covering boxes in crocodile

[hickok55]

does anyone know if crocodile leather would work for covering wooden box if so would chrome tanned or veg tanned be better.

[Garyak]

Croc is fine for covering anything. I’ve used it from small inlays to covering car seats entirely. Any skin can cover (upholster) anything. Some different methods maybe, but doable. 

[hickok55]

thank you

[Handstitched]

@hickok55 Have a word with @RockyAussie He's used quite a bit of Croc. 

@Garyak I can see Cane Toad leather in that pic, spotted it straight away  

HS

[hickok55]

ok i will.

[RockyAussie]

@hickok55 I got your pm and for the benefit of other members interested I have answered you here. Yes I work a lot with croc and produce a wide range of products with it. As to the question of veg or chrome it does not much matter but most croc that you think is veg tanned is often partly chrome tanned to speed up the process and then finished with a veg tan to give a better colour depth to the finish. This is particularly true when the skins have to have a glazed finish. The chrome tanning also helps to reduce shrinkage. Croc skin is quite suitable to attach to many different things be it metal, wood and plastic and so on. That said a few things that have to be taken into account when using crocodile skin is that it comes from a round shape animal and the stretch has a tendency to go up and down and wherever it likes. To overcome this on pieces that are large or from near elbow areas it is common practice to glue a fabric to the back to stabilise the stretch. What fabric chosen will depend on the end use and the size of the finished product as well. Quite often on large sections a padding is used as well to give a better feel to the product. These following pictures were taken a while back and the quality is not so good but they should do for now I believe. 

This jewellery box has the top done with a foam padding attached to the box followed by the croc attached over the foam and down onto the side edges. The sides are then done by attaching the croc to a thin cardboard and folding the edge then wrapping around the box to attach over the top and base.

 

In this briefcase example it is a little similar

Here you see some foam attached to the wooden box frame I made on the lid and back.

This shows the cut out croc pieces used to make it

Here I am attaching a fabric to make the croc sit right and note that the fabric does not go all the way out on the edges.

These 2 pictures although not croc use a fairly similar process as well and show the briefcase better than the croc picture I have above.

Hope that helps for now.

Brian

[Bert03241]

Beautiful work there Rocky

[hickok55]

thank you @RockyAussie roughly how much leather did it take to make this. 

Edited April 30, 2022 by hickok55

[chrisash]

Only one word describes them "WOW"

[RockyAussie]

13 hours ago, hickok55 said:

thank you @RockyAussie roughly how much leather did it take to make this.

Your welcome. If by how much leather, you mean how much Croc skin ....it would have been 2 croc skins around 42 to 44cm. Over here they measure croc skins across the belly from the 3rd scoot down across. Some places measure across the widest part of the belly.