Impressions on Buffalo Leather

[bristolbrandedleatherco]

Hey guys, my name is Ben Sharrett and I'm new to the forum. Ive been doing leatherwork for about 6 months now and recently purchased some buffalo leather to make some coasters out of. Upon receiving the leather I noticed it had a very shiny coating on it that has prevented me from stamping with a hammer or burning with a heating source. I also tried sanding the finish off of some pieces and it still didn't work well. Is there anything I can do in order to be able to use my custom stamps on these?

Thanks!

Ben

 

[YinTx]

I am guessing it is not vegetable tanned tooling leather or even bridle leather, so as such I would assume you can not tool on it.  A photo might clarify...

YinTx

[bristolbrandedleatherco]

 

This is a post I put on instagram

[billybopp]

If your stamp is metal, heat it and then try it - ideally with an arbor press to apply alot of pressure.  That's about all I got.

Bill

[bristolbrandedleatherco]

Yea I figured I would have to invest in an arbor press soon. Thanks for the help!

[bristolbrandedleatherco]

So heat the stamp with a heating iron, take the stamp off while still hot and then press it with an arbor?

[Ferg]

Nice impression Mike. I love Buffalo as well as Baby Buffalo.

 

Ferg

[bristolbrandedleatherco]

1 hour ago, nstarleather said:

That's a dedicated Kwikprint embossing press with a custom die, but that's the way to do it "right", that being said I'm probably going to use this stamp for well over 1000 impressions in the upcoming year.

 

Just looked at the price for one and they are pretty expensive. In the future I may be able to get my hands on one. Do you think an arbor press would suffice for now? I figure it's worth a shot 

[Stetson912]

How is it tanned? You can't tool leather that isn't veg tanned, it won't hold the impressions. You can try heat embossing it. You need a way to heat your stamp up and some sort of press to press it into the leather, an arbor press and heat gun would work probably. You'll have to leave the stamp in the press for a few seconds for the impression to take. 

[Northmount]

4 hours ago, bristolbrandedleatherco said:

Just looked at the price for one and they are pretty expensive. In the future I may be able to get my hands on one. Do you think an arbor press would suffice for now? I figure it's worth a shot 

Take a look at https://brandingirons.com/collections/custom-branding-heads Scroll down the page a bit.  Bought a hand held brass stamp with a 100 watt heater a few years ago.  Use it for both wood and leather.  There are other similar suppliers around too.

Tom

[machinehead]

I believe that this leather is actually water buffalo and not American bison. It may be vegetable tanned, but it has a fairly thick top coat which gives it a semi crackle effect. If it is veg tan you could try to wet the flesh side before attempting to stamp it, but the top coat may not fair too well with heat or with wetting the piece or this coating might prohibit a clear impression. It may be best to use this leather for another purpose.

Edited June 27, 2017 by machinehead
ommision

[bristolbrandedleatherco]

Thank you so much for your responses on this. Just for kicks, I tried it with heat and a 1 ton arbor press. Here is my result. I'm fairly pleased with these but I'm not sure if they sunk into the leather as much as I would've hoped. What do you all think?

[bristolbrandedleatherco]

thanks again to everyone who helped me figure this out. I just had to heat the stamp up a bit more and leave the pressure on it a bit longer. They turned out better that I had hoped