mleathers

Why reinvent the wheel. Campbell Leather Machinery sells White edge coating. It is excellent.

On water buffalo. Water buffalo leather is a superior product to cowhide. It is a stronger leather if it is tanned correctly. Even poorly tanned cowhide can be brittle. I make leather belts out of water buffalo and my customer prefer it. In Europe motorcycle leathers are made of Water Buffalo because of its tear resistance. It is far more flexible to cowhide. Cowhide belts are stiff and take longer to break in while water buffalo is flexible and softer. Any leather poorly tanned will yield a poor quality product. If pull up oils are used its even better. It does not tool very well though. This is where cowhide exceeds in this respect. I say all this from experience.

I personally called the owner an introduced myself. I was looking for a particular type of leather. I sent him samples at his request. The owner of Siegel bragged about how long he was in business and that he was an expert. In the samples I sent I also included my telephone number so he could advise me. He never called. I called the operator at the business and left message after message. He never returned any. Weeks went by and called again left messages on his cell. He never returned any call. Finally a month goes by and I call. I finally reached him. While on the phone he really seemed distracted and I could not get him to answer a question. With someone like this who has been in the leather business since Jesus was the waiter at the Lord's supper, who cannot act professional needs to retire and let someone else takeover who is professional. I will never do business with this guy Siegel. With the economy being terrible for all business you would think they would jump to being the best at customer service.

Thanks Folks,

I am grateful to all members who participate in the Forums, My problem I have is edge coatings on my belts. I have not seen one product as of yet that will perform well on our belts. I use belts grade latigos from Hidehouse and Waterhouse and other various distributors. I also use water buffalo leather as well. I CAN NOT use any sort of wax content edge finishes. They either flake off, wearoff onto pants, or degrade over a very short period of time. I have used acrylic resin based products with some success but It does not adhere to the edge of certain hides that have any sort of oil in it from the tanning process. I need a product that will bond with the fibers of the leather hides(8-10oz) . I have an old belt made in China with edges that resemble epoxy and the edge coating still looks new. I have seen a women purse, made in Peru, that has edge coating on the straps that has not degraded at all after 15 years. Any advice from our more experienced craftsmen and craftswomen? I have used Fiebings, LCI and Key Laboratories products so far BTW