Tooling And Forming Cases

[mdbrickell]

What is the best way to tool AND mold leather? When I mold my tooled leather, the designs fade. Are there certain steps in the process? Any help is appreciated.

[Northmount]

Welcome to the forum.

When you dampen tooled leather to manipulate it for molding, or anything else, you will lose tooling definition. Depending on what you are making, you may be able to mold it first, then tool with a block of wood, or part of your mold to support the tooling surface.

Did you know you can search the forums to find previous threads with lots of discussion and experience? The search bar is at the top right of the page. Try searching for tooling and molding, or molded, etc.

If you don't like the search engine here, the use google search and append "site:leatherworker.net" after your search string. It's faster and you will likely get more hits. It limits your search to this site.

Tom

[rickybobby]

Hi, Welcome to the forums!

I have had good results from wetting and forming the leather first, letting it dry. Then, wetting it for tooling.

A helpful hint that took me some time to figure out was to wet the backside of the area to be tooled first (thinner the leather the lighter you dampen) then lightly sponge the smooth side to be tooled. Let it return to natural color 10 to 20 minutes and you will get normal burnishing while tooling.

Go ahead and smash it down for tooling, it will shape right back up because you molded it the desired shape first.

Hope that helps!

[SLP]

I've had similar questions before as well. I think I remember somewhere on the forum someone wrote that after you tool a piece, you can apply moisture to the inside only, with a sponhe perhaps. By inside I mean the side of the leather that hasn't been tooled. By doing this the moisture will not be as heavy on the tooled side and that will allow you to form the leather to the gun (holster making) with minimal damage to the tooling. Admittedly, I have not tried this technique myself, but it seems to make sense.