Using Split Leather ?

[Tatty]

Hi,

New here and to leather work. I have a question about veg tan split leather. I'm particularly interested in leather wet forming - masks, containers, armour and rivet work.

For experimentation and to get some experience, could I make use of the cheaper spilt leather ?. I assume the surface finish wont be as good, but will it wet form and stamp similar to a full skin leather of similar thickness ?

I see I can get some decent size pieces of split from ebay (uk) around 1 - 2mm thick which I assume would wet form ok ?

Thanks.

[Eirewolf]

Welcome to the forums! I'm a maskmaker myself (for about a year now, so still a newbie).

I'm looking at a split from a hide I bought, and I would guess that it would wet-form similarly. However, I don't know that I would trust it for stamping and tooling; the surface is not nearly as smooth.

It's an interesting idea, to use splits as a sort of prototype for wet-formed pieces, so as not to ruin good tooling leather. I might steal that idea.