Leather's General Uses

[ShawnH80]

Good Morning,

I am very new to the forums and site as well as leatherworking, so I apologize ahead of time if I could have scrolled down a few pages and found the answer. I was wondering if there was a book or site somewhere that listed the various types of leather, the various parts of the animal, the various oz's and that sort, listing what the "common" uses of them are. For instance, what is the difference between the butts and the sides and the bellies.. if I have elk side at 4-5 oz, is it more commonly used for something, compared to cow belly at 4-5 oz? Zack White is offering belt blanks of Double Shoulders.. is that the best type of leather for a belt? How's that differ from using elk or bison or whatever else is out there? Just wondering if someone can get me that information so I can better know, when browsing through leather, what it's most common use would be.

(I acknowledge that leather is probably extremely versatile, so you can probably use just about any type to make any certain thing, as it would then come down to the leatherworker's taste. I also acknowledge that any responses like that wouldn't be answering my question )

Thanks in advance!

Shawn

[Corvus]

Hi Shawn,

There is useful infomation on the following pages that I found helped me a lot at first;

http://www.leprevo.co.uk/techinfo.html

http://www.leprevo.co.uk/hides.htm

You will find other useful odds and ends on the Le Prevo site too, just bear in mind that it is an English company.

I'm still very much a beginner too but have I think most of the basics roughly straight in my head, I found I gleaned information from everywhere and it was a steep learning curve at first as there seems so many details to know about everything but it's worth persevering :-)