Leatherworking Tips

Elise ferch Morgan ap Owen, AoA, CI, CS
(Corinne K. Lewandowski)

• To start working on your carving leather (vegetable tanned leather), wet it with cold water with a Jcloth or chemical-free sponge. Wait till the leather dries enough to its natural colour but is cool when placed on your wrist or cheek. Now you can easily make impressions in the leather with tools or even a fingernail.
• Leather is unforgiving! Once a small part is wet and allowed to dry, you will have problems applying paints or more water evenly. If you accidentally spilled water on one part of the carving, re-wet the whole piece - it does no harm. Use caution as grease, fingernails and the like can easily take marks at this point that are next to impossible to remove.
• Vegetable tanned VS. Chrome-tanned. Can I carve on this leather or will it take a dye/paint? Ask the person selling the leather. If they don't know (or you're dubious about the answer) ask to wet a corner of the leather. If it absorbs the water you can carve it. If it repels water it will not let you carve it and maybe not paint it. Some leather looks like veggie tanned (which is a light oak the colour of a plain light manila folder) but is in a dark brown or tan colour. This may be leather that is dyed in which case it will be harder to carve/paint.
• It's better to make a lighter impact with your carving tools first. You can't get back the leather you pounded away.
• When transferring patterns to the side of the leather you will be carving/dying, don't use pencils, pens or other markers. It won't come off, ever. So unless you are painting it black, use Frosted Mylar. It is plastic coasted on one side and a frosted side that takes pencil marks well. Trace the pattern on the frosted side. Lay the patter on the leather, plastic side down, and trace the pattern again, lightly with a stylus (a rounded, but not sharp, metal device - like a ballpoint with no ink at all). Voila! Pattern is transferred and now you get to reuse the Mylar repeatedly (I've never worn out much Mylar).
• Dyes vs. acrylics. Alcohol based leather dyes are especially designed to be applied to the carving leather as the first coat. They allow the natural part of the leather (it was a skin after all) to show through a titch. However applying one dye over another will only give a darker result - the individual colours don't stand out. Acrylics are not period (the colour pigments coming from 19th chemistry) but they let you apply them over the leather dyes and make more colourful items such as your heraldry (and are best for silver and gold colour). Tole paints or standard acrylics work well. They are flexible like the leather and, as long as you don't pile on the paint too much, won't crack as much. The two most evil colours to do: White and Yellow. No matter what type of paint I use it's almost impossible to get good coverage that doesn't crack on the leather (go ahead and spend hours and hours of trying test samples - I did :) These colours always seem very watered down to me. Yellow dye applied to the leather (with no other colour underneath) works ok but is not very bright. Gold and Silver metalic acrylics work great though!
• Applying dye. Take a wool swap or chemical-free sponge and soak the leather 1 to 2 times with dye. Let dry & apply more. You want the dye to be in even layers, as best as possible for working on uneven animal skin. With acrylics, mix the consistency and amount of paint (in that shade) before you apply and try and do no more that 1 or 2 coats. Look for a consistency of yoghurt with a drop of water - enough moisture to be absorbed by the leather rather than have the water absorbed and the paint float on top of the leather.
• Acrylics. Mix the colour you want in larger than you though quantity and store in an old plastic film can. Better to waste some paint than run out and try matching wet paint with already dry paint.
• Stitching leather. Best bet is to pre-punch the holes you need, either with a special tool that puts for "slots" in a row or the smallest setting on a hole puncher (which I do). When I stitch I use a double stitch with very blunt cross-stitch needles (less accidents). One needle on each end and both needles pass through the same hole before moving onto the next one. It's a string stitch that will hold if a few strands break. I use waxed linen (black, rust, white colours).
• The steps to leather work, in order. Make a paper pattern if needed for shape or for design. Measure. Measure Again. Transfer. Punch all holes & make all cuts and carving now. Dye. Dry (wait). Apply finish over surface (to make a little water-resistant). Apply beeswax on edges and rub in with an old spoon or polished bone (which heats the wax and seals in it better & smell good too). Attach hardware and rivet/sew together. (Pattern. Measure. Transfer. Carve & Cut & Punch. Dye. Dry. Finish. Polish. Sew/Rivet. Photo!
• Patterns. For something that needs a good fit, such as shoes or gloves, always use a sample pattern made of a stiff or like material (cheap cloth, heavy paper). Then you can work out problems on the cheap stuff instead of the $10 per square foot stuff.
• Carving tools. All you need is: a Mallet (not a hammer because a mallet will give you better control over the tool's pressure and will not make sharp burrs on the end of your carving tools); two carving bevelers, small & large (I will show you) and a tracing/smoothing stylus. For these tools expect to spend about $38 - assuming about $20 for the mallet but you can go cheaper (rawhide) or over $80 (replaceable heads). Anything that makes an indent can be a tool. A block of wood (might split) or filed/shaped nails. I like the bevelers because they put a distinctive edge and raise up the sides. The stylus smoothes out the rough parts or mistakes after using a beveler. You can get thousands of leather patterns and stamps or even get custom ones if you want.
• Cutting leather. When cutting out the shape of your leather, use a very sharp Xacto type knife. Cut slowly and don't try and go all the way through the leather with one cut. Last thing you want is a big gash in the middle of you project. Place you pattern as close to an edge as possible. Waste not, want not. Get a few buckets of leather scrap and you'll see where you could have saved money.
• Testing leather. Cut a small sample of leather from the same piece you'll be doing the project. Do everything to that sample you'll be doing to the big piece. Carve it, cut, dye, sew and rivet even if you only have a 2 inch scrap. The last thing you want is the discovery that the dye you are using won't soak in completely after you've slopped it all on.
• Never use the same container for the water to soak the leather when carving and the dyes/acrylics. Don't even use the same applicators for the plain water and paints - the brush is never clean enough. You can't see the paint, but the leather will show it up nicely (esp. metallics flecks) and end up repelling other colours/liquids.
• Take breaks from carving and painting. Stretch your fingers and look at your work. Catch mistakes before they are harder to fix. I've made more mistakes from being tired or rushing.
• Take a picture of every craft project you do. No matter your skill with a camera, you'll want a picture - usually after you've given/sold the piece. It gives you a portfolio to show others when asking for advice and helps give you a reminder of what you've done and how far you've come!
• Ask for help! leatherworking is fun and easy once you know some basics. This list is only a handy tip list. Read up on leatherworking in "traditional" leather crafting books. The medieval patterns are what you add later.

© 1999 Corinne K. Lewandowski

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