Moulding leather

[gunslinger]

Having seen (and bought ) those nasty mask things in Portugal and seeing some of the fine leatherwork you chaps do,I have a question.
How do I mould leather to the shape of something, the ultimate aim is to glue it to the item once it is sufficiently stretched and moulded.

So how far will leather mould ?
How thick does it need to be ? I would assume too thin and it would split.

If you overdo it can it be shrunk back into place ?

Probably all silly questions to the experts ,but I would really like some advice.

GS

[jojo]

To mould leather, you need to have something to mould it over. So if you want to make a mask, you would need to either use an mannikin head, or you could use your own face, I suppose, but that could be a bit tricky! It would need to be a veg tan leather, I'd say 1.5mm should be a good thickness, for a mask. If you want to make a square pouch, you would need to make a square block of wood to the shape and size you want and mould the wet leather on it and let it dry before you can work on it. A good thickness would be from 2.5 to 3.5 mm veg tan.

[gunslinger]

No its not a mask.

I should have given more info,its a Harley dash that I would like to cover in leather so I need to mould it to the shape and then glue it to the steel of the original dash.

Probably sounds a bit loony but if I can get this to work it will look awesome and will be another item finished so I am back on the road for spring.

GS

[pwb]

Sounds an interesting project :) .
Here's a video on wet forming leather, but on a smaller scale.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=F4rGBlMrUyQ

I suppose you could use the same method, especially if you can remove the dash to work on it.

Hope this is of help.

Cheers,
Pete.