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AndrewChung

Separating leather

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Some time ago I made a phone case, which has tooled outside panels glued and sewn to a thinner inside piece. I'm looking to redo the whole thing to fix some mistakes in construction, but I'm hoping to salvage the tooled panels.  What is the best way to separate the glued pieces after the stitches are removed? My initial thoughts are to take a thin sharp skiving knife (I have a CS Osborne 469), and slowly pare away at the glue joint. Are there other easier/less error prone methods?

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51 minutes ago, AndrewChung said:

. . . Are there other easier/less error prone methods?

Not really. It can depend on how good the glue joint is. I've separated well stuck leather pieces by finding  a spot not perfectly stuck and using a fresh scalpel blade, starting at that point carefully slicing at the joint whilst peeling away one piece of the leather. I had to go with the flow, peeling back side A a bit, then maybe side B, turning the item round, sometimes just using the the point of the scalpel blade. It took absolutely ages but I eventually won over it

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Gently warm it with a hair dryer to soften the glue.  Heat is the enemy of most glues and contact cements.

Tom

 

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