How Do I Instill Sculptural Design Into A Leather Pouch?

[ghostreporting]

Hello,

I am interested in finding out how I could apply sculptural design on leather products such as a laptop pouch.

What I mean by sculptural design is what Konstantin Kofta is doing. Could you tell me how does that guy do those bags? What kind of machinery and process does he use to have the leather stay in a particular shape?

Thank you all in advance,
Panos

Here's a couple examples of bags that have the kind of leatherworking process I am after:

[Dwight]

Or, . . . one heck of a vacuum system, . . . coupled with heat, . . . and moisture.

I made a holster once, . . . vacuum formed, . . . eased the gun out of it, . . . let it dry, . . . had to force the gun down into it (a 1911 full size), . . . began to think I would wind up cutting it off the gun.

If I were going after this type of work, . . . vacuum forming would be the first thing I would try, . . . after literally soaking the leather, . . . then drying it at about 130 to 135 degrees F.

Good luck, . . .

Oh, . . . and the second one would make a beautiful Bible cover in my opinion.

May God bless,

Dwight

[ghostreporting]

Hi guys,

Thank you for chiming in. I found this image on Pinterest:

The comment on the pin was the following:

"Deborah Einbender designs leather handbags and masks.

Pursona is a unique line of hand molded cowskin handbags individually wet formed over castings made from original sculptures.

Setting them with heat permanently bakes in the impression, while hand dying and waxing enhance the feel of fine leather."

I tried contacting Deborah Einbender but unfortunately she has retired. Does that shed any light?

[ghostreporting]

It's similar but not the detail level isn't the same. This example looks like a wet form over the sculpture then some tooling and forming done on the front side, but the only way to get that level of detail is to have a mold on top too.

You have a point, Mike.

Is there any youtube video I could see? Or could you tell me what are the search terms you would use to find out more about the process I am interested in? I am still in the dark.

[ghostreporting]

From me-details or a video... not really, I'm just giving you my best guess. Years ago I got a promotional package mailed to me by a company in Finland who was selling something to do the same but smaller (wallet sized). We could see both sides of the leather in the samples and it was clear that it had been somehow sandwiched between 2 molds. I asked for pricing and all I got was "very reasonable" but I didn't go beyond that. I would expect that unless you go very large scale with a design, it could get costly making 2 "metal sculptures" for every imprint you do.

If I had the time and inclination to try to do something like that, I supposed you could sculpt the bottom piece- make a casting of it. Then case some very thin veg-tan leather and press it between the two. That would be the DIY way, I'm sure the first example is on an industrial level and done with heat and metal molds.

Would it make sense to create the piece out of plastic (i.e. acrylic) and line it with leather?

[ghostreporting]

With just covering something with leather you still wouldn't get that level of detail unless you molded it somehow. I was thinking (after looking at other work the artist does), that he's probably using 3D Printing to make his molds.

I think so too (regarding the making of the molds).

So, then I put wet pieces of leather on the 3D-printed mold, and then put the mold with the pieces of leather in the oven and heat them up? Is this the process (in very plain words)?

[ghostreporting]

If you're using veg tan then let it dry naturally, that would probably work (I'm no expert), for chrome tan I would assume they use heated metal molds.

Thank you so much, Mike.

[ghostreporting]

Hey guys,

This is what I found after cross-checking various threads and sources:

The best source out of the ones I found is this paper from the university of Tulsa about sculpting leather.

Essentially, the process boils down to the following:

A. We need to soften our piece of leather in order to be able to shape it. In order to do that, we dip the leather into water. The water needs to be hot, but to the point where we can dip our hand into. Also, it needs to be wet in every part of it, but not to the point where it’s dripping water when you take it out.

B. We take it out of the water and put it on the mold. Then we shape and sculpt it it by pressing either with our hands or y using a tool (i.e. the back of a spoon.)

C. No that the piece of leather is shaped to our liking, we need to harden it in order to stay in that shape. To do that we can either bake it in an oven (not with the mold though, because the leather will stick on the metal) or by dipping it into boiling water. The method with the boiling water is the fastest (taking from 20 to 120 seconds) but if our piece of leather is large, then we will need to find a large enough container to boil the water in.

D. After harden it through heating it, the last step is to apply wax on the leather. It’s better to apply the leather from the flesh side, otherwise the wax needs to go through the leather to be absorbed. We keep waxing the leather until it cools down to a point where it doesn’t absorb the wax anymore. The wax will harden even more the leather.

Thank you both for taking the time to reply to my question. If there is anything you'd like to add, please do so.

Best,

Panos

[veedub3]

Found this short video this morning.

[ghostreporting]

Found this short video this morning.

Great find, veedub3! Than you so much!