Unclean edges

[LionCrownLeather]

Hello all, 

I have been improving the edges of my projects lately but I am having trouble making both sides of the project which are sewn together look like one piece. 

Imagine two pieces of leather that you want to sew together. I want the edges to look clean. I always sandpaper and make sure the edges match, but the problem is that depending on how much I sandpaper the leather tends to fold a bit at the edge, mostly the flesh side of the leather. This create an uneven line when the two pieces are sewn together. Maybe this is normal and is usually invisible if enough amount of dye and burnishing is applied? Maybe you cut the extra fibres off from the flesh side with a sharp razor after having used sandpaper? See images attached. The line is not in the middle when the project is sewn together and it makes the edge look unprofessional. Maybe its because I should bevel both sides of the project? I cut the project out of a piece of leather, bevel edges, sandpaper, bevel again, check the edges, if unsmooth I will sandpaper more, dip dye, glue together, use a wing divider to mark line, make holes with chisel, hand stich, apply edge paint, apply tekonole and burnish. 

 

Edited June 27, 2020 by LionCrownLeather

[Grumpymann]

Are you gluing? 

[OldLeatherGuy]

And, to add to Grumpy's question, if you are gluing, are you applying enough weight to the glued panels and/or lightly hammering the glued edges with a leather type convex head hammer? Also, are you allowing the contact cement to thoroughly dry at least overnight. I live an a very humid area on the FL Panhandle and, if I don't give the glue adequate time to completely dry, [sometimes up to 48 hours, depending on how high the humidity is], when I work the edges with sandpaper, [I hand sand only], sometimes the leather gets a bit "mushy" and begins to "bend" back and forth as I sand with usually 150, 220, and 400 in that order. Much of how the leather reacts, as you work it through the various stages of finishing, depends on the grade of the leather and how much time you are spending doing a certain procedure like dressing the edges. The more you work the edges on lower grade leather, the more flexible the leather can become. 

Good luck on getting it worked out.

[LatigoAmigo]

44 minutes ago, OldLeatherGuy said:

The more you work the edges on lower grade leather, the more flexible the leather can become. 

And to add to that... the belly section of the leather is by nature softer than the shoulders, so even a quality grade of leather can still give you soft edges.

[LionCrownLeather]

On 6/28/2020 at 3:46 AM, Grumpymann said:

Are you gluing? 

Ofcourse, i always glue both pieces together. 

[LionCrownLeather]

On 6/28/2020 at 9:15 PM, OldLeatherGuy said:

And, to add to Grumpy's question, if you are gluing, are you applying enough weight to the glued panels and/or lightly hammering the glued edges with a leather type convex head hammer? Also, are you allowing the contact cement to thoroughly dry at least overnight. I live an a very humid area on the FL Panhandle and, if I don't give the glue adequate time to completely dry, [sometimes up to 48 hours, depending on how high the humidity is], when I work the edges with sandpaper, [I hand sand only], sometimes the leather gets a bit "mushy" and begins to "bend" back and forth as I sand with usually 150, 220, and 400 in that order. Much of how the leather reacts, as you work it through the various stages of finishing, depends on the grade of the leather and how much time you are spending doing a certain procedure like dressing the edges. The more you work the edges on lower grade leather, the more flexible the leather can become. 

Good luck on getting it worked out.

I do glue but I only let it dry two hours and I dont hammer the glued area, i am a bit afraid of hammering because everytime I hammer my stichting my veg tanned leather gets damages, I have seen people use a piece of leather on the project to hammer on but that is a different topic.. I  dont add any weight on the glue no :/

[RockyAussie]

On 6/28/2020 at 9:05 AM, LionCrownLeather said:

apply edge paint, apply tekonole and burnish

I think that you may be mixing up 2 different processes here. You either burnish or you edge paint. The edge paint is the split lines I think you are seeing which is a pretty common thing to experience with a lot of the edge paints types. You did not mention which type of dye you are using and that could also be having a detrimental effect on the edge coat as well. I generally use an iron to smooth out my edge paint and sometimes a little sanding and grey scotch bright pads and follow that up with some wax polishing. I never try and burnish in any way when doing edge painting. If you burnish before the paint then the paint will peel off easily. If you burnish after applying the paint you could easily make the paint go all over the place and it will not shine up well. Note: many of the edge paints available are not thermo mouldable any longer and these require more of a sanding process unfortunately.

[Spyros]

I think edges is one of those things that only other leather workers notice. I've decided to keep mine somewhat reasonable and focus on the important things, which is pretty much everything else except edges  LOL

Having said that, the best tutorial I've seen is on edges was by another Swedish member, Danne:

 

Edited July 1, 2020 by Spyros

[Hardrada]

I don't bother sanding: I always found it too messy and then the edges' edges mushroom. I glass my edges instead with my skiving knife, then proceed to applying Edge Kote or edge paint.

[LionCrownLeather]

7 hours ago, RockyAussie said:

I think that you may be mixing up 2 different processes here. You either burnish or you edge paint. The edge paint is the split lines I think you are seeing which is a pretty common thing to experience with a lot of the edge paints types. You did not mention which type of dye you are using and that could also be having a detrimental effect on the edge coat as well. I generally use an iron to smooth out my edge paint and sometimes a little sanding and grey scotch bright pads and follow that up with some wax polishing. I never try and burnish in any way when doing edge painting. If you burnish before the paint then the paint will peel off easily. If you burnish after applying the paint you could easily make the paint go all over the place and it will not shine up well. Note: many of the edge paints available are not thermo mouldable any longer and these require more of a sanding process unfortunately.

I used fieblings pro oil dye, the same dye I used on my project. 

What do you use for polishing the edges? 

You mention Ironing the edges, how do you do that?