Finishing steps in your words............

[taf1987]

Hi, All.

 

I've been able to glean a lot of great information here but still have some questions as I am approaching completion on my first carving piece:

a 10 oz. vegetable-tanned cowboy cuff.

 

Post-tooling, I am not dyeing the piece but will be:

-stitching along the border and gluing/stitching straps onto the piece

-adding snaps

-oiling with neatsfoot

-edging with gum traganth and applying edgekote

-finishing with resolene

 

Now, here is how I am inclined to proceed, and please correct/re-arrange the steps as is necessary:

1) -Clean the piece. There seems to be quite a bit of debris in some of the deeply tooled areas. What is the best method to handle this? My first thought is to use canned air for cleaning keyboards.

2) -Allowing the piece to dry from its "cased" state. How long should I allow for this?

3) -Oiling with neatsfoot oil. I've read that a few coats is ideal with a full day between coats. Any truth to sunlight helping the process?

4) -Punch holes for snaps and pierce leather with stitching irons.

5) -Scuff areas that will take glue to affix the straps to the cuff. (I have Seiwa leather glue from goodsjapan.com)

6) -Add glue and gently clamp together with stitches aligned.

7) -Add stitching.

8) -Add snaps.

9) -Apply black edgekote to edges and burnish.

10) -Apply gum traganth to edges and burnish.

11) -Apply resolene. From what I've read, I am inclined to dilute this even further than the touted 50:50 water/resolene solution and just add more coats of the stuff, lest I end up with a plastic-looking, gummed-up mess. How long should I wait between coats?

 

(I think) that's it! Many thanks in advance for anyone who replies. 

 

**I used a casing solution from another thread on the forum, and it is fantastic.

Bottled water, listerine, lexol, and baby shampoo. I did have to submerge my 10 oz leather for about two full minutes though -- Anything less did not allow for proper tooling. With this solution, I've been able to work on the cowboy cuff on-and-off for six months. When I'm done for the day, I just case it again with a sponge and quickly double-bag it in my refrigerator.

 

 

[AzShooter]

Glad someone revised this topic.  Just the information I was looking for.  It's a far cry doing a briefcase compared to finishing one of my holsters but perhaps I should use these same suggestions on all my projects.

Now I know I need more supplies.

[JLSleather]

On 2/15/2022 at 4:51 AM, AzShooter said:

doing a briefcase compared to finishing one of my holsters

 

These "cases" (full zipper) absolutely DO NOT get ant-streak of any kind.  I just put the color where it goes (combination of airbrush and red sable hair brushes) and tan-kote applied with the palm of the hand (no sheep wool hairs in the finish).

Don Gonzales tools leather very nicely, then - in my opinion - makes the MISTAKE of putting that ant-streak stuff on it.  Still looks nice, but not as  nice as it did before he pooped on it    That stuff reminds me of the sediment left behind after it rains and the puddles dry up... mud in the low spots