Questions on wet molding

[Windrider30]

Ok going to be making another corset soon, but I want to try and wet molde it to the manquine that I have. The real questions are A: how long should I leave it in place to dry? B: Thinking of doing some tooling on it, should I wet modle it first, let it dry then do the tooling? As if I remember right when wet molding you can stretch out the tooling. oh and C: dying the leather before or after the wet molding?

[Boriqua]

I have never made a corset but may have some info worth consideration. You wont be able to effectively do the tooling after its dry or when it has been formed. When I will tool, carve or whatever a piece I know will be wetformed I consider the parts of the leather that will need to be stretched or formed and have that help to influence the design. So if there are parts of the corset that will be affected minimally by the forming proccess there is where I will focus my tooling efforts. It may be that there are several areas that are perfect for tooling and then you can use other elements to bring the design together like stitching, thread color, dye color or more. I dont like the idea of separate designs but I am pretty sure I could creatively pull off a unified design even if I only had several islands of tooling.

I find that wetforming dyed leather is more difficult than wetforming undyed. I have tried a million different ways and swore it must just be me but no .. undyed leather sucks that water up and makes a nice pliable piece to work with. Now .. having said that I have multiple reasons that I must dye first and it works but again its all about what your creation in your mind wants it to be. I get the most definition out of an undyed wet piece but If a corset has nice sweeping forms then doing it with dyed leather may actually be better. I have more trouble taking hard edges with dyed first but that can be a plus with a corset.

Last .. if you are going to carve or stamp a piece that will be wetformed than be sure to stamp or carve it DEEP! You are going to lose a little definition so starting out with a carving or stamping that is already light and it will disappear once its formed or worse .. only disappear in spots which is hideous.

[Northmount]

Take a look at

Molding after tooling/stamping reduces the crispness and detail.  Makes is mushy.  Build forms you can use to backup the leather for tooling after the wet molding has been done.

Tom

[Windrider30]

5 hours ago, Boriqua said:

I have never made a corset but may have some info worth consideration. You wont be able to effectively do the tooling after its dry or when it has been formed. When I will tool, carve or whatever a piece I know will be wetformed I consider the parts of the leather that will need to be stretched or formed and have that help to influence the design. So if there are parts of the corset that will be affected minimally by the forming proccess there is where I will focus my tooling efforts. It may be that there are several areas that are perfect for tooling and then you can use other elements to bring the design together like stitching, thread color, dye color or more. I dont like the idea of separate designs but I am pretty sure I could creatively pull off a unified design even if I only had several islands of tooling.

I find that wetforming dyed leather is more difficult than wetforming undyed. I have tried a million different ways and swore it must just be me but no .. undyed leather sucks that water up and makes a nice pliable piece to work with. Now .. having said that I have multiple reasons that I must dye first and it works but again its all about what your creation in your mind wants it to be. I get the most definition out of an undyed wet piece but If a corset has nice sweeping forms then doing it with dyed leather may actually be better. I have more trouble taking hard edges with dyed first but that can be a plus with a corset.

Last .. if you are going to carve or stamp a piece that will be wetformed than be sure to stamp or carve it DEEP! You are going to lose a little definition so starting out with a carving or stamping that is already light and it will disappear once its formed or worse .. only disappear in spots which is hideous.

Thanjs for this some food for thought!!