Wet Molding

[newfiebackflip]

When wet molding, what are some of the ways you like to hold the form? I.E tack it with nails, clamps etc.

[Randy Cornelius]

I build wooden molds to form cell phone holders, mag pouches, plyers holders and snuff can holders. That way I can clamp the wet leather in the mold for a couple hours so the leather has a time to form to the mold. If you don't use a wooden mold you can form your leather around the object by tacking it around the object on a wood board with blued tacks. It is not the best way but for one time use it works fine. Use small tacks as so to not make too big holes to cover up. Most the time I try to use the holes from the tacks to sew with.

[lthrman]

I've built some pretty cool forms for the cases I use to make a lot of. It's not too time consuming and I always got consistency with the formed pieces.

1. Cut a wood piece the same size as the object your making it for.

2. I had flat back pieces on my cases so I cut a piece of plywood the same width as the finished product. The edge of the plywood gives you a a line to reference the finished size to when it's dry.

3. Cut a piece of heavy smooth plastic (like an old cutting board) or masonite (although masonite won't hold up to repeatedly getting wet) the same size as the piece you cut in step 1 + the thickness of the leather on each side.

4. Mount step 1 to step 2. I just screwed them together from the back.

5. Once the forms are made I would stretch the leather over the top and clamp it with spring clamps and start working bottom corners. When those started to take shape I would clamp the "horse shoe" as I called it, from step 3, at the top only and finish working the bottom corners with a bone folder getting out as many wrinkles as possible.

6. Next I make sure that the "horse shoe" is all the way up to the bottom and clamp the bottom corners. Let it dry, remove the clamps and you have a formed piece with a pre marked line on the back for lining up top piece to bottom.

I had 3 forms with blocks on each end of my plywood piece and would stretch 6 pieces at a time. I've made similar forms for pocket watches and small civil war era cases. It worked for me and hopefully can work for you or anyone else reading this. Mark