Question About Tanning\die In Small Batches For A Tannery\taxi (Newb Question)

[carguy]

So I'm still very much in the research phase here and I have a very newb question.

I've looked into some local tanneries & taxidermi places and what I've noticed is the tanneries have large batch and time requirements. I've seen some people quote 4 months out. That is simply not doable. To order a large batch of leather, all of it would have to be the same color. That isn't doable either.

What I'm trying to do is have access to a large range of colors and keep the production time sane and keep my material costs down. To order some of these colors by themselves is cost prohibitive.

So if I understand this right, I'm buying "wet blue" leathers and then sending them to local taxidermists for tanning\dying? Is that a viable way to handle this process?

So then say I need 2 hides in some off purple-orange I just bring my wet blue leather but I can still take advantage of buying huge amounts of leather in bulk?

[carguy]

Bump

[cem]

What kind of leather are you wanting, if it's veg tan it's a long process anyway whether a large tannery does it or somewhere small. For chrome tan I'd expect the local taxidermist isn't going to be set up for it. That type of tannage still takes 4 - 6 weeks and for small runs your likely to be at the back of the line.

"To order some of these colors by themselves is cost prohibitive" this says it all it will be cost prohibtive for the tannery or knowledgable taxidermist as well and so they would be very reluctant to take this sort of thing on. To begin with you are probably better off buying ready made it's not going to be any cheaper supplying your own hides as it's going to be negated by the tannery having to set up for such a small run even if you can find someone to do it.

You don't say where you and what you want to make if you can supply that information we might be able to help you with a bit more information.

[carguy]

What kind of leather are you wanting, if it's veg tan it's a long process anyway whether a large tannery does it or somewhere small. For chrome tan I'd expect the local taxidermist isn't going to be set up for it. That type of tannage still takes 4 - 6 weeks and for small runs your likely to be at the back of the line.

"To order some of these colors by themselves is cost prohibitive" this says it all it will be cost prohibtive for the tannery or knowledgable taxidermist as well and so they would be very reluctant to take this sort of thing on. To begin with you are probably better off buying ready made it's not going to be any cheaper supplying your own hides as it's going to be negated by the tannery having to set up for such a small run even if you can find someone to do it.

You don't say where you and what you want to make if you can supply that information we might be able to help you with a bit more information.

Located in the Midwest area. I just talked to specialty leather and we're going back and forth right now