Sealing leather over wood

[HandyDave]

Ok i mostly am either doing wood projects or leather projects. But im wanting to start mixing and matching. Do some leather overlays onto wood boxes and maybe even try some exotic leather like snake or stingray over wood grips for my 1911. Ive read up on bonding the 2 materials together and glue selections for best most permanent bond. For the pistol grips Andrews leather in florida who makes some really nice leather over wood pistol grip panels has a great youtube video showing how he does his grips. He uses edgekote in his video to finish the edge. My question is does edgekote seal the edge up between the wood and leather? The edge where leather stops and wood starts wood be my biggest concern of starting delaminating. How to seal the edge to give best chance of it holding up over time. Could you resin coat the entire project once done to make sure everything stays one piece? 

[chuck123wapati]

interesting project, he has some nice grips alright, i would roll the skin edge under and maybe cut/ router a slight channel into the underside of the wood to hold the roll and allow the wood to still tighten down to the frame.

[Squid61]

44 minutes ago, chuck123wapati said:

interesting project, he has some nice grips alright, i would roll the skin edge under and maybe cut/ router a slight channel into the underside of the wood to hold the roll and allow the wood to still tighten down to the frame.

As an alternative to routing a groove the leather edge could be skived so the edge would tuck under without adding thickness.

[chuck123wapati]

1 hour ago, Squid61 said:

As an alternative to routing a groove the leather edge could be skived so the edge would tuck under without adding thickness.

yes it could i was thinking snake skin though and there aint much to skive or even be a problem lol. but again I don't know if snake could take the wear and i know nothing about the thickness of the other options.

[Squid61]

4 hours ago, chuck123wapati said:

yes it could i was thinking snake skin though and there aint much to skive or even be a problem lol. but again I don't know if snake could take the wear and i know nothing about the thickness of the other options.

It's been years since I shot a pistol but I believe I'd much rather have shark or skate skin on my grips than snake skin, especially on a warm and humid day.  Skiving in this case would mean taking off the flesh and leaving only the outer skin, tricky and would need a bit of scrap practice but not impossible.   

[HandyDave]

Ive got me several sets of unfinshed maple 1911 grips ordered. I plan on doing some serious testing and experimenting. Including some torture testing with submerging in water, leave a set outside for couple weeks and different extreme situations. With something like snakeskin thats why i added about maybe resin coating whole piece because i know the snake skin aint the toughest material for alot of abuse. What is a good sealer/top coat for the exotic leathers? Ive seen all sorts online but i like to here feom real people when i can. Ill deffently keep my leatherworking family here on the forum up to date on my findings during testing and hopefully be able to share some pics of really nice finished pieces.

Edited October 24, 2021 by HandyDave

[chuck123wapati]

47 minutes ago, HandyDave said:

Ive got me several sets of unfinshed maple 1911 grips ordered. I plan on doing some serious testing and experimenting. Including some torture testing with submerging in water, leave a set outside for couple weeks and different extreme situations. With something like snakeskin thats why i added about maybe resin coating whole piece because i know the snake skin aint the toughest material for alot of abuse. What is a good sealer/top coat for the exotic leathers? Ive seen all sorts online but i like to here feom real people when i can. Ill deffently keep my leatherworking family here on the forum up to date on my findings during testing and hopefully be able to share some pics of really nice finished pieces.

you might try some cactus juice stabilizing resin, I've never tried it on skin or hide but it sure works on wood. If it does work all your problems are solved that's some tuff stuff. i've made a few sets of grips for the 1911 and my advise try and keep them close to original thickness meaning you may have to sand down the wood to allow for the thickness of whatever skin you use. its weird but the hand can feel the extra few mils. i may try some on leather when i get home again.