Artisan's Guide to Leatherwork (eBook)

CHAPTER ONE

LEATHER

Leather is one of the most useful materials that men and women have ever learned to make. There is evidence of it having been a constant companion for human activity for pretty much all of recorded history. The vegetable-tanned leather that is familiar today originated with the ancient Egyptians and has been a mainstay of human life ever since. Where plastic is used now, leather would traditionally have fulfilled that role. In the past, leather was ubiquitous in the same way as plastic is today.

Good leather will last a lifetime, or indeed several lifetimes. If it is looked after well, it will reward both the maker and the owner of the finished article with its natural beauty, its capacity to be worked, its resistance to wear, and its maintainability. In some of these respects, leather is similar to wood, but leather is a unique material to work with. It is far more forgiving of dimensional errors than wood, but much less forgiving of rough handing or workmanship. If the grain surface of the leather is damaged while an object is being made, it is very unlikely that the damage will be able to be removed or camouflaged in a visible area. Unwanted marks in wood can be removed by sanding, but extremely careful handling of leather is a must, as marks made in this beautiful material will probably be there for ever.

CUTS OF LEATHER

Leather is, of course, a natural product, and it goes without saying that leather derived from one animal will be somewhat different from the leather from another, even if it is of the same species, the same breed and from the same farm and field. Working with these differences and bringing out the best of a particular piece of leather is one of the skills that comes with experience, as is assessing the quality of a piece of material, perhaps to match it to a specific use, and making a decision to buy or reject it.

Leather is generally made and sold by the whole hide or skin, although some types of leather can be bought as cut pieces. Just as different cuts of meat have drastically different characteristics and costs, so do different areas of the hide or skin. Having an understanding of the nature of the different areas is really important, to make sure that you have the best part of the leather for a particular task and you are not wasting money using a piece of leather for a task to which it is not suited, or buying leather that may prove to have been cheap for a reason!

The principal areas of an animal skin are generally termed the butt, the belly and the shoulder. These can be bought either as individual cuts of leather, or combined into other cuts such as the back or side. It is also possible to buy a whole intact hide (the leather from a large animal such as a cow) or skin (the material from a smaller animal such as a goat or pig). Saddlers and shoemakers may use different terminology for the same cuts of leather, and each of the cuts also has further subdivisions that can apply, depending on the craft and the type of skin involved. However, from the point of view of classifying a non-exotic skin for the purposes of understanding leather being presented to you, or understanding what leather to order to make a particular item, this general classification is quite sufficient.

It is important to note though that the overall quality of the leather is more important than where it comes from on the animal. For example, good shoulder will be a far nicer leather than poor-quality butt. It is important to keep this in mind when buying and always to buy the best you can afford!

The Butt or Bend

The butt or bend is the ‘best’ bit of the hide – the strongest and thickest, with the tightest grain and fibre structure. This is the section of hide to use where the quality of the leather, both in terms of its visual aesthetic and its capacity to last and wear well, matter more than cost. It will always be the most expensive part of the hide and should be much firmer than the shoulder or the belly. The leather in the butt is at its very best at the tail end up by the spine, and it gets looser as you go diagonally down towards the shoulder and the belly. If you plan to make something that has to bend a lot or be load-bearing, for example a belt, an item of saddlery, or a strap that will be repeatedly undone and done up again, then butt will certainly be the best choice. It will also be the best choice when you simply want to make the best item you can.

Good leather from the butt will feel firm and dense. When it is flexed, the wrinkles created should be small, close together and tight, and the back of the leather should look and feel as if the fibres are densely packed. This is more difficult to see on leathers other than cow.

The Shoulder

The shoulder is the second-best cut in terms of quality after the butt, encompassing the area of the animal from the shoulder to the neck. It is a highly variable cut in terms of the leather it provides. Parts of the shoulder are likely to be very open and loose, but in a good shoulder parts of it will almost be butt-like. Typically, shoulder is a cheaper alternative to the premium cut of the butt and it can work well for small items, when the best areas can be picked, or for items where a thinner or more flexible leather than butt is required. Shoulder leather will always have a less dense structure, however, so it will age less well, develop wider and deeper wrinkles with use and will have less tensile strength than leather from the butt. Because of this, it should be used cautiously.

Many makers use shoulder successfully for small items, prototyping or pattern-making, or simply to keep their leather costs down. As long as it is bought from a good tannery, it should fulfil those requirements well.

The Belly

Leather derived from the belly is generally regarded as having the worst quality and being the least useful of all the material on a skin or hide. Its structure is extremely loose, but that means it is also very flexible, so it can prove to be useful when you need to add volume between layers of better leather when constructing more complex items. There are very few instances where it is usable by itself.

Overall, a good understanding of the strengths and weaknesses of leather, and what makes a leather ‘good’ or ‘bad’, is essential if you are to make the best item that you can. It is important not to assume that a piece of butt leather will be of the highest quality all over, or that a belly or shoulder piece will be poor all over. On the animal, the bottom of a butt will of course have been joined directly to the belly, and a butt piece will also have a tail and a shoulder end, so you must judge every piece of leather independently, applying your understanding of the likely nature of that piece, based on the part of the animal it came from.

TANNAGES

The way that a leather has been tanned is the second most important element (after its type – cow, goat or pig, for example) that determines how the material will feel, look and perform. The tannage is one of the principal factors you should be aware of when you are looking to buy a piece of leather, as it will influence a number of key qualities in the leather: principally, whether the leather will be firm or soft, how it will age, its tolerance of environmental factors, and its strength.

Vegetable Tanning

Vegetable tanning is the oldest method of tanning, certainly prehistoric and probably dating back to somewhere around 6000 BC. As the name suggests, the process uses vegetable-derived tannins to preserve the leather. A variety of materials are used. Some tanneries use generic vegetable tannages, but there are also specialist tanneries that use oak bark, chestnut or other specific and named tannages of their own secret recipe, to produce very specific results.

Generally, vegetable-tanned leather will be firm to very firm. It will age and change over time, but it will not decay. If it is done well, the vegetable-tanning process will produce beautiful, characterful leathers, which will tend towards rich brown shades, and have a characteristic woody aroma and a somewhat naturalistic character.

Vegetable-tanned leather is better for those with skin allergies. Although it is wrong to assume that no vegetable tanning uses harmful chemicals – carried out without environmental control, it can be hazardous both to those doing it and to the environment – but, with the proper procedures, it produces a leather that is much less likely to cause allergic reactions and is less damaging to the environment than a chrome-tanned leather.

Vegetable tanning is a long process, requiring craftsmanship and patience. It will take at least 6 months and may take as long as two years from start to a finished leather that is ready to be used.

Chrome Tanning

Chrome tanning is a modern and efficient method, first used in 1858. The process can take as little as a day (as opposed to the many months that are required for vegetable tanning). It produces a leather that is softer than veg tan, less sensitive to water, less prone to changes in colour and better able to take bright colours. Chrome-tanned leather is a huge part of the leather market. Most, if not all, leather in everyday life...