Leather Horn Stoppers

[Carl Dumke]

Hello All!
I was looking to make a leather horn stopper for my NC horn.  Many places say to harden it you have to boil it (sort of) or oil the horn.  anyone have a good method for making one--any help would be greatly appreciated.  Thanks!

[pulaski]

The best way to stiffen/harden leather is with heat .
Try this on a scrap piece . Moisten and shape leather to slightly oversized . Take a torch and apply heat (it's a feel thing) untill it shrinks and hardens . Not a rocket science approach more of a feel thing , but it can make leather extremely hard . After you have it close to the correct size it can be filed or sanded to the correct size . Once you have it correct then apply an oil to preserve it and keep it from dry rottting .
Steve

[The Original Griz]

Carl, it is called jacking leather, you will see buckets and cups made out of hardened or jacked leather. I have a good friend that makes jackware but I never asked him how he does it. See if you can find someone that makes jackware and they can tell you exactly how to boil the leather to jack it. If you can find a contact for Paul Claus, maybe on the CLA site. He will answer your questions, he is a great guy. I just never contacted him at home, we do too many shows together and that is where we talk....

[Trkdriver99]

To jack leather you put bees wax on it and drive it into the leather with heat. I use a heat gun, hair dryer would probably do it also. Gets very hard when you put the heat to it. Might apply wax a couple of times, probably only once for something that small.

Ronnie

[Black Hand]

Make your stopper a bit oversized and drop it into melted beeswax.  Melt the wax and allow to cool a bit before you drop in the leather or you could "cook" it.

[Carl Dumke]

Thanks to all for the great advice--I think I have everything to make it work...

[hanshi]

Thanks to all for the great advice--I think I have everything to make it work...

How about some pics and a description after you finish?