I’ve done heaps of hardening with the type of leather I just sent you. I harden it in wax, not water. Any kind of wax is fine and pretty much any kind of heat will work. I use a roasting dish on my BBQ with about 2000mls of wax but one of my friends uses a heat gun and a couple of candles.
The best way I find for forming the leather is:
- drop the cut out DRY leather into boiling wax for about 10-30 seconds
- pull it out with a pair of tongs or plyers
- bend the leather to shape
- cool leather in a bucket of water for 60-90 seconds
That works very well for making vambraces etc where you’re just rolling a piece of flat leather into a tube.
Holes for rivets etc can be punched before hardening or drilled afterwards (my preference is drilling afterwards).
For limited 3D shaping (i.e. making a bowl shape) you can use one of two methods:
- Drop the DRY leather into a big container of boiling wax for 15-45 seconds. The wax will froth up so don’t fill your container more than about 20% full. Take the HOT leather out and put it inside an appropriately shaped bowl (spun bowl helmets are ideal) push into the former wearing gloves.
- Shape the leather after hardening it using a dishing hammer in the same way you would dish a helmet in steel. It tends to mark the leather up a bit but heat (like a flame) will remove some of the marking up. I use normal hammer that I have rounded the flat face to about a 150mm radius and polished. For a dishing bowl/former I use a piece of tree (firewood) with a small indentation hammered into it. I cover the hole with a scrap of leather to reduce marking.
I’ll try to get some photos up some time.
Hot wax is probably dangerous. Do not splash water into the wax because it will turn to steam and expand spraying wax all over the place.
[color=red]Make sure you have a lid you can cover the container with in case the wax catches fire.
DO NOT try to put out a wax fire using water, you will cause an explosion.[/color]