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I have a client who has several lamp shades made from raw hide.
These are the kind that are hard to the touch.
Is there a way to condition these?
She has been having trouble with the shades cracking and breaking apart.
In the past I have put Fatliquor on them and it doesn't seem to absorb in...just makes the surface a little slimey.
I have made a few phone calls to people that sells rawhide.
Yet to have satisfactorily answer how to prevent rawhide from cracking.
As rawhide is still raw, all the fibers are stick together.
The only way is try it out with those crack pieces whether it will be soften with Hydrator3.3.
Let us know how it works out!
Roger Koh
Leather DoctorŽ
There were two different styles of lampshade that I dealt with at this location--a thicker rawhide, which showed no signs of cracking, and a thinner rawhide which had cracking at several stress points as well as a split at a non stress point.
I cleaned and rinsed the pieces and then sprayed rehydrator on them liberally and covered in plastic for several hours. The thicker rawhide looked and felt the same as before the treatment. Only time and repeated treatments would reveal if the rehydrator was effective in preventing damage.
On the thinner shade, the edges around the cracks curled after applying the rehydrator and allowed to completely dry again. It appears as though getting the shade wet could have caused the rawhide to shrink a little.
Thank you for the feed-back.
As for me I rarely come across these items as lampshade.
Perhaps the cracking may have something to do with the heat or wave length from the bulbs.
By using the right types of bulbs might reduce the cracking problems too!
Roger Koh
Leather DoctorŽ