Thread: using leather for wedges

I was just curious if anyone has tried leather as a material for their scale wedge and if so what were the results/findings, pros/cons.



thanks

Hold moisture? Rot ? Shrink and harden? Doesn't sound like a good idea at all to me :<0| Sorry. Would be surprised if anybody has or will admit to having done it. A wedge is supposed to bend the scales outward some to allow the scales to work properly. Something that soft will not accomplish that.

I will keep sending santa claus the letters asking for a band saw

The easiest wedges to make has to be lead. They made scales out of boiled leather so a wedge isn't really that far fetched. I think I am sticking with lead or acrylic at this point.

My second thought is my cowboy boots have hard leather soles and knives have leather handles but THAT whole process has got to be harder than whittling a wedge out of wood. Hmmm I have a shoulder of rawhide now that I think about it. I was just going by the pic which doesn't look like any of the stuff I mentioned.
A coping saw is all you need or a hack saw could do it.
I have that a scroll saw and a belt sander and making wedges still sucks as far as I am concerned. A pain in the finger tips :<0)

If your looking for a reason to get a band saw yeah " YOU NEED ONE ANYWAY RIGHT ! "

The picture is actually just a random off cut of leather from making a paddle strop for Crox, i had the scales in my hand and my phone and the thickness of the leather caught my eye.
I have been using just a coping saw and hand sanding (small use of sanding drum from a dremmel). Im not use to working with wood so thin and TBH i dont think these scales are really that thin, but the wood turned out lovely after a little teak oil.

Still a WIP but so far quite happy for my first ones.

I am contemplating something similar to your idea. You should be able to make a hard wedge out of leather if you soak it in epoxy. Call it micarta!

boil the leather and then try fixing it with an epoxy/resin ?

I ended up going with the beech and started finishing them with CA only to receive pins ect this morning and find that my scales need to go on a diet if i want these pins to fit, so i had to order some 1/16 brass rod. Probably gonna sand them a bit thinner though anyway. Grrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrr rrrrrrrrrrrrrrr.