Tooling

[Harag]

Hi all

I'm looking at joining the leathercraft bug and I'm new to these forums, which have been very helpful so far.

I do have a question about tooling. I've seen some great bits of carving on the site and would love to get as good as some I've seen but the carving looks like it takes hours to do. I spotted a "mountain lion" tutorial and at the bottom they guy put that it took him 6-7 hours, wow. I have a full time job as well and really can't spend that much time on a evening (except weekends) to do the carving, but if I started doing that am I ok to rewet the leather every night? so say I do 2 hours carving then bed, the next night it will have dried out, so do i apply more water then and do more carving, and repeat until done, or am I best waiting until the weekend where I can more likely sit down for 6 hours to work on it.

Also if it's going to take 6 hours to do something, do you wet the leather in between?

From some tutorials I've seen it appears that I simply run a damp sponge over the leather, others I've seen seem to put it under a running tap/faucet for 10 seconds.

Any advice would be great, many thanks

Alan

[Mike Craw]

Hey Alan!

You will find that re-wetting is dependent on the thickness of your leather and the scope and complexity of your design. For saddle parts the leather is fairly thick, and putting it in a closed plastic bag over night should allow you to tool the next day. For thinner pieces, a small spray bottle or "damp" sponge will do. One trick I heard of is to dampen the back of the leather and bag it over night to let the moisture even out through the leather.

Wetting the front runs the risk of softening the tooling you've already done and cause you to lose it. Running water makes the problem much worse. Most of us are self-taught through Al Stohlman's books, and trial and error. The worse the error, the longer the lesson lasts!

Hope this helps,

Mike

[Chief31794]

If the leather is properly cased, it should last for several hours. Very light re-"Dampening" is okay but not rewetting. Each time you suspend working on it, put it in a tightly sealed plastic bag, that will suspend the drying process. I have gotten behind and had a piece in the bag for up to 4 days and it is still ready to carve when you take it out of the bag. There is a tutorial on the How Do I Do That segment of the forum on how to properly case leather, it is pinned and was provided by Bob Park (Hidepounder), excellent tutorial on how to properly prepare leather for tooling.

Welcome to the forum,

Chief

[Harag]

Many thanks for your suggestions, not thought of the plastic bag idea and will certainly keep that in mind when I come to do some tooling. I'll check out the tutorials on this site as well.

[Cyberthrasher]

Many thanks for your suggestions, not thought of the plastic bag idea and will certainly keep that in mind when I come to do some tooling. I'll check out the tutorials on this site as well.

That's a very important one indeed. For stuff that can't fit in a zipper bag, I wrap in plastic wrap and then put it in a large garbage bag (belts, guitar straps) in the fridge until I'm ready to come back to it. I actually wrap it up in several sections so I only have to unwrap the portion I'm working on, which leaves a consistent moisture content throughout the rest of my piece until I get it finished up.

[oltoot]

And the fridge is quite important if you live in a warmer climate to extend the amount of time you can keep something at the ready without worrying about mold, and to second the admonition to only add moisture from the back. For shorter (ie biologically mandated or fav TV program) I leave the piece on my bench and lay a piece of plastic or for smaller or regularly shaped things I have several exposed Xray films from my friends vet clinic that I put down on top. Between the fridge and the other tricks, I 'hold' some pieces of a saddle for days.

[Cyberthrasher]

oh yeah, and don't over-saturate it from the back. I usually use a spray bottle and just "spritz" it as needed, but there are times that I get a little overzealous and as I'm working the top gets too wet. Water gets sucked through from the bottom to the top, so after a few minutes you may notice the top getting wetter and wetter. If you start seeing dark spots on the top, just wrap it up and let it even out for a while before getting back to work. If you don't you'll start getting squishy and soft tooling.

[Harag]

Many thanks to every one for the suggestions. I've now finally ordered some tools so should start playing around in a week or so. One other question I have though is to do with damping on the back. I've read that the leather stretches and its a good idea to stiffen it with something, some suggest glueing card to the back, other say use packing brown tape etc. (tape seems the easiest for me). by having these on the back to stop stretching when in the process of "casing" is this added. guessing just before I tool, and how do I add more water to it when it I have tape on the back - will a very light damp do on the front?