Tooling Prior To Wet Forming..?

[iamasmith]

I plan on trying a wet formed sheath for a pocket knife.

In the forming I'll be moulding the leather down around the knife and tacking it to a board so that it forms and dries shaped around the knife (wrapped in cling film).

I fancy putting some decorative carving onto the case and I was wondering about the best way to avoid having the shrinkage distort the carving.

I was imagining doing something like this..

1. Carve the leather.

2. Allow it to dry completely.

3. Case around the carving.

4. Form and tack around the knife.

5. Leave to dry completely.

6. Remove, cut and stitch on the back.

Is this the best approach or should I be doing something else such as staining and sealing the carved portion prior to casing it to wet form?

Any thoughts folks?

Edited January 4, 2011 by iamasmith

[iamasmith]

Sorry, I should have mentioned, the tooling will be on a flat portion with the forming beyond the extents of the carving. I'm not trying to form a tooled section to shape.

[Lobo]

Tooling or carving must be done prior to assembly, stitching, and forming. The tooled or carved pieces must be dampened to permit forming to the intended content (knife, pistol, etc). Excessive moisture can be expected to cause the piece to swell, which can have negative effects on the tooling or carving. The use of tools (boning) in forming the piece while damp will certainly damage the carving or tooling.

I make many holsters featuring either Sheridan-style floral carving or basketweave tooling. The method that I apply is to dampen the piece prior to forming, using just enough water to make the leather pliable, then forming it to the handgun by using finger pressure only. I have not noticed any significant changes due to shrinkage while drying.

I do not stake or tack down the piece while it is drying. I do use a drying cabinet with heat controlled to about 130 degrees (+/- 10 degrees), and in about 30 minutes or so the piece has dried sufficiently to proceed with edge burnishing, dying, etc.

Attached photos display a number of holsters with carving and tooling made in this manner.

Best regards.

[JRedding]

Here's my suggestion just based on what I do with saddle parts that have to be both formed and tooled, and I do this with holsters and sheaths I build. Soak and wet form you're piece, tack it down like you want it and get you're outside lines scribed, it's difficult to get you're tooling centered if you don't know where center is going to be when this is over. I leave it tacked a while just to let it relax into it's new shape a little but I pull it while it's still thoroughly soaked and flatten it back out for tooling. Now you have it basically pre-fit to shape, you're outside cut lines are scribed where they're going to be when it is formed, and you can tell which portion of it you want to tool and which portion you want to stay out of. Let it dry completely and then re wet it as you normally would to tool it and get your tooling done. On something like a sheath I wouldn't wet it by dipping it once it's tooled, no matter what you do once it's tooled too much moisture will turn your tooling loose, I use a spray bottle to dampen the whole thing front and back so you don't get any water marks but I put the moisture in it mostly from the backside with the spray bottle, this lets you get the moisture into the leather while leaving the tooling as dry and crisp as is possible. Once it's reasonably wet drop it back in place and do enough massage to form it back into place like it was the first time, it will go back into the pre-fit shape fairly easy since it's already been there once before. Tack it back down and leave it until it's completely dry this time. I know a lot of people like to use hot boxes to speed up the drying time but I never have, I like mine to have that time to sit and dry naturally, I think it gives the leather time to relax into it's new shape, maybe it doesn't matter but I just like to coax it rather than force it. Hope you can draw something from this that may help.

[iamasmith]

Cheers guys, some great pointers there and I love those holster designs Lobo

I'm just getting started with carving so mine won't be that intricate. I lie your suggestion JRedding since it gives the leather chance to relax relax in uniform across the piece rather than trying to constrain the tooled area and stretch outside the area. Sounds much more likely to work for my purposes although on something so small it may make the carving even more interesting. Ah well, it's all good practice, I'll give that a go

[Go2Tex]

I agree with JR. I always wet fit the leather, let it dry completely to set the shape, then rewet, flatten it out as needed for carving or stamping, then rewet shape as gently as possible. It works for saddle cantel bindings, so it will work for anything.

[iamasmith]

OK, since I'm fairly green at Carving and I had a Spartan Swiss Army Knife nailed down with a piece of 8-10oz leather that had dried out today I thought I would experiment.

I got a Triweave stamp today from Tandy, had a bit of a play around and thought it would serve at least to show if the tooling would suffer on a wet formed piece. I only had the 8-10oz leather but had a Skiver also turn up so I decided to hide the black marks made by the tacs I used by making a simple Trim.

As this is only my second Leatherwork project it was all experimentation. Including the colouring which I didn't like so I wiped most of it off to make it more of a worn look.

Anyway, the thing that I did notice most of all and need to figure a better way around is that when stitching I inadvertently ended up polishing the case whilst working with it since I built up a lot of Beeswax from the thread on my hands (I don't have a pony of any sort). For now this doesn't matter but if I want solid dyes then I guess that will cause me problems and I will need a better option.

Anyway, I thought I would post up my second attempt at making something...

Edited January 6, 2011 by iamasmith

[Go2Tex]

The "black marks", or stains from the tacks is caused from a reaction of the wet leather to iron. You can remove those stains with oxalic acid, commonly sold as wood bleach. A spoonful of oxalic acid in pint or so of warm water will do the trick. It works best on wet leather, before it has been finished.

Caution! Do NOT get the stuff on your skin. Use rubber gloves.

[iamasmith]

The "black marks", or stains from the tacks is caused from a reaction of the wet leather to iron. You can remove those stains with oxalic acid, commonly sold as wood bleach. A spoonful of oxalic acid in pint or so of warm water will do the trick. It works best on wet leather, before it has been finished.

Caution! Do NOT get the stuff on your skin. Use rubber gloves.

Thanks again Brent

[billymac814]

For your second project that looks pretty good. My first thing I made was something similar and it didn't look that good, I didn't have an awl and correct thread (or this forum) at the time. Wait until you compare that with something you made in a year from now.

[BigRiverLeather]

I've heard another solution to the black marks is to use copper coated nails. I bought some for that purpose but have not had the chance to try it yet.

Posted in this tutorial

http://leatherworker.net/forum/index.php?showtopic=19782

Edited January 13, 2011 by BigRiverLeather