Stalling On First Big Leather Purchase

[Griffox]

I am pretty much settled on purchasing Wicket and Craig's English Bridle in both Black and Dark Brown (although I keep wondering if I should do Latigo instead). I am making dog collars like this:

Beads are sewn onto the front of the collar, so I glue a liner to the back to cover the stitches and burnish the edges to (try to) make the seem invisible.

On my first batch of collars, I just used Tandy veg tan and lined with their tooling goat. I dyed them myself, so I was able to match the brown of the goat lining to the hide. My predicament here is that W&C doesn't sell goat, so I'm afraid I won't be able to match their brown if I dye the goat myself. Is this a legitimate concern? I would like to avoid having to dye ANYTHING if at all possible...it just adds more work.

I also considered scrapping the goat idea altogether and just using the english bridle for both front and back, but then I'd have to buy two hides and have one split to 2-3oz which seems wasteful and I'm afraid that it won't mold (or stick with all that oil & wax) to the leather as well as the goat does. Basically, I'm at the jumping off point where I need to make a decision, but I'm too afraid to commit. Any chance you all could talk me through this?

Edited May 15, 2011 by Griffox

[wildrose]

I'd suggest buying the bridle leather that you like and perhaps lining it with black goat from Tandy. So you wouldn't have the the dye step, and black goes with anything.

[Griffox]

Thanks for the quick reply! You're right about the black, but I also make brown collars and that's where I'm running into problems. I probably need to just take the plunge and quit fretting.

[wildrose]

I understood that about the brown - I just felt that lining a brown collar with black lining wouldn't really be an issue. Of course, we all have our preferences :-)

[Leatherimages]

You could eliminate the need for a lining if you went with a tunnel stitch.

Stohlman shows it in the applique portion of his tutorials.

You would use a curved awl and put the "tunnel" through the center of the leather and exit nearby. Don't go all the way thru the leather. Then tie it off and go on to the next one.

This is similar to what we might have done as kids when you would pass a needle thru a layer of skin on your finger and out again.

[Art]

Hi ?,

So you get one of the hides split or even both of them to do exactly what you want. W/C will also give you the split if you ask; there are maybe two more hides for other things. Don't worry too much about the oil in the hide, rough up where you apply the glue and use an Aliphatic resin (PVA) glue

like Fiebing's Tanner's Bond. These glues work well with oily leather.

Art

I am pretty much settled on purchasing Wicket and Craig's English Bridle in both Black and Dark Brown (although I keep wondering if I should do Latigo instead). I am making dog collars like this:

Beads are sewn onto the front of the collar, so I glue a liner to the back to cover the stitches and burnish the edges to (try to) make the seem invisible.

On my first batch of collars, I just used Tandy veg tan and lined with their tooling goat. I dyed them myself, so I was able to match the brown of the goat lining to the hide. My predicament here is that W&C doesn't sell goat, so I'm afraid I won't be able to match their brown if I dye the goat myself. Is this a legitimate concern? I would like to avoid having to dye ANYTHING if at all possible...it just adds more work.

I also considered scrapping the goat idea altogether and just using the english bridle for both front and back, but then I'd have to buy two hides and have one split to 2-3oz which seems wasteful and I'm afraid that it won't mold (or stick with all that oil & wax) to the leather as well as the goat does. Basically, I'm at the jumping off point where I need to make a decision, but I'm too afraid to commit. Any chance you all could talk me through this?

[Griffox]

I understood that about the brown - I just felt that lining a brown collar with black lining wouldn't really be an issue. Of course, we all have our preferences :-)

Oh, okay. I misunderstood you. I thought you were saying to just forgo the brown altogether and just do black. Now that I know what you meant, I'm glad you think that would look okay. I had thought of that, but was afraid people would find it clash-y. So it's good to know that you, too, think it's an option.

Leatherimages, that's interesting. I didn't know you could do that with leather. I'll have to try it and see how that works. Thanks!

Art, is Tanner's Bond a contact cement? I couldn't tell from fiebing's description. I've been using weldwood gel contact cement which works okay, but I'm not married to it (I couldn't marry anything that smells that bad). Is Tanner's Bond as strong as contact cement? I'm not stitching it after gluing so I'm completely relying on the glue to hold forever.

Thank you all for all your suggestions. It's good to be able to hash it out with other like-minded folks. I sure appreciate it!

[Art]

TB is not a contact cement, but holds better on oily leathers.

Art

Oh, okay. I misunderstood you. I thought you were saying to just forgo the brown altogether and just do black. Now that I know what you meant, I'm glad you think that would look okay. I had thought of that, but was afraid people would find it clash-y. So it's good to know that you, too, think it's an option.

Leatherimages, that's interesting. I didn't know you could do that with leather. I'll have to try it and see how that works. Thanks!

Art, is Tanner's Bond a contact cement? I couldn't tell from fiebing's description. I've been using weldwood gel contact cement which works okay, but I'm not married to it (I couldn't marry anything that smells that bad). Is Tanner's Bond as strong as contact cement? I'm not stitching it after gluing so I'm completely relying on the glue to hold forever.

Thank you all for all your suggestions. It's good to be able to hash it out with other like-minded folks. I sure appreciate it!

[Griffox]

TB is not a contact cement, but holds better on oily leathers.

Art

Okay. Thanks for the tip. I would not have known that.