How To Distinguish Various Leather Weights

[samcolt45]

I recently received some leather-working tools from an uncle who passed away. With the tools was various pieces of leather of different thicknesses. I haven't worked with leather in a long time, and my primarily interesting in making holsters. While tooling is a feature goal, at the moment my primary concern is determining what weight I'm working with and which is the best for making non-tooled, belt-slide-type holsters.

Finally, can anyone tell me if Tandy's Leather - The New Frontier in Art is worth the money? So far the only book I've read is Al Stoelmann's book on making holsters?

Any suggestions would be appreciated?

Thanks,

Bob Boyd

[dirtclod]

Go on ebay and get a leather gauge from black river laser. They don't cost much and you can see what weights you have. As far as weight to use. I use 8/9 to 10/12 for western type holsters. For the molded ones i think they use anything from 4 ounce to 7 ounce not real sure about that though. I don't know anything about the book you asked about.

[Northmount]

There is a thickness table here. http://www.tandyleatherfactory.ca/en-cad/home/infoandservices/leatherguide/leatherguide.aspx

CTG

[LNLeather]

[Toolingaround]

Hi

I got this great tip from the Bettuns Village Leather web site. I too have a collection of scraps I needed to figure out and I use this method.

"As a general rule, each ounce of thickness is roughly equal to 1/64 of an inch in thickness. 

As an example, 8 oz leather is 8/64" thick, which is the same as 1/8". 

Some simple examples of thickness based on US coins:

A dime = 3 oz 

A penny = 3.5 oz 

A quarter = 4 oz 

A nickel = 4.25 oz

So, dig this:  6 oz leather is like two dimes stacked one atop the other. 

8 oz is two quarters stacked together. 

12 oz is three quarters stacked together."

Cheers, Toolingaround

[Mijo]

Tooling, thanks for that post. Such a simple / easy way to gauge thickness with what's in your pocket.