Leather Quality and Properties

[Bic Pentameter]

I have recently gotten into amateur leathercrafting. Luckily, I live near 5-6 shops that sell leather scraps that they have purchased from local shoe companies and bag manufacturers. Some of them sell "cordovan" scraps similar to the photo below. This portion appears to be the area "between the shells" in the second diagram. The shells have been cut out of this portion, so I think it is probably better to call it horsehide instead of cordovan or shell cordovan.

Is this area suitable for wallets, watch straps, or other small leather goods? Sometimes I see vertical creasing between the shells. Is this area particularly weak?

Bic

 

[ntempleman]

There is no area between the shells, that piece is where they’ve cut two toe areas of vamps side-by-side out of one football shaped shell. There probably isn’t enough leather there to be useful for anything more than a key ring or something, if you speak to your region’s Horweens dealer they should have plenty of “chips” that aren’t particularly expensive, chips are just small shells that are useful for watch straps etc

 

[Bic Pentameter]

Ntempleman,

Thank you for your response. I guess it could be two vamps cut from one oval shell. I thought it might be the area between the area between two shells as seen around 5:04 in this Horween video.


I live in Japan. These scraps are often red, pink or black. I had guessed that they are Shinki cordovan used to make elementary school student bags

Randoseru - Wikipedia

en.m.wikipedia.org

I will see if I can find some "chips."

Bic

 

[j ingevaldsson]

Could probably be of interest for some, I do an overview of most of the main tanneries that are supplying shoe manufacturers:

Guide - Shoe leather tanneries - Shoegazing.com

Shoegazing goes through many of the main tanneries for quality shoes, to give you a good overview of what, where and how things are made.

shoegazing.com

 

[mreams99]

I have prepared a pair of shoes to dye in a new color.
However, I’m having doubts about my plans. I have some leftover Fiebings suede dye in the color I wanted to use. I’m not sure if I can use that on smooth leather though. Would it be OK?

 

[madhat]

I have prepared a pair of shoes to dye in a new color.
However, I’m having doubts about my plans. I have some leftover Fiebings suede dye in the color I wanted to use. I’m not sure if I can use that on smooth leather though. Would it be OK?

It didn’t work well for me when I tried with black suede dye.