Second Escallop Flacket

While my first attempt at an escallop flacket was drying, I tracked down a more symmetrical escallop pattern and printed it out. Then I traced it onto ten-ounce, vegetable-tanned leather and cut it out with an Xacto knife. For the record, escalloped symmetrical shapes are just as frustrating to cut out as non-symmetrical ones!

Once it was cut out, I flipped it over and traced it onto the side of leather. Cutting that out as well created a mirror-image piece to be the back of the flacket.

Then I tooled the details into the front piece with a beveled hand stamp and a wooden mallet. As with the first flacket, I left the back unadorned.

When I was done with the tooling, I marked the seams on the front piece (in the photo to the left, you can see the gouges from the seam marker following the contours of the shell design). Holding the front and back together, I drilled the stitching holes along the marked seams. I had to eyeball the spacing of the holes because the tool I use to mark straight seams just doesn't work in tight, curved patterns.

Then, using waxed linen thread, I stitched the seams all the way around the flacket. Like the experimental project, this flacket has a relatively small opening. This again made it very tedious to sand-pack the flacket. I persevered, though. When I could stuff no more sand inside, I wedged a Sharpie marker in the opening to hold it open and round set it aside to dry.

Three days later, I poured the sand out of it. I stuck a thin pen inside the hole and scraped and banged it around inside as best I could to loosen any particles that were still clinging to the leather.

Next, it was time to apply the outside coating of wax. I warmed the oven and turned on the crock pot full of beeswax.  I put the flacket in the oven to warm the leather while I waited for the wax to melt. Then, using a pastry brush, I applied wax to the entire exterior of the flacket. After letting it cool back down to room temperature, I applied an additional thick coating of wax along the seams and edges to prevent the inner sealant from seeping out when it came time to pour.

When the wax had completely cooled, I mixed up about a quarter cup of Envirotex Lite and carefully poured it into the flacket. I tilted and tipped it around for a good twenty minutes, trying to ensure that the inside was completely coated. The extra wax along the edges and seams did the trick--no seepage occurred! Then I up-ended the flacket over a piece of scrap cardboard and allowed most of the excess to drip out. When that was done, I set it aside for twenty four hours to dry.

When it had dried, I poured in the second coat of sealant, which was also allowed to dry for twenty four hours. Then a third coat was applied. When that coat had dried, I heated the oven to 200 degrees and placed the flacket inside to melt off the excess wax. When the wax was liquefied, I pulled the flacket out of the oven and used a paper towel to wipe the last stubborn bits of wax from its surface. I noticed that there were places where I hadn't been careful enough in the application of the wax, and I had gotten it in areas where it wound up under the coat of sealant. This is problematic because it causes the sealant to not bond correctly with the leather, and it leads to chipping.

After allowing the flacket to cool back to room temperature, I filled the it with water and set it aside for several minutes. I then inspected it for any sign of water seepage. Finding none, I poured the water out (despite the size difference, it also holds 1/3c). It was done!

First on the left, second on the right.