Boiled Leather

[costumeclaire]

I have been boiling leather for a few years now, I make everything from jewelry to vessels. don't see many others doing this but would be curious what others come up with.

Edited April 26, 2014 by costumeclaire

[LederRudi]

Very aesthetic and artful pieces!

I found boiling leather rarely mentioned on leatherworker.net.

Which qualities do you aim at by the boiling process?

My guess would be pliability first and stiffness after drying.

I was experimenting once with embrowning a belt in coffee. Being who I am, I rushed it and dunked the piece in a brew that apparently was way too hot. The stain was OK but the leather broke when I flexed it. Since then boilophobia adds to acrophobia, claustrophobia, agoraphobia and the like .

[ReneeCanady]

Nice work and it is certainly original.

Lederrudi, use the term cuir bouilli when you search this site. It is what the process of boiling leather is called. There are lots of interesting things here that people have made using this process. It ranges from small items all the way up to full armor sets.

[LederRudi]

'ReneeCanady, thank you for pointing me to the magic word "cuir bouilli" which grants me access to an Aladin's cave of new Information!

[ReneeCanady]

LOL No problem! I went through the same thing when I was researching armor. Finally I stumbled by that name.

[mennosiemensma]

Boiling is actually not quite the right term for it, as far as I can find and know the temperature is around 30-40 degrees celcius for water or maybe a bit hotter and less time submerging the leather but not scalding hot water. This will ruin your leather as Lederrudi found out. Also possible to use wax to harden leather or even after using water to even further stiffen the leather.

http://www.lederhaus.de/ is a europe based shop with a bit of info about it as well. you can choose the language in the front page menu to english dutch or german, even chinese.

[costumeclaire]

these items are actually boiled! it is done very quickly on smaller items but for the vases etc. a longer boil time is necessary to get the leather to shrink enough to take the form of my mold. the other great thing that happens when I boil is the carving opens up and becomes very dark when dyed. this process would not be good for something like amour as it would make it brittle.

[mennosiemensma]

For your purpose yes, it works obviously but indeed, armors and things that needs to be tough yet flex a bit boiling wouldnt work, or at least not as good. I am actually looking into making an armor if boiled leather, do you have any indication how much shrinkage in % you get when making something? Seeing leather isn't all that cheap I want to make sure to buy enough and not end up short on leather and forced to use a whole different piece.