Organizing and Storing Chap Leather

[bruce johnson]

Had a couple of questions about what I decided to do about leather storage. The old way was leather pushed into the rack and sticking out from the front, chap on top (which then slid off behind), and latigo under a bench away from the rest to avoid ruboff. I just have to say thanks to Greg Gomersall for his suggestions. I priced out PVC pipe is various sizes that would hold leather - not economical for me. The concrete form tubes he suggested are the ticket at $6-7 each. They just happen to come in 4 ft lengths - the length of my storage racks. The tubes will fit within the vertical brackets and not roll out, and three 8" tubes will fill the 24" shelves. I sorted my latigo into one, the light chap into a couple, dark chap into one, linings into one and some of the tooling leather in some. There are still some nooks and crannies to slide a roll into that I am cutting as I go on. I like this setup. I added a pegboard at the end to hang some of the stirrups, strainers, and stuff on. Pretty compact little system. Not real crazy about having to stack the trees on top, but with the better insulation and blackout film on the windows, it is a bunch cooler in there anyway. I have the bottom shelf open for a couple scrap tubs. As evident in some of the views, the electrician is still not totally done in my baliwick yet. Thanks for the tip Greg.

[BradB]

That looks great, I am gonna have to do that. I have just been rolling mine up and putting them in a closet but as I get more leather stocked up I am not gonna have enough room, this would probably solve the situation. How many sides can you get in an 8" tube?

[bruce johnson]

Brad,

I got two full sides of 10/12 latigo, plus a remnant in one. I got 4 chap sides in another. The lining tube has about 8 goats, 5 pig, and one side of 2/3 veg. I have two sides of 4/5 and part of a 7/8 in one. They make these tubes in 6", 8". and 12". I bought an assortment, but took back the others when I saw how well the 8" size worked. They have a waxy coating inside, and I rolled them flesh out. Greg tells me even with the heat in his shop, he hasn't had a ruboff problem with the wax. I hit it with a little heat from the paint stripping gun to try it, and it took pretty good heat to soften it. I am not worried about it. My shop has been a little tight on space, and I am trying to do without one rack in there. I was able to get on one rack what would have been on one and a half, plus being comfortable having the latigo there too, so I probably almost doubled up on my usage. I put the other rack in a storage shed, and the excess is out there on two shelves.

[ArtS]

Great idea! Guess I'll be going shopping this weekend for some tubes.

Thanks,

ArtS

[Elton Joorisity]

Not tryin to hijack here Bruce but looking at the stirrups reminded me to ask you about those "special" stirrups you were telling Steve and I about in Sheridan. Got any pics?