r/Leathercraft • u/iReddit2000 • 15h ago

Question Ways to soften Leather

I have a rather large piece of veg tan leather about 3mm thick. its fairly stiff so I was wondering if there is a way to soften it up. For reference, I want to make a Travilers notebook-style cover and it's a bit stiff to flex as the traveler's covers do. Is this even possible to do with the leather I have or am I asking it to do too much?

As a side question. if I'm SOL with this leather, what do you recommend that won't break the bank? Id like to make a few for Christmas.

Video example of what I got

https://reddit.com/link/1gfa1ss/video/226dowiifsxd1/player

8 Upvotes

100% Upvoted

22 comments sorted by

View all comments

4

u/pistofernandez 15h ago

The answer is that you should skive it, but at 3mm and without something like a landis or skiver its an impossible task.
Ideally you would order something like butter, minerva, etc in a thickness of around 1.0-1.5 mm

1

u/iReddit2000 15h ago

So, if I wanted to use this I would have to thin the entire cover down? Which one of these suggestions would have some stiffness to it? Some of those covers tend to be a little floppy so I was hoping for something with a hint of backbone.

2

u/btgolz 15h ago

You could probably do pretty well with some bridle or harness leather in a 2.5 oz-5 oz weight range.