Gluing leather

Carol Reed

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Coolidge, AZ
I am making a binder for my worship service materials. I have some Moroccan Leather that I want to use for this project. So, two issues.

The first is gluing the leather onto very stiff cardboard. Wanted to use plywood but couldn't find any 1/16" thick. I got this stiff cardboard at a scrapbook store. Though I might use a 3M spray adhesive or water-base contact cement. Strangely enough, I could only find solvent based contact cement locally. Will have to look further as I am also making a new kitchen counter top and planned to use WB contact cement for it. Anybody ever glued real leather? What do I need to know?

Second issue: I want to make it about 2/3's the size of a regular 3 ring binder. Now I need to modify the ring binder thingie. I want 1/2" and cannot find, after much Googling, a three ring binder of the right length for this special purpose binder. Think about shortening it by about 2 inches. (And yes, I have an adjustable hole punch to accommodate a custom binder!) Anybody ever fool with the mechanism of a 3 ring binder? Your insight would be great.
 
I glued leather on the faces of some of my wooden mallets that I made to knock dovetails together without marring the wood. The mallet faces were end grain so I applied two or three coats of contact cement to both the wood and leather.

That was quite a few years ago and none of the leather faces have loosened despite heavy use.
 
Carol i have glued leather to my vise jaws and used solvent based contact cement. I did not know there was other contact cement available.

Now over here i came across a mallet tutorial and the guy just used our normal pva wood glue to make a mallet by layering the leather together.
I am gonna give this a try soon and given you are using cardboard i think the pva or white glue would work.
 
Leather is easy to glue. Almost anything will work OK. Duco is very good. Just read the labels on whatever is available at the hardware store. Try to stay with something that remains fairly pliable.
 
Back in the day.... When I used to teach Printing (back before everything was computer generated) one of the projects was to produce a bound book. We used leather and the adhesive of choice was Rubber Cement. Applied similar to Contact Cement where you apply to both surfaces and wait till "Tacky" then apply the leather to the substrait. We also used a thick card stock (as is used in industry) Why Rubber Cement?/ Way we always did it , way industry did it back when hand bounding was the way to go, way I was taught in scholl. ETC.

When you bind in Leather, you need some thin leather but you also need to skiv the edge so that it is thinner to fold over the edge and "disappear" on the inside of the cover, The inside was usually covered with Marblized paper.

Good luck with your project and hope to see progress pictures. I had almost forgotten the years I taught printing but in the past week there have been two posts reminding me of that dieing art.
 
Hey Carol,
Instead of cardboard, could you glue of several sheets of veneer? I don't have any idea of the process, just poppin' a suggestion :wave:
 
Back when I was working leather, we used Rubber cement. You could roll it flat so that there were no wrinkles and it stayed flexible. I have a piece I made in 1990 and it's still flexible and holding well.

Just MHO.

Bruce
 
I was taught to glue leather with rubber cement.

When I was proposing a leather-inlay desk, my research on leather inlays suggested wood glue (and what I know about white and yellow glue makes me think that would be a good choice).

I have used lots of solvent based contact cement on hard materials (like Formica) and have never had a problem, but I have heard very mixed results from people using water based contact cement, so I don't expect to ever use it.

I have grave reservations about using contact cement on flexible products.
 
I can't believe nobody told her to use HIDE GLUE. :rofl::rofl: Carol we also always used contact cement which I believe is also rubber cement. The solvents do stink pretty much , but they disapate fairly quick.
 
Whatever works, works. However, my experience with rubber cement is that it does not have a strong bond at all. I will use it with leather as a temporary hold while I stitch. For glueing, Duco is my 'go to' glue.
 
...Carol we also always used contact cement which I believe is also rubber cement....

Not even close. Rubber cement is a removable paper-holding glue - acts much like the post-it notes in terms of taking paper apart, and if any glue was left, rub it with a finger and it forms a ball and comes off.

Contact cement is permanent, and is designed for rigid materials. It may work fine (apparently multiple people on the forum use it) - perhaps because the leather is rigid after it is attached.
 
I haven't tried to modify a three ring binder assembly but most office supply or hobby stores carry these type "binder post", available in almost any length. http://www.screwpost.com/
Look at most any adjustable picture albums and you will see how they work. Cover the front/back covers and spine separately.
Mike
 
I can't believe nobody told her to use HIDE GLUE. :rofl::rofl: Carol we also always used contact cement which I believe is also rubber cement. The solvents do stink pretty much , but they disapate fairly quick.

Rubber cement and contact cement are not the same product... Althought the application and products are similar.... Contact cement is an adhesive made of neoprene and synthetic rubber while Rubber cement is an adhesive made from elastic polymers (typically latex). Contact Cement is stronger and less forgiving than Rubber Cement... That is why it is more often used in such Craft projects, as it allows the user to "Undo" should a misplacement or alignment occur. also you can use the solvent to soften and do some touchup where Contact cement is "Done & Did" when it sets.
 
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