Decorating hardened leather

[Charles Alexander]

I imagine once leather is already water hardened it can't be tooled or stamped?

It would appear that once hardened, painting is the way to go.

Thanks.

[Konstantin the Red]

Do all your tooling before you do your hardening. The tooling should survive nicely.

Once it's hardened, the painting is among the finishing steps. I'm not sure how the hardening affects how it takes dye, but dyeing could be done before hardening too. As you can imagine, a dye job for the base color and then painted accents after hardening should be very spiff. Then seal with a suitable sealer coat.

[William of Otterton]

Fully agree that it has to be done prior to any shaping or hardening. Once it's hardened, you've probably shaped it too so the chance of doing any normal stamping on it is gone as you have no flat surfaces to work with.

I made these as a trial project to try out my shaping and hardening skills. I worked the design on to the leather first, then water soaked them, dished them then baked them. They're quite rigid and the Gondorian tree design held up fairly well. The only problem I had was across the top of the dish as I should have run the design a bit deeper into the leather. It lost a little definition around there.



Good luck on your projects,
Griffin

[Charles Alexander]

Nice design.