Tooling hardened leather armor

[DJole]

Like the double headed tubular rivets use a slightly dished metal "anvil," these ones would require a deeper hole to keep their shape. A quick perusing of Brettun's Village tool page shows anvils for the tubular rivets, but not for these.
Hmm...I'll have to email them and ask them if they have such a thing. Maybe somebody else on this forum knows where to get the right tool.
I never liked the look of the flat copper rivets myself (off center concentric circles? umm...okay...), but these fix that ugly problem. Burr side hidden inside, a lovely metal dome visible on the outside. 
 

[TranscendentalTopiary]

Share if you find a link to the "anvil" please

[DJole]

Message from Brettuns Village manager:
 

Quote

The domed rivets are a new item for us - we haven't yet had our tool maker
come up with an anvil for them.  Sorry about that.

 

[TranscendentalTopiary]

Bugger. Hopefully something gets thought of for it

[HENDREFORGAN]

On 10/6/2016 at 3:41 AM, TranscendentalTopiary said:

How do those dome top rivets hold their shape when you're peening the other side? Those look really nice. I never really liked the peened side or the flat back of copper rivets and burrs

Technically you'll need a metal base (anvil) into which a cupped depression has been made, if a flat face is used then your domed top will end up with a small plateau.  You're not needing anything capable of being hit excessively hard though so what I would use is a block of lead - freshly melted and poured to make a flat block - and then "waste" one of the rivets cleanly hammering it into the lead to create that cupped depression.  If your lead former seems to small - others will know what I mean when I say it tends to "escape" the hammering during the setting of the rivet - then mount it into a larger block of wood to create a sort of dedicated work table?

To me the worked burr on the copper hose rivet is part of it's visual appeal, it's that side I present to the face, with the flat side inside for both wear resistance and comfort.  However, I do go a little beyond the default burring of the post and using first a cupped tool and then a flat metal-working hammer I will "peen" the "bur" to form a flattened, almost "pan head" end to the rivet.  Looks neat and solid though takes a lot longer than simply setting the rivet.

There has been a lot of good work shown above from those who I just know have spent ages perfecting their work so I'll not add anything different but agree with many of the views put forward.  Tooling has to be done first and, in view of later shrinkage, may need to be deeper than you think.  Keep to clear bold designs as subtle imprints will be ironed out by the forming process.  What you will find you can do is slightly re-work your tooling later to clean up the impression.

Creating "cuir bouilli" is guaranteed to be a subject that a hundred leather-workers who have managed it will likely come out with a hundred different ways of doing it, there are rules to follow and both on here and on the Web there is everything you need to inform you.  It is then though that you add your particular "magic" and create your own path to a finished product.  It's an awfully time consuming but rewarding process.

In my own "path" I kept two requirements high on the list, leather for tooling and/or forming must have it's full thickness made plastic by liquid BUT not saturated and in using heat it must NOT be overly "boiled" or you risk the destruction of the very thing you create.  So I sourced for my forming needs something a bit different.  I use a commercial "steaming oven" to first soften the leather for tooling and then formers that I have made myself - sometimes both male and female moulds - to mould the final shape.  Even then the final result from the "cooker" may then be mounted into another set of moulds using throw over clamps and then left to air dry.

That's a huge commitment in money, materials and time but I'm fortunate to work from an industrial unit . . which is handy as the power side for the steaming oven is "3 phase" (415 volt) . . and no issues with water supply either as a large feeder tank needs to be kept full.  It's also a very heavy unit requiring a concrete floor.  Safer than it looks though as it's basically a scaled up domestic pressure cooker . . standing almost six feet high with a HUGE door on the front that looks as if it should be on a water tight compartment for a submarine.

Oh, and good heat proof gloves too.