TIPS FOR NEW LEATHERCRAFTERS
Always treat your newly bought
veg-tanned leather surface with respect – no light, no
moisture, no oil or fat. Wash your hands before handling your
leather – sweaty fingerprints may only become visible when you
put the final finish on an article.
Roll leather up with the grain
side on the inside – the other way round will cause the grain
side to stretch and when you straighten the leather, it might
wrinkle.
Rolls of leather can easily be
stored in PVC pipe lengths with a diameter of eight inches or more.
When you start wetting the
leather for tracing and swivel knife cuts and tooling, make sure to
always wet the full surface of the leather – if you do not,
the water will rinse chemicals to the edge of the wet part and when
dry, those edges will be seen as stains. These can be treated with
excessive washing with a lot of water.
Oil and Water do NOT mix.
During
the following stages that might be part of a project, no oily or
fatty substance or containers with finishes in, should even be
allowed close to your workbench:
Cutting, Tracing, Swivel Knife
Cutting, Tooling, Dying.
At this point you put on a finish which
will protect the leather and from here on you cannot use water on
the leather again easily – the leather finish you use should
protect the leather against water and against the rougher handling
during construction.
Wet Leather and Metal do NOT
mix.
Metal (more so ferrous metals) will stain leather black when
it touches even damp leather. That means that you...
...cannot weigh down leather
with metal weights, without covering them in leather or plastic.
...cannot have metal filings on
your workbench, so be careful after you have sharpened knives where
you will later work with wet leather.
...cannot casually let metal
tools lie on damp leather.
...cannot use metal clamps to
hold leather in possition while drying – glue some small
pieces of wood on the inside of clamps you want to use on leather
articles.
When you spill coffee or Coke on
an article, immediatelly take it to a basin and empty the rest of
the coffee or Coke over the project to cover it completely (and
therefor stain it completely and seamlessly) and after that rinse it
off well under running water.
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