Anything and Everything Leather

Post by **Greg** » Mon Jan 19, 2009 8:57 pm

I have recently acquired a full Kangaroo hide, tail and all, with the hair still on it, that is pre-tanned and all that business. I'd like to get started on using it for a few projects, but I need some help.

I've never dyed leather/hide before, so I'm looking for any and all advice you all might have.

In addition, I recently acquired a pair of gorgeous bull horns I'd like to fashion some items for my kit from, but have little experience with horn as well, save that it smells terrible when you saw it.

Any thoughts? If you have any project suggestions, that'd be great too!

Post by **Peter Remling** » Mon Jan 19, 2009 11:41 pm

Hopefully you just need to dye it and it is already tanned. These are a few sites that explain tanning.

http://www.braintan.com/articles/furs/george1.html

http://www.alpharubicon.com/primitive/t ... agoona.htm

To just dye a tanned leather, you should remove the hair first (although not always nessecary) Blue Knagaroo Possibles Bag Anyone ?

Then just put it in a bowl or tub with the dye, stir it with a stick or pole and wait till it achieves the desired color, rinse carefully.,( too much rinseing and wringing will remove a lot of the color. Allow time to dye then start working in a conditioning leather oil.

To work horn, will depend on what you want to make

http://www.personal.utulsa.edu/~Marc-Ca ... nnote.html

This is not too difficult: say you wanted to make a horn spoon, follow the boiling directions and instead of making a mold to form your spoon, take two metal spons of similar size to your desired horn spoon, place the soften horn sheet in between the 2 metal spoons, bind together with cord, trim the excess and let cool.

If you want to cut horn, say make a blowing horn, use your saw at a very low speed (if electric) or draw cut it slowly. This will keep the friction heat down and decrease that godawful smell. When sanding at the end of your project remember to sand slowly and use a fine grit for the same reason.

Post by **Peter Remling** » Mon Jan 19, 2009 11:47 pm

I made several blowing horns over the years and if you want a metal mouthpiece the easiest way is to purchase a replacement mouthpiece for a normal instrument and then alter the mouth piece and the horn to fit.

Ideas to personalize your horn are: braided straps leather or metal banding , and if your horn is very light in color, you can actually scrimscaw it.

I did this for a friend's horn and it can out real nice. It just happened to be the Gondorian seal.

Post by **Greg** » Tue Jan 20, 2009 12:58 am

Thanks for the info!

Yeah, the horn is VERY light...it's a pale cream/whitish blend.

I already have a blowing horn, though I need to mount a mouthpiece on it. It can be blown just fine how it is, but it could always be better, and I'm a trumpet player, so I'm pretty picky about mouthpieces, etc. and I've got several older beaten up ones lying around that I can use.

Anything I should know about stripping hair from hide? That looks to be my biggest hurdle in the process between the hide how it is and my new gloves I'm designing based off of my thoughts on the recent shooting glove/tab discussion.

Post by **Peter Remling** » Tue Jan 20, 2009 1:52 am

If your hide isn't tanned see:

http://www.shanepotter.com/hidetanning.html

If your hide is tanned already, you will probably ruin the hide if you now attempt the above method of hiar removal.

You can still trim the hair down with a sharp pair of scissors and put the hair side in. This will give you a lined feeling to the gloves. I would recommend the lined way particularly if you were making mittens. If it's the archery/gaunlet glove you can try to (after trimming) take a straight edge razor and gently scrape the hair off. Once you get the hair off, take some fine sand paper and sand down the hide to remove any tiny hair stubble, before cutting and stitching your gloves.

Due to the fit of gloves, they are generally not a beginners project. I would suggest you take an old or inexpensive pair of leather gloves that fit, remove the stitching and use the pieces as a pattern.

This will save you the cost of the leather and the frustration of investing a good many hours for naught.

Please post pics when done it sounds like a fun project.

Post by **Greg** » Tue Jan 20, 2009 3:54 am

Peter Remling wrote:I would recommend the lined way particularly if you were making mittens.

That's kinda creepy...you read my mind there. I've given some thought to that discussion, and am at the point where I think I can pull off a pair of gloves that sport the the comfort and utility function of fingerless gloves, the versatility of a built-in shooting tab that is out of the way when I want it to be, AND the convenience of a fur-lined mitten portion for colder weather.

Yeah, I know it's a bit of an undertaking...but I HAVE done some leatherworking before. It's just been with all pre-tanned, pre-dyed leather that only required cutting and stitching.

Steven S. · Post by **Steven S.** » Tue Jan 20, 2009 9:44 pm

Heheheh I think I know where you are going with that one.. I wondered that no one brought it up yet in the shooting tab discussion... I'm hypothesizing that you are making something like this except modified to have a shooting tab?
http://www.columbia.com/images/productI ... 12_969.jpg

Speaking of horn, I am just finishing up a leather pouch project (pics soon) for which I made a horn toggle out of a piece of scrap. To finish it, I sanded it with a disk sander to get all of the rasp marks out, then 400 grit by hand, and then some fine silver polish.. it came out quite nice (except for the parts I was to lazy to sand all of the nicks out.. a weathered look, right?

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Post by **Greg** » Wed Jan 21, 2009 2:00 am

Yep...that's the idea! And for the shooting tab portion, I'm stitching a tab onto the palm facing towards the wrist with a flap on it to put my fingers into much like the mittens on the back of the hand, so it'll be able to flip out of the way whenever I want it to just like the mittens.

Post by **Greg** » Wed Jan 21, 2009 9:30 pm

Pardon the double post, but I have a good deal of questions...

I've been shopping around on Tandy's website, and am not being incredibly successful with finding the leather types I'm looking for...

This is my current quiver. I've seen and felt leather like this before on blacksmithing aprons, etc. but have never heard of it referenced as any particular cut or type, so I really don't know where I'd find it. It'd be nice if I could snag a remnant bag of the stuff to start toying with, as I have several projects planned which would require material of some sort similar to this, but again, I really have no clue where to find it. If it doesn't come in scrap bags, then so be it...but I at least need to figure out what to call this stuff.

Umm...help?

Post by **Peter Remling** » Wed Jan 21, 2009 10:55 pm

Leather is measured in ounces and square feet. The ounces is a relative measurement of thickness of the leather ie: 3 ounce leather is the thickness of leather that a square foot will weigh 3oz. A little difficult for the novice unfamiliar with leather but here is a few examples to get some idea of what you'll need.

The walls of the quiver in your picture appear to be 3-4 oz leather, a very good knife sheath will be made of 8-9 oz leather, soles of a boot can be 10-11 oz leather(single thickness).

Then comes all the other terminolgy, the different types of hides and the different cuts, leather verus suede, calf vs,lamb etc. Don't get hung up on it. It's very easy to start and if you have a leather shop near you, go in and pick their brains. Andy indicates on Meranger.com the basic equipment he uses and it's very similar to what I use and certainly enough to get you started.

The best place to purchase deals on leather, I've found to be Ebay. I know many don't like Ebay for a variety of reasons, but I find that by searching carefully and paying attention to a vendors longevity and feedback, you can make out quite nicely.

What leather items were you planing on making. The odds are at least one of us here have already done that item and would share our ideas, successes and what we'd do differently the 2nd or 3rd time out.

Feel free to ask questions, in case you havn't noticed we're not a shy grou

p.

I'm a little light of craft size pieces but if you give me an idea of what you need I should be able to put togather a care package of leather, just pm me.

Post by **Greg** » Thu Jan 22, 2009 3:37 am

Oh, how the list is long...

But the projects that come to mind most quickly are a new kukri scabbard, a sword belt, boots, and some new belt pouches, as my old canvas ones are dying. Is there a fairly standard weight for most projects, or are they all going to be requiring separate specific weights?

Side note:
No worries about ebay. I'm an ebay addict...that's where I get most of my arrows because I'm not moving away from plastic nocks until the more important parts of my kit that will make a major difference between authentic and fake are done, such as handmade boots versus running shoes/combat boots/etc.

Post by **Peter Remling** » Thu Jan 22, 2009 3:51 am

If you use the wood core scabbard system outlined in the other post you can use 2-3 oz leather for covering the scabbard and it works fine for most light pouches. A light pouch being a simple drawstring type. A stiffer pouch will require at least 5-6 to maintain it's shape. For boot uppers you'll probably want to use at least a 5-6 oz (the sole 11-12). For a belt you can use 2-3 oz although I much prefer 5-7 oz leather.

For a beginner, I'd reccommend designing your projects around 1 weight of leather initially. Start with the easiest first: pouches, belt, even a scabbard (lined core type) i s relatively easy. If you wanted to do a stiff leather sheath for your kukri, 7-8 is the minimum you'll eant, 9-11 is even better.

Boots, gloves all require concise measurements and a bit of knowledge, as to how much a particular weight leather will stretch. Too stiff and your fingers won't have much flexability.

Andy M · Post by **Andy M** » Thu Jan 22, 2009 7:03 pm

It's well worth getting the wholesale card at Tandy.

Greg if you have questions on what type of leather for what project, I would at least go into a leather shop so you can get your hands on the leather and you'll be able to tell what will work.

Gareth · Post by **Gareth** » Thu Jan 22, 2009 9:13 pm

Steven S. · Post by **Steven S.** » Fri Jan 23, 2009 12:05 am

For the pouch project I previously mentioned (haven't had a chance to finish it since my last post

) I used 6-7 oz vegetable tanned leather purchased from Tandy (I like to buy when they have shoulders for $20... call your local shop to get on the mailing list for the sales flyer) dyed with Fiebings oil dye in dark brown (hmm... seem to remember some law passed in California that may limit you on dye options...) then rubbed down with mineral oil followed by my own conditioner (equal parts beeswax, paraffin wax, and neatsfoot oil). If you like the design when I finally post pics (probably sometime this weekend) I can post plans too.