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hey guys what's up it's Cxizent here with another
exhaustive video on a simple process so today
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we're going to be gluing one
piece of leather to another
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I've always maintained that if you know how
to attach one bit of material to another
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you can basically make whatever you want.
Obviously there's a bit more nuance that
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goes into it than that but with simple geometric
shapes it's certainly not far from the truth,
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so this video on gluing and the next one on
stitching (tease tease) we'll be showing you
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some of the simple ways that you can stick one
bit of leather to another. These are techniques
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that I use literally every single time that I work
with leather and just require a bit of practice to
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get comfortable with. So, glue. We use it to
glue things but what kind of glue do we use?
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I'll be using some purpose-made leather crafting
cement but if that's hard for you to get don't
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worry basically anything that's billed as a
"contact cement" can be used for our purposes.
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I've personally used contact cement from woolies
before and it's turned out just fine they all have
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a similar function; contact cement basically
wants two surfaces that are clean and rough
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to bind together. The roughness is important for
reasons that I'll explain with a helpful diagram:
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suppose that you have a perfectly flat surface
because you are a physicist that exists in a
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frictionless vacuum. You only have this amount of
surface area to stick the two things together, a
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way that we can cheat this is by scoring, marking,
or just roughing a surface up and so you can see
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we've now increased the total amount of surface
area available on any given surface and more
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surface area means that there's more space for
the glue to actually bind the two things together.
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So then for leather if you're gluing the top
side to something just go over it with a scratch
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awl like this to rough it up. You don't want any
dust or particulate in there so it's a good idea
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to wipe it down or give it the Nintendo reboot
special. There are basically only three ways
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that you can glue one piece of leather to another.
That is: top side to top side, reverse to reverse,
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or topside to reverse. These two different
sides have plenty of names that you'll just
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need to pick up through context, sorry about
that. Examples of when you might want to glue
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topside to topside are: when you're making
something inside out that needs to be turned,
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when you're doing a french seam with a backing,
or when you want to strengthen a single seam.
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You might end up gluing topside to reverse if
you're: adding layers for bulk or strength,
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doing a lapped seam, or you're putting
some decorative trim onto an edge.
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Whereas you'd glue reverse to reverse
for things that you don't want to have a
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front side like these coasters or this costume
that I'm going to use for demonstration purposes.
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When you're working with the reverse side or flesh
side or suede side you often don't need to do much
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roughing up but it is good to ensure that there
are no loose fibers that will only gum up the
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works. These fibers here are fairly tightly packed
so I'll just run an awl over them briefly but this
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isn't totally necessary. Now for the actual
content of this video: applying glue to leather.
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I like to run a bead over the area that I
would like to stick and then spread it out,
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usually with a piece of scrap leather
because it's plentiful in supply.
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Now contact cement is going to want an application
on both pieces that are to be attached so make
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sure to spread evenly on both pieces the next
step is always the most difficult: waiting
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You want the glue to have a little time exposed to
air between 30 and 90 seconds typically but it's
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hard to be prescriptive with this because what
we're looking for is actually conditional;
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we want the glue to stop being a liquid that is
sticky and become more like a gum that is tacky.
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I understand that the difference between
sticky and tacky is not wholly empirical
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and I really can't emphasize enough the importance
of familiarity. Yes it surely does breed contempt
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in some cases but you'll find that the more often
you do something and the more familiar you become
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with that something the more that you'll
be able to differentiate between nebulous
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quantities of that something as provided by
a voice over on a Youtube video. So once the
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glue is tacky just align the pieces and apply
a little bit of pressure, each glue will have a
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cure time that's written on the bottle but after
20 minutes it should be well and truly stuck. If
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you're gluing a couple of flat pieces like me here
just put them on a flat table under a heavy book.
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Ah, how fitting. You shouldn't have to
keep it under much pressure for long
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And that's it, now you've got two pieces of
leather that are firmly stuck together and
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you're wondering what else can be done with them.
If that's the case then you'd better subscribe to
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the channel so that you don't miss the next
video in this tutorial installment where I'll
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be talking about stitching and maybe even a little
bit about what can be done about these ugly edges
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I really hope that you guys enjoyed watching
you guys take it easy and I'll catch you later.
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you guys take it easy take it easy
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there we go take it easy seriously
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too wet not wet enough whoops
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that's better oh
