Last week, in my post on Getting Lost in Translation, I wrote about how you can use leatherworking to unplug and practice being present. When you can focus, you’ll notice more nuance in your practice. You can better master the basics, which later enables you to do more advanced techniques.
For example, the process of finishing painted edges is very similar to finishing burnished ones. When burnishing, you can sand relatively quickly between coats of gum tragacanth. Knowing how much gum trac to put on is its own mini-skill that comes with practice and experience. If you slather your burnishing compound, you’ll increase the waiting time before you can sand, wax, or do any of the next steps. Once you learn to dial in the amount, the intervals go down.
If you over-apply your burnishing compound, you can get stains on the front of the leather. This depends on the surface finish of your veg-tan leather. Some surface finishes, like the ones used on Chevre Crispe, resist gum trac stains. Other leathers, like Chevre Chagrin, have a beautiful surface but are naked and can stain from burnishing if you put on too much.
Sometimes, these stains are visible, but they can be lived with if the piece is for yourself or friends and family.
Making the same mistake with paint is much more visible and much less forgiving. Over-painting can leave permanent blotches on your leather. There are ways to fix this, but over-painting is best something to avoid. The application tolerance for painting is higher than burnishing. You can over-apply gum trac by a relatively decent amount and still be okay. Over-painting, in contrast, results in longer drying times, uneven surfaces, or the dreaded over-paint and marring the face of the leather.
Discerning when you are done with a step can be difficult if you start with painting before learning to burnish. Painting takes longer because you must wait between coats for the paint to dry. The required surface consistency is also much higher, and you can easily get lost doing layer after layer. Taken together, you can see how painting requires similar skills as burnishing but with higher proficency.
Starting with the foundation skill of burnishing and dialing in your technique makes it much easier to transition to painted edges.
Aside: Dyed Edges
Learning to do better burnishing and then improving your painting leads to even more refined skills like dying edges. Dyes behave like ink from a pen and will bleed into leather that is dry or has untreated surfaces. Edge paint is easier because the pigments and other components that give it its substance help keep it where you apply it. There are dyes in edge paint, too, so you learn to handle them when refining your edge painting. Because there are also pigments in edge paint, it’s easier to manage than just dye. From there, you can attempt edge finishing with inks because you’ll better understand what leathers to use, how much ink to use, and how to prevent bleeding—hint: surface treat the face first before dying edges.
Painted edges on chrome-tan leather have similar steps as burnishing on veg-tan, e.g., profile shaping, surface smoothing, finish application, etc. How you do these things modulates because of the switch from burnishing compound to edge paint. It’s an example of progressing in leatherworking by building on a foundation of a basic technique so that advanced ones come more easily.
Many of our readers are trying to improve their work with zippers, reinforcements, and other more advanced techniques. Are you trying to develop your skills further? If so, what are you focusing on?
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