Buying Or Splitting

[kayrunp]

Hello,

I made a wallet out of the 5 oz leather I have...and of course it's a giant brick that you can't close when filled.

For wallet interiors, is it wiser to spend the money on a splitter or order a whole hide already split?

Are wallet and card holder pockets mostly 2 oz?

Thanks,

KP

[barehandcustoms]

Depends how long it would take you to pay for that splitter with the profits you make from selling wallets. There are several companies that will split your leather for free before shipping. Never a good idea to build your business on debt. Honestly, If you were at the point in your business adventure that you needed a nice electric splitter then you would know exactly how thick you wanted those wallet interiors.

The money spent on a good splitter could buy you a lot of already split leather. I see more good coming out of a mountain of already split leather than I do a good splitter.

Most wallet interiors are below 3oz in size.

Edited August 29, 2014 by barehandcustoms

[Andrew Chee]

I use about 2oz for wallet interiors. I guess it just depends on how thick you want the overall material to be. Using a splitter is good but to consistently split leather down to 2oz is difficult unless you have one of those expensive band knife splitters. Fixed blade splitters can do it but the results can be very inconsistent. This is an issue inherent in the design of fixed blade splitters.

You can purchase leather split to the thickness you want but here you are limited to only certain leathers and certain dealers. Basically Wicket and Craig will split any of their leathers for you. Hermann Oak probably will but you have to buy quite a few hides at a time. You can purchase most carving/skirting leathers in different thicknesses but that's about it. That's the problem with purchasing pre-split leather. You only have a few choices. If what you want falls within these choices then I would say purchase pre-split leather. If not, you might have to go with a splitter.

Andrew