WoodlandArtisan

Thanks for the information so far, everyone. If there's any more, please continue on. I won't be making the leather seat myself, of course. I know nothing about it and will leave that up to someone else later, when that time comes (I'm months away from that stage), to supply a seat. I'm just trying to determine where to place the wooden stretchers that the leather seat will attach to so that it won't immediately "bottom out" so-to-speak. Over time, I guess it will and will either need to be replaced or repaired. I think the consensus is that any leather is going to stretch to some degree depending on thickness and type of leather used. Maybe even some lamination process with other materials to help slow that down. Very interesting. But, like I said, I won't be doing it myself, but at least it's good to know for when I'm looking for a leather-person to do it.

First of all, I know nothing about leather. I'm in the prototyping phase of a custom, period chair that will have a leather seat. Think of a directors' chair in how it's (usually) canvas seat is stretched between the 2 short sides of the rectangular piece. Same type of idea in how this chair will be done except with leather. What I'm wanting to know is about how much 'stretch' or sagging the leather is going to have initially. This will give me some idea of where to place the stretchers (pieces of the chair on each side where the leather will be attached) so that it's not too low and hit the front, lower-placed wooden pieces of the chair. Obviously (or not?), the leather will stretch more as time goes on but I'd just like to know what to expect initially. The leather rectangle is going to be about 3 feet long x 16" wide. It'll be attached to the chair along the 16" long sides. Thickness? Type? Weight of the person is going to be probably no more than 150-160 lbs. In woodworking, we have formulas for determining how much sag given the type of wood, dimensions and weight upon it. Is there something similar for leatherworking? If not, anyone care to make an educated guess? Normally, I'd make this type of chair with a wooden seat but this is a custom order and I've never tried using leather like this.