Howdy All
I never use warm water to wet mold. Cold tap water. I've never had a tooled holster lose any tooling that way.
WC
I agree with WC on this, I never use warm water on my leather, you allow too much of the natural oil's to escape, I do natural dying, and submerge my leather holsters/gun belts in my dye for one too five days at a time, my theory on this is once your leather is wet, it won't get any wetter, and by using cool water in my dyes it doesn't take the natural oils out like hot water will.
So when I wet mold my holster to the gun it's for, whether it's dyed or not I soak it in cool water, then remove it and let the excess water drip off, then I take a paper towel and wipe it down, then I put the gun in and do my forming, I let it sit in the holster for about 20 to 30 minutes, by this time the leathers memory has taken over, I remove the gun, and hang the holster on a on a strong wire hanger I made so that the wire just runs down the bucket , or center of the holster, I have these hangers hung from the ceiling of my shop, this allows the leather to dry from the inside out, in a cool surrounding, never in the sun or near a heat source that would put stress on the drying process, after 24 hours it is stiff and the way I like it,then I do my conditioning and oiling and finishing, I find this method works well for me, and I don't mess up the PH balance in the leather at least ( IMHO )
Regards
tEN wOLVES
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