U3Aleathercraft

 WET MOULDING LEATHER

Struggling to overcome my lack of motivation during yet another lockdown I decided that the best way to get started was to try something new so I bought a mould to produce a paw print. I have tried wet moulding in the past but I was not very satisfied with the outcome. Besides I had a lot of small pieces of leather that needed to be used for something.

The two part mould is 60mm in diameter. I started off with some pieces of belly vegetable tanned tooling leather. Belly is very stretchy so should be good for moulding. I cut a circle to size and soaked it for about 10 minutes.

This was then clamped between the two moulds using a G clamp making sure that the leather was the correct way round. 

I wasn't sure how long to leave it in the clamp so I left it overnight to dry. However, I have since experimented with various times from immediate release to 30 minutes and have found that 5 minutes works fine.




When the leather is first released it has a darker background and a lighter raised relief.

I then left it to dry out completely.



I cut a matching piece to form the back of the piece. The next stage was to either dye both
pieces or to seal them. The two pieces were stuck together with a contact adhesive with a small leather tab sandwiched in between to hold the split ring. 

The first dozen or so I made I also sewed together but this may not be necessary.



Well ... now I had really got the bug! So I started to dig out various other leather offcuts to see if it might work on other types of leather. I wasn't expecting it to work on finished and chrome tanned leathers without using heat - but it did! It even worked on sueded leather although it did compress the plie a little bit.





What else could I use this particular mould for. Clamping the mould does leave a circular imprint but it suits the paw print design so it could be used for impressing bags, book covers, wallets and purses. I am now fully engaged with leathercrafting again after a bit of a slump. And I have found a use for all those smaller scraps of leather that I knew would come in handy one day.



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