Pigskin And Tooling

[Goonhorse]

Hey everyone! I'm rather embarrassed to even be asking this, because I have very little experience working with leather, but I got this crazy idea that I wanted to make a football for my rabid-football fan boyfriend for his birthday.

I want to do some (hopefully) simple tooling (carving? Is there a difference?) on it, but now I'm not sure if the leather I was planning on getting is compatible with that. This is what I picked out, since I mean, a football should be pigskin.....but it doesn't say veg tanned.

So if that's not what I want, what would you guys suggest.

Also, can you tool/carve leather that thin?

Anyway, if I manage to do this, and the end product even somewhat resembles a football....I might post pictures!

[howie696]

I doubt that lining leather would stand up as a football, and you certainly can't carve it :-)

[texback]

Tandy has natural pigskin that they say can be tooled. You can probably find it at Springfield leather or several others as well.

[Goonhorse]

Thanks for the replies!

The football will likely not be used, so durability isn't so much of an issue.

I'm not at all against using cowhide if that would be a cheaper option. Is there anything you guys would suggest? How thick does leather need to be, to be carved?

Thankfully I do have a close friend that has quite a bit of experience with working with leather, and she said she has plenty of scraps I can practice on! Also thankfully, his birthday isn't until May! :D

[Chief31794]

You can carve on just about any thickness of leather however, that being said, I wouldn't try it on any thing less than 4 oz, for me that's the bottom, I prefer tooling 9/10 oz but 4 is doable. In order to carve or tool leather it needs to be vegetable tanned. Most of the pigskin you buy is offered as lining and has not been vegetable tanned. You might be successful burning the impressions into the pigskin. Most of the stuff you see is put on with a hot metal technique or some type of foil stamping. If I were going to use pigskin to actually make a "pigskin", I would probably back it with some 4/5 oz leather to give it some durability and a better feel. Pigskin lining has a very soft hand.

Chief

[WyomingSlick]

Footballs are not made of pigskin, but rather of vegtan cowhide that is embossed with a pebble grain. The name "pigskin" comes from the early days of football when pig bladders were used for the inner bladder which is made out of rubber nowdays.