BlackRaven Report post Posted June 21, 2015 Hi Everyone I'm new to the forum and new to tooling but I've worked with armour & leather a while. I'm a noob to hand tooling as have always engraved and have just discovered (the hard way) that when you hot water harden and form a piece during the drying (natural not bake) many of the bevelling raises back up and leaves the carved lines open!!!! I always harden pieces so really need a solution if anyone's got any suggestions :-) Thanks Alex Quote Share this post Link to post Share on other sites
BondoBobCustomSaddles Report post Posted June 21, 2015 Not sure if it helps, but; to keep from losing the tooling depth and definition on my saddles, I always tool those pieces that are formed (like the fork cover) after it is formed, dried, and stuck down on the tree. It is a pain, but; it gets the results I am looking for. Bob Quote Share this post Link to post Share on other sites
Demuthsen Report post Posted July 7, 2015 If you are using a form hard enough, try tooling on the form while still wet Quote Share this post Link to post Share on other sites
Squirrelly66 Report post Posted July 7, 2015 I make a form (usually out of a hard wood or a hard resin cast)then hot water dip (not frikken boiling)leather and put it on the form. I get it all formed up and let it dry on the form for a couple 3 days. Then I leave it on the form and case it with a sponge, then scribe on my patern (even over the edges and curves) with a stylis and then do my swivel knife work and then tooling. Chriscraft does fly cases this way by doing the tooling on the forming block. He has a thread in the figure carving section.<br /><br />It works for doing tooling on armor also. You can do forearm gauntlets real well this way as well as getting better looking tooling when doing pauldron's also.<br /><br />Squirrel Quote Share this post Link to post Share on other sites
