using peice of glass before carving?

[Go2Tex]

In the 17th century, through to the 19th century, people would hold Frost Fairs on the River Thames in London. Climate change has put a stop to all that! The pic below is 1677.

Yeah, I think that's during the "little ice age"..... global climate change, NOT caused by Man.

But, I digress from the topic...... glassing seems to be about the same as tempering, which I have found firms the leather and with drum dyed leather, like W&C chestnut or brown, it darkens the leather and makes my carving flat and lifeless. I try to avoid it as well as excessive smoothing on my fork covers for the same reason. I just don't like the results.

Has anyone else had the same experience with glassing drum dyed leather?

Edited December 8, 2008 by Go2Tex

[Deb59]

Hide Pounder, You are right about watching the edges. I automatically run my finger down the edge to check for any rough spots, but did not think to mention it in my post. It is a temporary fix until a glass slicker can be obtained. Thanks for catching that! - Deb

[wildrose]

I took a leap of faith based on the posts here and gave it a try. I had cut the leather for a Bible cover and slicked it before tooling. Worked like a charm. Also stained nicely and is much smoother now!!!

I have to say this is the best "I never knew that" tip I've seen in a while.

[D.A. Kabatoff]

I finally got some time to give my two cents worth on this topic... I agree with Go2tex about a slicker firming the leather up too much. I don't have experience with drum dyed leathers but certainly on Hermann Oak skirting leather it is just another example of overworking the leather. I find after slicking that it's extremely difficult to use my push beader, especially around curves, and my swilvel knife doesn't cut anywhere near as smoothly as on non-slicked leather. Larger stamping tools such as flower centers, geometrics, and even shaders don't leave as nice of an impression and I find the final carving to be rather dull in comparison. The actual impression of the tool is only slightly different between slicked and non slicked leather... where I really notice it is the leather around the tool marks. On non-slicked leather, the tool impression causes leather to slightly pop up around the actual impression that causes stems and petals to have a rounder, fuller, more lively appearance to me. With slicked leather, because the leather is so firm the tool doesn't cause the leather around the impression to move very much leaving it flat and dull looking to my eye.

About the only time I slick leather is when it actually performs a function like pulling the stretch out of stirrup leathers or fenders that won't be stamped. In my opinion, basket stamping or floral carving a seat or a fender or skirt will have the same effect on the leather as using a glass slicker, compressing the fibers and making the leather wear harder.

Darc

[carr52]

Well I made a slicker out of a peice plexi glass I found in the shed. I believe i got it smooth enough. I finished it off with 600 grit sand paper. It's pretty smooth. It's 2"x5". It was all I had. Gonna try it out later today on something.

Tom

[carr52]

Well I made a slicker out of a peice plexi glass I found in the shed. I believe i got it smooth enough. I finished it off with 600 grit sand paper. It's pretty smooth. It's 2"x5". It was all I had. Gonna try it out later today on something.

Tom

I tried it out and I think it did make the flower on the right cleaner looking. Of course the picture I took dosn't show the true effect of using glass on your project. All I know is that I'm gonna do it on the next project.

Tom

[D.A. Kabatoff]

A couple people emailed me asking me what I meant by the leather "popping up" around the tools marks... I was doing a carlos border on a saddle today and tooled a couple of scraps to show the difference I notice. The photos are close ups and show about 2 -3 inches of border. The piece of leather on the left was not slicked and the one on the right was slicked before any stamping was done. As you can see, the tools marks are very similar but the raised portion of the carlos border on the left is slightly rounded or domed while the raised portion of the slicked leather is flat across the top. When I floral carve this is even more noticeable especially on the vines and stems as well as the petals of flowers between shader impressions. I'm not saying one way is right or wrong, only that on my own carving I prefer the roundness of the non-slicked leather.

Darc

[greg gomersall]

Nice border stamp Darc. Do you usually bevel the inside line on a carlos border or did you skip that step on these pieces? Greg

[gtwister09]

I likewise slick away from me.

I had an old Osborne glass slicker that was dropped and unfortunately chipped when we were moving. So I bought a piece of glass, polished it and made a wooden handle out of some lignum vitae in a fashion similar to the Osborne one.

I likewise found that I had less rounding in tooling if I performed the slicking multiple times in the same direction or in a criss-crossed fashion so I only slick one time towards me with a slight overlap of each pass.

With that said I have been known to double slick something that I perform geometric or basketstamping on.

Another thing already mentioned is the lighter leathers and slipping the top layer. You have to be careful of that.

Regards,

Ben

[D.A. Kabatoff]

Hi Greg,

it's never really occurred to me to bevel the inside lines on a carlos border. Is this something commonly done? I'll have to give it a try and check out the difference it makes.

Darc