiffening or eliminate the need for the floor polish or Resolene? Should I water it down or use it straight out of the bottle?

Sorry for so many questions. I tend to stick to dry materials for my projects. I've learned the hard way that when chemicals are introduced to a project, i.e. glue, finishes, clay, paint, etc; they can look great for a long time, but can eventually fail big time. I had something randomly fail 30 months after I had boxed up the items - some were fine, some were not so fine. I've tried acrylic medium that the manufacturer insists always dries rock hard - mine is rubbery with only one coat.  

[dikman]

Something else that might work is shellac. It's used to stiffen felt hats, dissolved in alcohol (I used methylated spirits) and sprayed on the hat. I haven't tried it on leather but it might work on floppy leather.

[fredk]

Dilute either the Future or Resolene 1:1 with water. Use several thinned coats, maybe 3. I prefer to use a version of 'Future' which I can get

The paint won't help stiffen the leather

Thin the paint and apply thin coats to build up the colour

This knife scabbard was made in 2007, painted with acrylic model paints with no varnish to protect it. It was used regularly at events, tossed into a kit bag, generally neglected. It came back to me for repainting late 2016.

After 10 years;

Edited 17 hours ago by fredk

[Bird Lady]

17 hours ago, AlZilla said:

One thing that may be of help ... I've found soaking veg tan in hot water and letting it dry makes a stiffer dry piece than room temp water. This was about 10 ounce leather but might be worth a shot. 

Vacuum sealing the pieces for about a half hour seemed to make them even stiffer. Just a seal-a-meal. The bags have a textured inside, which showed up on the leather.

Hot water out of the tap or boiling water? Love the vacuum seal idea too. If this works as well as I hope it does, that might make it much easier to do a bunch at a time.

[Bird Lady]

16 hours ago, fredk said:

Dilute either the Future or Resolene 1:1 with water. Use several thinned coats, maybe 3. I prefer to use a version of 'Future' which I can get

The paint won't help stiffen the leather

Thin the paint and apply thin coats to build up the colour

This knife scabbard was made in 2007, painted with acrylic model paints with no varnish to protect it. It was used regularly at events, tossed into a kit bag, generally neglected. It came back to me for repainting late 2016.

After 10 years;

Lovely and so much detail on that paint job. Good to know that's an option. Thank you for all of your suggestions!

[fredk]

38 minutes ago, Bird Lady said:

Hot water out of the tap or boiling water? Love the vacuum seal idea too. . . .

Only hot water from the tap, and not too hot at that

Boiling hot water will really harden the leather but will make it shrink by as much as 20%, in uncontrolled directions

[AlZilla]

10 minutes ago, fredk said:

Only hot water from the tap, and not too hot at that

Boiling hot water will really harden the leather but will make it shrink by as much as 20%, in uncontrolled directions

I'll endorse Fred's answer. From experience, the hotter the water, the harder the end product will be. If you have plenty of leather, it might be worth experimenting with a range between hot tap water and boiling water.

I think the hot water trick played/plays a role in making leather armor.