Wet molding.

In my opinion it's reasonable to some degree being real estate is high everywhere now, even acreage. which is what I bought into almost 20 years ago. I really think my driving force of living in Clearwater for so long was the pay. I worked for a Natural gas utility and retired with a pension.
living in the panhandle the job scene and pay is different, if you live in Tallahassee or Pensacola the jobs and money may be there...I can't say for sure but there's a lot of rural areas around and good paying jobs I believe are scarce. where you are now is absolute boom town, especially Pinellas and Pasco County. I loved my job but when I hit retirement time I did like the Steve Miller band and...Take the money and run!
like I said, I loved my job but after living in that area over 30 years I hated it and couldn't wait to get out. ;)
 
bladegrinder said:
Unless you have that stuff laying around you could probably just buy some pro-carv and call it a day.
Amazon has an 8 oz. bottle for $12.00 from Springfield leather, then you know your using some time tested stuff.
I'm kind of leary of using some home brewed concoction on my leatherwork.
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Oh, I agree, and since the stuff is mixed 1 part to 10 parts water that 8 oz is going to last a long time
 
KenH said:
Oh, I agree, and since the stuff is mixed 1 part to 10 parts water that 8 oz is going to last a long time
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Like bottles of electro etch solution or big cans of West System resin. Not sure if and when they go bad, ;)
 
chrisstaniar said:
I've wet molded pre-made sheaths before and it seemed to work out ok. I had to soak them longer and flex them around some.

The best thing I've found to do is after they are wetted down, wrap the knife in Saran Wrap, put it in the sheath and then use a vacuum sealer (like you use for vacuum bagging meat in the freezer) to shrink fit the sheath around the knife. Leave it in there for a few hours and then take it out to dry.
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This is what I do but I oil/wax all parts of the blade prior to wrapping in Saran Wrap. I also leave it in for 24+ hours.
Jim
 
Since I invested in a sewing machine and started making a few holster along with sheaths I've been researching a lot about prepping leather.
there's all sorts of potions out there that seem to work better then the last. I've boiled down my process to plain old water, no soap, no pro carve nothing but plain water. if I had city water I would use distilled water but where I'm at I'm on a deep well and that water is clean with no city added stuff. I think the real secret is how wet to get the leather, I do mine to just before sopping wet.
I just fill a tub, drop it in and swish untill it feels soaked but not sopping dripping wet.
 
Sean Jones said:
I'm curious as I don't know, but won't the acetone take all of the natural oils out of the leather?
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It probably does. This was on a half-tan puukko sheath. I finished it with warm beeswax, seemed to work well. I’m going to try stabilizing some stingray leather for inlays later this spring and I was going to rinse it in acetone before stabilizing just for the purposes of taking out the oils.
 
Just thinking about the whole “stabilizing leather” thing and wet molding, I bet if you have a vac chamber, you could soak a sheath in water in one of them quite well in a matter of seconds.
 
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