Cast or Wrapped Leather

[faas]

I've been making stacked leather pens and have my process down... but I was curious about casting or wrapping it. A customer's dad is an alligator trapper and she would like to incorporate gator leather into the pen. I know I can just cut pieces and stack them along with cowhide to make the pen like usual, but I wanted to show off that it was gator. I tried reading through the searches as much as I could, but I did not see anywhere about someone casting any. I assume it would be similar to snakeskin, but I know nothing about this process. Also, if I wrapped and stitched, I would almost have to coat with CA as this will be an every-day-carry pen and I don't think just a glued and stitched seam will hold up. Any thoughts or experience?

 

[CREID]

There is an article in the library on making snake skin blanks.
http://content.penturners.org/library/pen_blanks/snakeskinblanks.pdf
hope this helps

 

[Charlie_W]

I seem to recall seeing pics here of a leather wrapped pen a few years back. It was not cast though. I don't know how it was finished.....maybe with some neutral shoe polish.

Great job on your leather stack!

 

[CREID]

http://www.penturners.org/forum/f43/leather-casting-106095/#post1488538

I think this will take you to a post on a leather wrapped pen.

 

[faas]

http://www.penturners.org/forum/f43/leather-casting-106095/#post1488538

I think this will take you to a post on a leather wrapped pen.

Thanks for the link. That's one of the posts I ran across in my search, and where i saw the amazing looking stitched pen. I figured since it was an older post, and there was no real solution posted to the original question, I'd bring it back up.

 

[jttheclockman]

I do not believe you need to cast it. You can just wrap it. looks like plenty of examples on Bing images. Not sure if anyone has done the skin wrapping but they have done the jaw blanks.

Alligator & Latigo Pen | J & G Leather


http://farm9.staticflickr.com/8152/7642517184_bdbc006b6c_z.jpg