A Source For Fish Leather

[Tiara]

This shop on Etsy seems to have a broad variety of color and finishes. Price isn't bad and has some discounts, combined shipping and such. I've got an order in and will post on quality when it gets here.

http://www.etsy.com/shop/FineLeathers?ref=seller_info

[DS STRAPS]

http://www.exoticleather.biz/exotic_leather_skins_and_hides.htm

you could also try ebay

[Spincycle]

Hi Tiara. I'm curious as to what you ordered, and what type of projects your planning. I did a couple of cuffs with the glazed carp. I posted them in the collars, cuffs, leashes and leads section. I found that the holes in yhe fish skin made by my sewing machine needle didn't close back up again like it does with leather. I was using a needle for leather as I backed the fish with leather. I used a thicker thread to try to fill the holes more. It was refreshing to do the fish cuffs as there was no dyeing or finishing involved. I'm looking forward to your input.

[Tiara]

DS, I have checked ebay and prices and types are rather limited so far. I found another source but not yet ordered. http://www.atlanticleather.is/en/products I contacted them and got a price list. Not bad for top quality appearing products but not sure what shipping will be so plan on waiting until I can afford to buy enough to make shipping per item sensible. The wolf fish skin is really appealing to me.

Spincycle, I ordered several semi gloss and gloss skins plus some scrap that had several large skins including suede. I havent worked with that yet but made a few small items only gluing. A couple of hair barrettes glue to a metal blank and a wrist cuff. My stitching skills are unskilled yet so I'm starting to work on them with scraps before tackling some bigger projects with the fish, snake and caiman I have lined up.

The fish skins are thick, fairly rigid and stiff. It's mostly carp, with some sea bass and small salmon pieces that are less rigid. I'm trying a test on one 4" carp scrap to see if I can make it more pliant. I mixed glycerine with some water and gave the back side a good coating, the surface seemed to repel it completely. After letting it soak in for a couple of hours I started to work it by rolling and bending over my thumbs. It does seem to have become more pliant without affecting the finish or too soft.

I've used some acrylic metallic and hi lighter paints--Luminex, with good results when thinned to translucence.

The glycerin treatment might help with holes closing.Hmm, I wonder if leather lace that is treated with the glycerin after stitching might swell up enough to fill in the holes. It seems to have plumped up the skins without leaving it feeling wet or sticky. I've tried this on several snake skins with good results and wondering if adding some to the dye would keep the snake from getting stiff as it dries.

Here's a link to a post showing the first items I'm satisfied enough with to show. http://leatherworker.net/forum/index.php?showtopic=44689

The fish cuff was a gift for my sweetheart's son. He was quite pleased to have something made of very unusual appearing leathers. Very simple. Metal cuff blank backed with thin lining leather, front is a dark brown 2 tone carp with an alligator patch. I used Weldwood gel on all 3 pieces, smoothed the edges with a Dremel and used Lumiere black acrylic to cover the edges. Stitching practice is now a priority!

I have some experiments in mind for the suede. I want to try dusting with glow in the dark powder pigments, then spray adhesive to hold in place, cover with the water based acrylic generally used to mix the pigments with and press with waxed paper over it and a weight and finally a harder acrylic used with the glow products once I finish the item. I'm hoping for the 2 tone effect that I think comes from the thin scale edges being pressed down on the skin for some of the satin and gloss finishes.

Any feedback on my initial projects appreciated. I'm very much a newbie but caught the bug.

[Spincycle]

Tiara, your projects look good. Nice use of color. Thanks for the info. Where did you obtain the spring cuff blanks? Let us know how your glow in the dark glazing works out. That will be a neat project.

[Tiara]

Thanks for the kind words. I bought the blanks from this shop. http://www.beadwork-supplies.com/index.html

Not spring steel but aluminum. Lighter weight and less expensive than brass and I don't want either of those metals against my skin, I'm covering the insides so color is not an issue.

I do have an idea for spring form cuffs using memory wire. I've seen some spiral shaped cuffs and rings Here's one example http://www.ebay.com/itm/Black-spiral-turquoise-snake-leather-wristband-bracelet-81stgeneration-/140764059680?pt=Fashion_Jewelry&hash=item20c6311820 i suspect that it is made with memory wire in that center ridge. There are leather tubes made to have the wire inserted. Usually I've seen that for bangle type bracelets that I'm not interested in. But the idea of running memory wire between layers to have a flexible fit is interesting. Some memory wire comes preformed in diameter but some can be heat treated with a candle flame and set to custom shapes.

I've managed to use diluted glow paint to cover some cobra skin that allowed the background pattern to show in daylight and the white areas to glow red in the dark. The pigments are rather flat dull colors in daylight but I don't have the high sheen recommended finish on it yet. That is suggested as it allows more light in and out of the pigment than satin or matte. I have also done a test on black light pigments which are either totally invisible or very slight off white in daylight but bright white, and less bright yellow green, pale blue and red. Both glow and black light pigments show up better on white or very light backgrounds. I'm waiting for some skins with closer to true white than the ones I have.

A friend who is a belly dancer is impatiently waiting for some cuffs that glow with snake scale patterns in the dark and have a nice sheen in normal light while still showing the pattern. I think it is do-able but will take some testing to make attractive in daylight as well as reasonably durable. I'll see if I can get a picture of the one kid's cuff I made with red glow paint. Getting a pic of it glowing may take a tripod and long exposure. There are other colors much brighter I haven't received yet.

[stelmackr]

http://www.sealeatherwear.com/

[Tiara]

Hi Bob,

I did check this company. With shipping from Canada the prices were fairly high unless I got a big enough order. I might do so in a few months. Thanks for posting the link.

[cjdevito]

DS, I have checked ebay and prices and types are rather limited so far. I found another source but not yet ordered. http://www.atlanticl....is/en/products I contacted them and got a price list. Not bad for top quality appearing products but not sure what shipping will be so plan on waiting until I can afford to buy enough to make shipping per item sensible. The wolf fish skin is really appealing to me.

I actually wrote Kevin at Springfield Leather a couple weeks back to see if he'd be interested in contacting the tannery to carry the wolf fish leather. I heard back to him that he was going to contact them and see if they could arrange something, but have not yet had any news on it.

[Tiara]

Great idea! I wonder if it would help for some of us who are interested to let them know what type and how much we'd like to order.

For me the basic natural gray was most intriguing. The cod also looked interesting with the 2 sorts of textures.

[braveleather]

I found an online dealer selling only salmon leather. I contacted them and got a respond. They said that they will be adding more types of fish leather in the future. He was actually quite nice and gave me a coupon with a 12% discount.

coupon is " leather12 " They offer free shipping with all orders.

The website is http://www.the-nl.com

It looks professional and they use paypal.

[Tiara]

Thanks for the link and coupon code. I'll check them out now.

[Imapeopleperson]

http://www.sealeatherwear.com/ These people have a great product and seem to be reasonably priced.

[Tiara]

The shipping to the US from Canada is a bit steep.

[braveleather]

Hey Tiara I noticed that you got a price list from atlanticleather have you been able to order from them?

Could I ask you to send me the pricelist that you got from them in a pm?

I really want to buy some fish leather but I am not sure what I can use it for. Need to look more into it.

[Tiara]

I think I still have the price list. I'll send it to you via pm. I've not yet ordered from them but do hope to this month as finances permit. I really want some of the wolf fish and cod, possibly that rougher looking perch.

[cjdevito]

If you don't mind and still have the price list, I'd like to see it as well. I haven't heard anything further from springfield leather since I posted about it in january, so looks like I'll have to buy direct.

[Tiara]

Here is the email reply I received. I realized yesterday that the minimum order is for dyed and finished leather. I asked yesterday but don't expect a reply until the business week starts about buying smaller amounts of crust or at least undyed, unfinished skins. I don't know at what point in their processing it goes from crust to supple but not dyed or finished.

If there is still a minimum order, perhaps several people looking for undyed skins might want to split it up?

Thank you for taking interest in our fish leather. I‘m happy to send you some samples of our colors and finishes in fish leather via mail. Attached is our price and size list in USD.

We color to customers orders so we don‘t keep much stock. Our minimum is 20 pcs per color.

We don‘t have a white wolffish. We have tried to color it white but it turnes out to be more of a grey color. The natural color of the wolffish is grey.

The price of shipping depends on how we ship and the weight of the parcel. We use both post and express delivery like UPS, FedEx and DHL. The price for a small package (up to 1 kilo) is around 53 USD via UPS and around 29 USD via post.

Best regards/bestu kveðjur,

Sóley Sigmarsdóttir

Sales & Marketing

Atlantic Leather/Loðskinn

Borgarmýri 5

550 Sauðárkrókur

Iceland

Tel:+354 512 8024

www.atlanticleather@atlanticleather.is

[Imapeopleperson]

Effective February, 2013, Canada Post has discontinued including insurance on Small Packet packages, and we are offering their new Tracked Packet service, which includes both tracking and insurance.

We offer discounts off of the rates that our website retrieves from Fedex servers. The discounts are:

• For packages over 100 kg., 50% off the Fedex International Priority Service only.
  
• For packages between 3 kg. - 100 kg., by Fedex International Priority, 40% off.
  
• For packages under 3 kg., by Fedex International Priority, 25% off.
  

Shipping not too bad.

[Lesbarbeux]

Haven't actually used the stuff yet as I'm awaiting delivery of my first order of fish leather....however, check out this site for prices and very reasonable delivery charges.

http://thefishleather.co/what-is-fish-leather/

[Leatherbutt]

Here is another source. I just happened to see their vehicle with a magnetic sign on the door. I have never done business with them but it is another source.

http://www.fiskurleather.com/