My Wc Experience

[Matty]

Fantastic that I stumbled upon the very subject I was looking for.

I've been going back and forth over the past couple of days with W&C asking about their bellies they have listed on overstock. I was asking for a few of the largest (widest) ones they had, in either English birdle or harness, as they had listed. Well, I asked for and got the specs on the average SF and length and width of them, got the lo-down on "bellies are...." (honey, I know what they are, I've been working on and off with leather for over 25 years), and I told them what project I had in mind. They started to suggest that it wouldn't be possible (I've done it before) to get the proper sized pieces I needed from these bellies (did I say I've done this before???) and asked me to give them the dimensions I needed. I gave them what they asked for and the response was : "The bellies we have are definitely NOT............ I guess we can't help you, Thanks."

So, I was intending to order a few anyway, trusting that they would send me the widest ones they could find, however, being given the brushoff wasn't what I would call good business. And so I let them know that. In the meantime I found a picture from Zak's that has bellies listed that they say are 7-9SF, and if they are, that means that one of them in the picture contains at least 4-5 square feet straight through the middle of the piece. No idea why theirs would be wider than the tannery's are.

Meanwhile, I've ordered twice from Spfld in the past few months. Two natural horse butts and 1.5" horse strips. The first time I asked for the widest butts they had, didn't care about length, scratches, blemishes (it's a practice project) and the butts were better and larger than I expected. The second time I asked for two more natural horse butts, more strips, and one each of the brown and black drum-dyed narrower horse butts. I specifically asked for wide butts, the widest drum-dyed butts (I know they were all narrower), and thin 1.5" strips because I don't need the thick ones. Well, I think they sent me the thickest strips they had (no big deal I can easily split them myself), the drum-dyed butts are garbage (they look 20 years old, the dye rubs straight out of them, the flesh side looks like they have some weird material attached to them, and both have a horrendous 1/2" wide deep cracked crease from end to end straight through them) and the large natural butts, one was 1/2 the width of the ones I had previously received, and the other was a bit wider, still narrower than the first order, but it looked as if it had one entire edge torn from it. So, disappointed as I was, I didn't complain. If I order from Spfld again, I will show them the pictures I took of what they sent me the second time despite what I asked for, and remind them that it's the third time I've ordered from them and if I don't get what I requested this time, I'm not going to complain, but I will take my business elsewhere.

Unfortunately, Boston, which used to be the center of the leather universe, has no remaining retail leather shops. Shipping costs way too much to screw around.

[Matty]

What I meant was, the picture I found at Zak's said these bellies were 7-9sf and judging from that, it means that the larger one in the picture should have several square feet of material, at least, through the center.

So, I was going straight to the tannery, thinking that that's where the stuff comes from, right? Yea, I know that no every tannery produces the same stuff the same way or even the same stuff the same way every time.

W&C was quick to scream at me, after the y requested and I told them that I was looking for something like this, with perhaps 2 or 3 sf clear in the center, that "our bellies are NOT....... I guess we can't help you, Thanks."