Organizing and Storing Chap Leather

[bruce johnson]

Bruce, who has been out of his shop for 3 weeks is now mostly done with the electrician, and has spent 2-1/2 days of insulating, sheetrocking, finishing walls, trim work, and doing it all with my lovely bride as helper. Yes, I am bleeding, and we are still speaking. On the down side, I didn't find the 4 or 5 Gore stamps I was missing when I moved in. On the upside, I have a lot of chap leather. Some I knew I had, some was "Holy crap, I have 5 sides that fell behind the rack?!". Before I resort back to the same ol' system, how would everyone else store about 12-15 sides of mulehide and chap leather to keep it neat and organized? Thanks

[barra]

Bruce. How much space do you have available?

I don't like to fold any of my chap weight leather thus avoiding crease marks. I have mine rolled up on broom sticks and they sit on end in a plastic garbage bin. What I would like, space permitting is a rack like I have at work to store our rolls of canvas, vinyls etc. Ours has the rolls again standing up on end and each roll sits up against the wall. The top of the wall has a wooden bar with rods coming out to compartmentalise the rolls and to hold them in place. Let me see if I can find a similar picture.

Barra

Edited August 10, 2008 by barra

[greg gomersall]

Bruce I store most of my leather using Sonet tubes (the heavy cardboard tubes that concrete pilings are poured in). My 4 x 8 cutting table is full of them underneath as well as a large rack against the wall. Greg

[BillB]

Bruce,

I store my leather two different ways for now. I have my sides of leather rolled and in boxes with the weight of the leather marked on the sides and then these are in a closet. This helps with reducing the darkening that will eventually occur. The other way is hanging the leather over an old Quilt Hanger that we have. Since the Quilt Hanger also has a shelf over it, I get some additional storage if the cats will leave it alone. When we move to Minnesota in two years and set up a more permanent Craft shop for my wife an I am thinking of building a storage closet that has rods across it so I can drape the sides over them and also be able to close the doors to keep the light down and the cats off. I will probably tier the rods with the highest up being the farthest back. Since I don't use many different weights of leather, I should only need 4 or 5 rods.

BillB

[Hilly]

I store my chap hides on pieces of tubing that new carpet comes on. Usually free for the asking from home supply stores. Just roll 'em on there flesh side out. Tie them loosely with a bit of twine or lace, and stand them up in a corner, or suspend horizontally from the cieling in the shop. No wrinkles from folding, and they stay out of the way. This also works well for sides of veg tan if they aren't too thick.

[ArtS]

Here's how I store mine. This is my basement.

ArtS

[Tina]

Here's how I store mine. This is my basement.

ArtS

You wish (and me too :-) )

[ArtS]

Thats what I also do. I use tubes from gift wrap for the thinner/smaller leathers. I wire wrapped two shelves together to make one wide shelf and that's where I store mine. I'm really tight on space so there isn't a whole lot of options for me. Laying them out would not be possible.ArtS

I store my chap hides on pieces of tubing that new carpet comes on. Usually free for the asking from home supply stores. Just roll 'em on there flesh side out. Tie them loosely with a bit of twine or lace, and stand them up in a corner, or suspend horizontally from the cieling in the shop. No wrinkles from folding, and they stay out of the way. This also works well for sides of veg tan if they aren't too thick.

You caught me. LOLArtS

You wish (and me too :-) )

[LarryB]

I cut plastic pipe about 4" round and about 4' long, then rolled my leather, put it in these and caps on both ends... then into a roll around trash can. Now I need more because around the pipes I have leather rolled on cardboard tubes that are also in the trash can. Yeah I know,... I'm getting sloppy lol >>> Old age <<< lol

Edited August 12, 2008 by LarryB

[oddball]

If you want to store in a tube you might be able to get some shipping tubes from the mailroom or receiving dept. We get a lot of tubing and threaded rod in 3 or 4 inch heavy cardboard tubes with removable caps that would probably work well and might be something that would just end up in the trash.

[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?