Oiling before tooling good/bad?

[KBCustom]

Hi everyone, 

I just received a Herman oak tooling side. I have never had an issue with these up until now. The hide is rather dry. I know that applying an oil or conditioner to the leather will close up a lot of pores, but I am wondering if anyone has ever ran into a similar issue and what they may have done. I am worried that if I get too far into the tooling process, the rewetting until it's finished may cause cracking. Any advice?

Thanks 

Kody 

[Big Sioux Saddlery]

Tooling leather is dry by nature. How is it "drier" than what you've had previously that makes you think you should maybe apply oil or conditioner?  The only way new leather should crack at all is if it is pretty heavy and bent flesh to flesh hard, like around a buckle, and even then a lot of good leather won't.  That's why we wet the fold area before bending, to prevent cracking. In answer to your question, I would absolutely not apply anything except water or your casing solution before tooling.

[rawcustom]

I have not had a problem with "dry" leather for tooling/carving, but I have experimented with using an oil before tooling. If there was a gain from the oil, it wasn't enough for me to make much notice of, compared to proper water casing. I was more curious if a very light coat of oil would aid in carving by providing some additional lubricant to the SK blade on the leather, and help prevent the small oil stains that can happen when handling. I don't think you would ruin a hide with sparing use of oil, as the leather already has oil's in it, but of course you wouldn't want to soak it in EVOO or similar. My experimentation was a very limited use of oil (tried both before and after casing), pretty much just a single wipe of an oil rag over the top to add an even, but small amount. It may be more of a benefit on the dry leather you have, it didn't cause any negative affects on my projects. It seemed to have the best affect prior to casing in that I think it allowed the oil to distribute better in the leather.

[immiketoo]

I'd think any amount of oil sufficient to prevent cracking or dryness would be detrimental to carving.  Interesting topic though.

 

[NVLeatherWorx]

You should never apply oils or conditioners to veg-tan prior to any tooling, period.  It is true that it contains some oils naturally but not enough for the average craftsman to know; but those oils are different in their compounds and do not prevent your leather from accepting proper casing.  The oils used for post working conditioning are totally different and WILL negatively impact the casing process, regardless of how sparingly it is applied.

We have had these techniques in place for centuries and the conditioning compounds have been around damn near as long; some things are not meant to be tinkered with and there is good reason for that.

Regarding the OP concern for the possibility of cracking or becoming more brittle throughout the carving process:  if the leather is properly cased and then worked and allowed to properly dry when finished (which means to be allowed to dry naturally, no assistance from heaters, fans, etc.) then all should be okay.  Make sure that once the leather is dried completely that you apply your conditioning oil (and it should be PURE Neatsfoot Oil, not one of the compounds as they DO contain chemicals that are actually not conditioners), repeating as necessary until the leather has reached the proper feel again and then do whatever other finishing you are going to do.  Just make sure that every time you apply a conditioner, a stain, a dye, or a top coat sealer, that you let it dry for NO LESS than 8 hours before moving on to the next step.  Age old techniques are still in use today because they have a proven track record of success and producing consistency.