Casing Leather

[Uncle Dannie]

I want to piggy-back with freedom13. I have some old hides and would like to know the answer also. If I hadn't found this forum, I might have thrown away perfectly good, but old, hides.

[Ferg]

Unfortunately when I unrolled some old hides I had, they had mildewed. I chose not to mess with trying to clean them up. I also had cut a fairly large piece from a hide to do a piece, never got around to it. Some forty years later I removed from the bottom of a box, cased it with plain warm water, it carved like butter. It was veg tanned of course, cow hide of 8-10oz. I think I did let it soak until the bubbles quit coming to the top of the pan of water. I always rolled my wetted leather into a terry cloth towel and allowed to rest until the next day. I have never placed a piece of leather in the fridge and I don't like placing between glass although that definitely slows the evaporation of the water from the leather.

ferg

I want to piggy-back with freedom13. I have some old hides and would like to know the answer also. If I hadn't found this forum, I might have thrown away perfectly good, but old, hides.

[freedom13]

Hi all,

It looks like not many people leave their hides stored away for a long time so it looks like I will have to do a little experimenting on my own. The hides are clean and very dry, no sign of mould or mildew so that is not a problem.

My first experiment was to put some wool wash into the water. No measurements just a good quarter cup I guess into about 4 cups of water. In went the sample piece with the intention of leaving it for about 24 hours to see what happened. Well I don't know what happened after 24 hours but I can tell you that after 48 hours the water had been absorbed and my sample was soft and supple although completely water logged. I have it sitting on my tomb stone at the moment and will let it dry out until it looks ready to carve and I will give it a whirl.

I will try this again with a little more attention to detail and timing. I will also try a test with Baby shampoo as I have some of that now. I have got some alcohol coming so will try that as well. I might try some Dish liquid as well.

I will keep you posted

Richard

[freedom13]

Here are the test results using plain water, baby shampoo and woolwash.

1-1/2 cups of warm water, 2 table spoon of baby shampoo Checked 1 hour later and sample still as hard as ever and was still floating. Checked again after a total of 4 hours some improvement but still pretty hard. Checked again after a total of 8-1/2 hours the sample seemed to have taken the water and was becoming reasonably supple. Put sample into a plastic bag and into the fridge.

1-1/2 cups of warm water, 1 table spoon of Wool Wash. This wool wash had as an additive some Eucalyptus oil. I figured that it would work the same as Listerine, maybe better. Checked after 1 hour still firm but not as hard as the sample above. the sample was no longer floating

Checked again after a total of 4 hours. Sample was supple and appeared to be thoroughly wet. Put sample in plastic bag and into fridge.

Need to try this with just a little Eucalyptus oil in plain water because it may be the Eucalyptus not the wool wash that improved the absorption.

Plain warm water. Sample was still quite firm after 8-1/2 hours but decided to put into plastic bag and into the fridge with other samples

Samples taken from fridge after 12 hours and set on the tomb stone to dry out. After 36 hours the samples had returned to normal colour. The plain water sample seems to have dried out the most and is the hardest. The shampoo and the wool wash samples are about the same as far as flexibility. I tried the swivel knife, beveller, back grounder and a large flower centre on each sample. I tried to use the same pressure on the knife and the same force on the mallet blows. Attached are my results. 1 means bad and 5 means good.

So this all means that the Shampoo and the wool wash are pretty even except that it takes way less time to get the water into the leather with wool wash than anything else I have tried so far and it seem to be a little better to work with.

I will try a sample with just Eucalyptus oil next to see how that goes.

Richard

[jamzdean]

I have over "wet" my leather can I leave out..if so how long? and after putting it through the "bath" do I put it into the plastic bag??..and for how long? I do appreciate the article.

Hello everybody...

I have put together the steps I take to case my leather for tooling due to a number of requests regarding my method. I hope this will clarify what I perceive are some misconceptions about what casing leather really is. It is in PDF format and Johanna has graciously added the article to the "Tips and Tricks" section where anyone can find it. Thank you Johanna!!! Or it can be accessed through the link below.

I hope those who need this find it helpful....

Bobby

Casing Leather

[hidepounder]

I have over "wet" my leather can I leave out..if so how long? and after putting it through the "bath" do I put it into the plastic bag??..and for how long? I do appreciate the article.

Yes you can simply leave it out to dry a little. I wouldn't put it in a bag until the color begins to return to it. If it were me I'd leave it in the bag to case over night.

Hope this helps....

Bobby

[Pip]

Thanks for putting the time into this article, it is a revelation, now I understand it all much better. Thank you. Lovely work, by the way, an inspirational gallery, really crisps and clean lines.

Pip

[TomG]

This is pretty much how I've always doen my casing with pretty good results. The only issue I have is with my piece occasionally drying out too fast. The only difference is that I have been puting the piece in water and waiting until the bubble stop. Then I wipe it down with a towel and bag it in a ziplock overnight.

I then let it dry to the "return to normal but cool" state.

I'm doing to try some with the technique of letting it almost dry to normal and then bagging it and see what thay does.

One question.... I read a tutorial by Paul Burnett on the forums here and he talsk about wetting the top surface but not letting the core get wet, and then stamping immediately. This is for stamping only.. He used the method here for any and all carving.

What's the story on that? Any opinions on it?

Tom

[hidepounder]

This is pretty much how I've always doen my casing with pretty good results. The only issue I have is with my piece occasionally drying out too fast. The only difference is that I have been puting the piece in water and waiting until the bubble stop. Then I wipe it down with a towel and bag it in a ziplock overnight.

I then let it dry to the "return to normal but cool" state.

I'm doing to try some with the technique of letting it almost dry to normal and then bagging it and see what thay does.

One question.... I read a tutorial by Paul Burnett on the forums here and he talsk about wetting the top surface but not letting the core get wet, and then stamping immediately. This is for stamping only.. He used the method here for any and all carving.

What's the story on that? Any opinions on it?

Tom

Hi Tom,

That may be a great way to prepare the leather when basket stamping, etc. I have heard of the technique before but I don't use it. When ever I basket stamp it is usually combined with tooling. Consequently I case my leather normally. Someone else might weigh in here with some more insight..........

Bobby

[ivarian]

Thanks Bob

Pdf saved

Very useful

Regards