My experience of water hardening leather us as follows.... using warm water helps release any of the oils or waxes used during the manufacturing process. If you conduct an experiment by soaking the leather, work one section of that leather hard by compressing and/or twisting it and being gentle with the other part... the worked section will be noticeably harder. The fibres are compressed whilst wet which stiffens the leather. You get a similar stiffening if you roll the leather whilst it is wet and flat. If you wet form a mask you will notice the difference between the bends and the flats

Brother! Liked and subscribed..
What a great video. I did my 1st leather project this past Wednesday (today is Friday). The project was armor for my dog .. it was ok.but bland.used a pop ribbit gun to attach each plate.has some spikes on it.
With in 20mins I learned a lot from you.speak clearly at a good speed. Straight to the point.no dead time.no useless talk.
Now I'm wanting to make a chest armor and brazers for myself..
Ty for the video.. have a fun safe day

AFAIK, wax-hardening was done with rawhide, not tanned leather. Many commonly-assumed historical uses of "leather" were actually using rawhide, because 1) tanning was expensive, and 2) tanning is counter-productive in this context. Tanning serves to keep the flexibility of the hide, which is actually detrimental to the material's performance in armoring. Rawhide boiled in wax and oil has superior potential as an armoring material, and would be quite a bit cheaper in a pre-industrial economy where tanned leather was very expensive. Historical hide armor was generally made of many small rigid plates rather than one large piece, and the pieces were usually lacquered to be even more resistant to wear and damage; the wax would not actually harm the performance of the armor.

You make great videos. It is perfect for beginners that may want to start makin stuff with leather.

Thanks for sharing...

It's only took me 7 years to watch your video I have to wind my tablet up is hard work anyway just going to buy some candles from AliExpress just that time of the year anyway off your pop😂

Great video, thanks. I have noticed that there are numerous places that say NOT  do it the way you did and  NEVER boil the leather. The option they offer is to place the leather in luke warm water to get air bubbles out and to bend the leather to the form you want. Then place it in the oven at 200 degrees F for a short time. Then  take it out to finish drying. Then dye and finish the way you want as it becomes really stiff like wood.

Craftsmanship of the masters. When I put on ma leather I made, and rock to sum Metallica, Delta Parole, Foo Fighters or the Smashing Pumpkins I feel like I can do anything in the whole wide world.

Oooh. I can think of a number of articles of clothing I want to make out of leather.

Very cool, bud. Came here thinking about hardening knife sheathes. Learned a lot.

Love how after putting shiny eyelets on it, he then darkens part of the inside for stealthiness followed by a sheen to make it shiny.  Interesting stealth technique.

I love watching you work and I appreciate the opportunity,  Thank you  !!

would love to watch you build a dragon style helm start to finish , gonna be trying to do my own armor , but the helm is a lil tricky even when working with eva foam

I still have my jungle boots. I only kept my jump boots shiny for promotional purposes.

Great video. Thanks.

Appreciate your explanation of the whats and whys of the process!

I had to subscribe! great videos. I am a knife maker and I make my own leather sheaths but I am looking into getting more into leather work. I need to make a bracer just like the one you showed on this video so I am very glad I found your channel. will definitely continue watching and learning more!

Great video.

love your videos,  i would like to see one on puting muscle in front armor.

Great work,you make it look easy, thanks

Thank you very much for that tutorial! I'm just starting to craft leather, very handy video.