Experiment update: it's dry, For a tiny piece of scrap leather and half an hours work it looks really nice, and I'm very tempted to cut it out neatly, get some dye on it and stitch the edges, maybe use it as some kind of token or something? possibly a key fob
However,
Yavion wrote: ↑Wed Mar 23, 2022 2:26 pm
The water you soak your top layer of leather in doesn't need to be hot
you are quite right about that, it's a naughty trick I use if I need something to form to shape quickly and hold the shape reliably whilst it's still soaking wet, the water I used was probably ~35 - 40C, hot enough to make it stiffen fast in the wet-form shape but not hot enough to fully harden it. I was worried that because I needed to peel it apart straight away to get the glue in I might damage the shape, and although it worked, it wasn't necessary and now I have payed the price, it's not flat, it's bowl shaped:
that's because the heated, partly hardened leather will shrink when it drys, the silly thing is I know this, I just didn't think of it until afterward, and because the thicker piece of leather didn't shrink it forms the bend, so if you want to make a leather bowl you now know how
but joking aside, if I were to do this again (so it ends up flat) this is what I would do:
- glue the cord to the thick leather with waterproof solvent based glue (wait for it to cure)
- make both pieces of leather wet with room temp water (so if any shrinkage happens they both shrink at the same rate)
- dry off excess water with a tissue
- apply water-based adhesive to the thick piece of leather (because you apply the glue to wet leather anyway there is no point in risking damaging the wet-forming by separating the pieces after they have been pressed)
- assemble the layers and clamp in the foam (I had the thick flat side of the stack directly on the wood, then the thinner piece, then both pieces of kydex press foam, because the leather is cool you can use any high-ish density EVA foam, the stuff that cheap hardware store anti-fatigue mats are made from (example:
https://softfloor.co.uk/product/classic ... DUQAvD_BwE) are made from would be fine)
- wait about 10 minutes
- remove it from the foam mold
- make any further tooling adjustments
- leave it to dry somewhere warm
and with any luck it should end up flat, no promises tho
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