Leather Weights and Preparing it for Carving and Tooling

Now that you know the basic tools you will need you will want to know about a few other things. I am going to bore you with more details about leather and transferring the carving pattern to the leather. One detail is that it is important to let you know about how the thickness of leather is measured.

There is a tool that measures the thickness of the leather. I have seen only one in my whole life, in a saddle shop where I worked for a while. I think that it had a bad habit of lying about the thickness of leather because I could never get the same reading twice from the exact same spot. You don’t need one of these tools. Leather is sold by what you might think is weight, such as 3-4 (ounce for wallets), 9-10 ounce (belts), 15-16 ounce (saddle skirting). An ounce of leather is actually 1/64 of an inch thick. It is something that was decided a long time before I ever got into leather working.

If you purchase a kit for your first project, which I believe would be the best idea, the tooling leather and all of the other necessary parts should be included. You will not need be concerned about the weight of the leather because the appropriate leather will be included. If you were to purchase leather for a project you would want to be aware of the thickness that would be the best to be used. For example, the tooling leather for a wallet would most likely be 3-4 ounce leather which means that it will probably vary from 3/64 to 4/64 of an inch thick. The variation in the numbers for the thickness is that because the leather is split by machine the thickness can vary slightly.

It isn’t that you can’t use different weight leathers for your project than what is normally used, it is a matter of practicality. I have seen advertisements for wallets made out of 16 ounce leather. That leather is ¼ of an inch thick and then if it is folded in the middle it would be ½ inch thick without any pockets or anything in it. Just think about trying to make a trifold wallet using that heavy of leather.

Anyway, with a kit you generally don’t have to worry about the thickness of the leather you will be getting. I used to use kits for wallets and purses until I decided that I make everything from scratch. As for belts, I use 9-10 ounce leather because it is strong enough to hold my pants up and will hold up to my weight fluctuations. I am happy to say that I have talked to people who still have and wear the belts that I made for them over 40 years ago. The belts are probably in better condition than I am.

Now to get back on track, when you are ready to begin tooling your leather you will first need to transfer the pattern to the leather. To transfer the pattern to the leather you will need to moisten it with water. What you are making will determine how wet you need to get your leather. I like to “case” a belt blank or strap before I begin carving and stamping on it. Casing is something that I had to get used to because it takes time and I didn’t like waiting. Casing is getting the leather wet and placing it in a plastic bag so that the water will moisten and soften the leather for carving. I usually case belt weight over night, but no less than 8 hours.

The main trick when working with leather is that you don’t get it too wet. Do not carve or stamp the leather when it the “grain” side of the project looks wet. The grain is the smooth or tooling side of the leather. The “flesh” is the back or rough side of the leather. Carving the leather when it is too wet will cause the grain to stretch and possibly distort your design. Tooling/stamping the pattern when the leather is too wet will make the leather stretch a lot and the stamp impressions will look as if they have been bleached out.

You can get by not casing thinner leather, such as a wallet back. I do not case light weight leather because it is not necessary. I also do not stick it under the faucet to get it wet. I have found that I can get the necessary moisture by what you might call “short-casing.” This is done by using a spray bottle with the nozzle adjusted to spray a fairly fine mist on the surface of the leather. Let it soak in for a few minutes and mist it lightly one more time and then place it on a flat, waterproof surface and cover it with a new trash bag. (Make sure that your work area must be free from dirt and anything that might stain your leather.)

Within 10-15 minutes you should be able to take the bag the leather and let the grain dry to where it looks as if it is mostly dry. It may look dry, but there should be enough moisture in the flesh just below the grain to produce the desired “bruising” effect.

The next post will be about transferring the pattern to the leather for carving. I know that this is going a little slow, there are a lot of details, but hand-tooled leather is detailed. That is why it looks so good when it is done well.

Have fun!