what is it I cant use on a side?

[Boriqua]

Since I started with this hobby some 20+ years ago I have almost always bought shoulders. I was pretty disappointed with my last batch of leather from Chahin tannery so I may try to upgrade and buy a side of HO and give it a go. I would have to increase my prices a touch to make up for the expense but I think it might be worth it??

Now I heard mention that the belly part is unusable so how much off of a side am I going to have to cut off and not use. Or am I just wrong. Im a little terrified to make such an investment but I think its past time to up my game some and like I said .. the 8/9 I got was just a step above tandy and the 6/7 I am afraid to use its so awful. Any advice on purchasing and using a side for primarily holster and heavy bag work would be appreciated.

alex

[JLSleather]

If you jus gittin ONE weight, I'd do 7/8 oz.  Versatile weight for holsters - all but the small pocket holsters.  You "could" do 6/7, but on many rigs you'd be wanting to line it to beef it up, and that's more money and more work.

There isn't really an "unusable" portion of hide, though some portions of some hides are unusable.  I generally don't order bellies - just get the backs (side minus belly).  I would NOT make anything from belly leather - the exception being small pocket wallets and such where there's virtually no stress on it.  Still, bellies do have their use in linings, wraps, etc.  You will be billed more per foot for backs, just FYI.

This last order, I got sides (with belly) wondering if it might be faster.  It wasn't   So I have like 4 bellies I'm sure I will put somewhere before its over.

Generally, the bend is the best part of the hide.  I like backs - which is just the bend plus a single shoulder - since i can cut belts from teh bend and holsters from the shoulder, and the texture and color are the same (theory). 

Out there where yer at, aguycould maybe call em up at Goliger Leather (this would be my 'best choice' if I was there).  OR, some folks said okay stuff about Maverick, though I've never bought HO from them (sometimes, you get good intentioned "reviews' from people who don't really have much experience with what "good" leather is).

In order of desirability (at JLS, which is all I can speak for) I like bends, backs, sides, shoulders, in that order.  Bellies are somewhere else

 

Edited October 3, 2016 by JLSleather

[OLDNSLOW]

Is there more than one place to buy the Chahin?  I know that weaver sells it as their next best choice and have thought about it but haven't bought that large size of leather yet.  The most recent buy for vegtan was from SLC and that was the cut they sell for belts, but just curious if you talked to weaver about the quality that you received and what the response was?  I want to make a purchase in the very near future and sort of in the same boat, cost, and quality is what I need to be the for most issue, and I know that is an oxymoron when thinking good quality at low cost.  A thought that has crossed my mind and I know that it has worked in other situations is to do a group buy, don't know who would be interested or how it would all work out, just thinking out loud.  

[Boriqua]

Jeff .. do they sell only bends or backs in HO? I have been buying all my leather from weaver and they only list whole sides. I know I sound like a duffus but if I order a side .. is the belly already removed? Sorry .. I am just completely ignorant never having bought a side.

 

oldnslow .. I have been buying the Chahin from weaver for a couple of years and for the most part have been very happy with it. Accepted dye well, nice tight backside. Jeff made fun of the fat wrinkles but I kind of dig the look of a leather that isnt perfect some so it never bothered me and I used the wrinkles when placing my patterns so they would be primarily where I wanted them to be. Aside from that ... more than a few hundred holsters and other stuff and was satisfied. The last 2 pieces I got were not good quality. I usually keep 6-7 and 8/9 for holster and sheaths. If I am doing lined I like to use the 6/7 with a lighter piece to the inside. If I do overlay pieces like you see with jeffs patterns I use the 6/7 for the front and for the overlay and use a 8/9 for the back.

I always keep some 2 oz goat around I get from distant drums and some cheap 4/5 oz I usually get from tandy when they throw it on sale.

My last 8/9 from weaver about 1/3 of it had a very loose open grain backside. Not the greatest for holsters. You can burnish it and make it look ok but its only skin deep. It will be too soft to mold proper and what happens to me anyway is the holster stretches to much when I insert the mold and it makes for an ill fitting holster. I wont sell it so I dont make it. So I have had to cut around a few square feet. It is not accepting dye well at all so I have a fair chunk of leather I will have to find a use for but I wont use it on holsters or sheaths. Maybe a motorcycle tool roll or three is in my future. It would be more than suitable for that.

The 6/7 is a disaster. .. It is not accepting dye well at all and the dye is actually buffing off of the surface. Its hard as well to cut or even edge and it appears there is something on the surface that I cant see because I am getting weird marks on my finished products. They are without a doubt .. the worst two pieces of leather I have ever gotten from weaver. Still better than tandy but not by much. Having said that .. I have been buying leather from weaver on and off for 15 or so years so I the greater quantity of stuff I have gotten has kept me going back for more and that has to count for something.

I didnt contact them because I already used about half of the 8/9 and tiny bit of the 6/7. I been meaning to try the HO and I have been selling briskly enough to take a shot... soon as I school up on what to get 

Alex

[JLSleather]

FWIW ...

I think Goliger only sells full sides.

I ordered leather from Weaver once.  I will not do it again.

Springfield Leather will sell you a back (side minus belly).  It will be a bit pricey, and the quality is a crap-shoot.... I've got some that were okay, and some that were just crap.  Since they are jacking up the price by 50% and MORE, you'd think they'd have just the good stuff.  Still, I mention them because they HAVE sent me  a decent piece here 'n' there.

I'm with Alex, I can take a wrinkle before a "smooshy" back side.

Wickett & Craig will sell you a side OR a back, and you can order from just 1 to a full stack.  I get backs there, great holster leather in their skirting.

As a rule, I get HO at HO.  There IS no such thing - I think - as spotless leather, but HO backs (no belly) works out about $10/ft for A grade AFTER shipping charges.  You do, though, have that minimum order thing.

Tandy's site shows a pretty good drawing of the part of a cow you're getting. https://www.tandyleather.com/en/leather-buying-guide.html

 

 

 

 

[bikermutt07]

Fwiw, Jeff has some leather for sale right now. Check out moving sale in Leather and Lace.

I know he will sell you the good stuff.

[keplerts]

Boriqua,

If I understand you right, you said the leather you bought from Weaver was shoulders from Chahin Tannery.  I have used Chahin leather before and it is usually pretty good.  Here is the catch:  the shoulders Weaver sells is NOT Chahin leather.  It is imported from south America I believe.  The only Chahin leather they sell is by the side.  I made the mistake of thinking the shoulders I bought were from Chahin but they were not.  Very tough to cut and while tooling I had to strop my swivel knife (and I'm not kidding) every 5 inches!  The double shoulders I got from Tandy (Oak leaf) cut much nicer and tooled great.  But took dye and finish very unevenly.   You can get double shoulders of Chahin leather from American Leather Direct at pretty decent prices.

Tom

[Boriqua]

On 10/8/2016 at 3:25 AM, keplerts said:

Boriqua,

If I understand you right, you said the leather you bought from Weaver was shoulders from Chahin Tannery.  I have used Chahin leather before and it is usually pretty good.  Here is the catch:  the shoulders Weaver sells is NOT Chahin leather.  It is imported from south America I believe.  The only Chahin leather they sell is by the side.  I made the mistake of thinking the shoulders I bought were from Chahin but they were not.  Very tough to cut and while tooling I had to strop my swivel knife (and I'm not kidding) every 5 inches!  The double shoulders I got from Tandy (Oak leaf) cut much nicer and tooled great.  But took dye and finish very unevenly.   You can get double shoulders of Chahin leather from American Leather Direct at pretty decent prices.

Tom

Oh man your absolutely right Tom. I assumed it was the Chahin stuff but after going through their online catalog and paper catalog I made a mistake. The only Chahin they have are sides. Going to go check out American Direct. I have kind of hit nice price points for my stuff where it sells fairly quickly so I want to keep material cost reasonable but I do want to move to making a better product and that last two rolls of leather I got were not nice.

[keplerts]

Boriqua,

I made the same mistake on the double shoulders.  I think  you will like ALD leather and their prices.  I'm working with  some saddle skirting now and it cuts beautifully.

[MADMAX22]

As JLS said earlier ya pay a upcharge for the backs. That being said if you order from say wickett and craig it use to be around $1.25sq/ft extra for them. Figure ya loose about 2-3sq/ft cutting the bellies off or there abouts. So say the back is 22sq/ft thats about $25 extra you pay for the back but minus the $16-24 you dont pay for the belly. Its a no brainer IMHO. 

Atleast roughly speaking. 

[JLSleather]

If I remember rightly, ...

HO is about $1.45 more for backs than for sides.  As a rule, sides are 25 feet and backs are 18-19 feet, so the side costs about $25 more than the backs.  So, if you have use for the belly leather, then sides would work.  I personally don't have much use for bellies, so might as well save teh $25 - ordering 10 backs is a difference of $250 for leather it would take me a while to find use for.  At any rate, backs at HO (A-grade) will generally run about $185 each (as of Oct 2016).

At W/C, it's similar, though their skirting does cost a bit more than HO.  Ordering drum dyed colors is 15¢ more, and backs are "about" $1.50 more per foot.  I say about because on their newly revised site I don't see the breakdown any more, and I also don't see it on my last couple of invoices (which state the total square footage, but no mention of price per foot).  Sides there have been running 25-26 feet. And as a rule, backs are a bit more money than at HO.

Almost without fail, you'll have good solid leather at the spine, firmest in the butt.  This makes the bend the best part of the cow hide (you could say, high on teh hog, only it's usually cow).  

Going "down" the hide toward the belly, the leather gets less firm as you get lower on the hide. Still, if you don't have at least 24" wide of good solid leather, you need a new supplier.  HO backs are often 28-30" wide from spine to the cut edge where the belly used to be.  The bottom edge is still okay, but not as good as the spine edge.

If instead you go from the butt end forward (toward the head), the leather is generally quite good for 60", sometimes more. But about 60", you start running into "shoulder wrinkles", which run vertically (90° to teh spine) toward the belly area.  Note that on a double shoulder that some like to use, these wrinkles show "the long way".  But this type of wrinkle isn't generally detrimental to the strength of the leather project (yeah- a test of the tensile strength will be a bit different, but minimal for what we do).  Unless they're quite prominent, I dont worry about these.  Still, for me- this puts the shoulder down to #3 on the Jeff desirability list  (behind bends, then backs).  Common to see me cutting belts from the bend and holsters from the shoulder (where I can cut around those wrinkles mostly) so the belt and holster are from teh same hide.

But further up is the neck which, I admit, I often just cut off and pitch before i get any further.  Even on great leather, the neck is generally not.  Bellies I can sometimes use in the lighter weights - say 4/5 or thinner - but I don't order generally them above.  

 

[Weaver Leather Supply]

You guys are correct that none of our double shoulders are from Chahin, only sides.  I am not sure if ALD natural shoulders are Chahin tanned or not, I would ask before you order to confirm that.  We basically carry a line of strap/tooling, English bridle, latigo, harness, and skirting from both Hermann Oak and Chahin.  I would be glad to discuss leather with you further if you have any questions or get you out cuttings of anything you would like to see.  Shoot me a pm if you wish...would like to hear which line of double shoulders you had an issue with as well and I would check into that also.

 

Thank you

[Boriqua]

 I spoke with ALD yesterday and can confirm that the double shoulders are not Chahin. They carry Chahin sides but the shoulders are another mexican import and the person stated they are from US steer.. However they did say they have grade 1 double shoulders and not just TR. I ordered a double shoulder in 7/8oz of what they are calling grade 1 and will report back with what I think. The price was great at $5.35 a sq but I dont know what shipping will run and forgot to ask when I was on the phone.

35 minutes ago, Weaver Leather Supply said:

Shoot me a pm if you wish...would like to hear which line of double shoulders you had an issue with as well and I would check into that also.

I will dig up the order # and pm you. It was the first time in many years of purchasing from you that I received hides I was unhappy with. I dont think i purchase enough to make the wholesale cut at the end of the year so I have to find other sources now anyway but I am always looking to help out a business if I can and perhaps you can trace the hides I got and settle up with the place you got them.

[OLDNSLOW]

would like to know the quality and look forward to your report.

[Boriqua]

I wanted to use more of the leather that I got from American Leather Direct and ... I was swamped with orders to get done in time for Christmas so I couldnt come out and play. But now that its done here is what I think so far.

I dont know if because it was my first order it was a honeymoon piece and not indicative of what I will continue to get. Having said that ... I have really come to love the leather I got from them and am ready to put in another order.

I ordered 7-8 double should grade 1. Price was very reasonable. most of the hide measured heavy which is fine. I would say it ran 8 and a touch heavier. It was a nice white color when I got it and felt very dense. When you work with it and when you take it out of the box it feels like the hand may be a little soft but I think its because I am used to getting stiffer dryer leather. Hard to explain so I will leave it at that.

It absorbs water like a sponge. I mean maybe that is what it was always supposed to be like but it just wicks up the water. It tools deep and solid with minimum effort. I LOVED the way it took stamps and it cut with my swivel knife like butter. I had to adjust my cut and the wait time before cutting and after wetting because it cuts that easily.

Here is the part that really surprised me ... how it takes dye! I use a fair amount of red and ox blood as undercoats for other colors. On certain pieces I dye before wetmolding and when I did the water would go red and my dyed piece would turn kind of pink and I would have to reapply after the piece dried. I cursed Fiebings and their crappy oxblood but figured it was just something to work around. Sometimes black would come off some in the water ... Not anymore. This leather sucks that dye up. I got a tiny bit of color run on my last holster set on the red but the piece didnt change color and it was a miniscule amount. Other colors that I have used that ran no longer run at all. It does seem to need more dye to get a nice deep color but at least it is holding on to it.

I bone .. with a bone and not a vacuum or press and I have always been "ok" with how it turned out. Didnt hate it but didnt love it. This leather bones beautifully and easily. You can easily pull up most of the detail by just pressing with your thumbs and rubbing before you go in with the bone or other tool.

So far ... Im loving this leather. I will report back after the next two hides.

 

below is a pick of my first attempt at Basketweave on the new leather. I do a fair amount of basketweave in different patterns so I could tell the difference in detail and ease of use.

 

Edited December 30, 2016 by Boriqua

[JLSleather]

Looks purdy crisp

 

[OLDNSLOW]

they are just up the road from me, and I have been threatening myself to drive over and buy some, I just haven't done it yet.  I was fairly busy for Christmas but not overly busy, so when I am done with this W/C I have, I am going to make the drive over for the 1st purchase.  I want to be able to look at a whole stack of leather to see if the quality in that particular stack runs the same from top to bottom.  I would still like to hear more back from you as time passes with the hides you do have, as I have had the same problems with dye run off, not as bad with the W/C but I would be able to save even more money by being able to order from ADL and have them deliver.

Thanks   

[JLSleather]

That basket stamp looks crisp, clear. So is that from a side, or a shoulder?

 

[Boriqua]

2 minutes ago, JLSleather said:

That basket stamp looks crisp, clear. So is that from a side, or a shoulder?

 

That is from the double shoulder I ordered. Not bad right?! I was pretty shocked. I am sure it can be better but I was pretty happy and what I liked was it was pretty even as well. I know that it has to do mostly with how I apply the stamps but I think it has something to do with how the hide accepts the water too. At least its a theory. My only fear now is that they wanted to make me a new customer and someone went out and hand selected that piece and my next purchases will be less than ideal. Which ... would be a bummer!

[JLSleather]

That don't look bad.. like ya say.. nice to know if that's consistent one order to the next.  No pricing on their site, either.

Also, not sure if it's the leather, or maybe just your camera settings -- but that looks a little darker than HO or W/C... just a tad more "russet"-ish

 

Edited December 31, 2016 by JLSleather

[Boriqua]

7 minutes ago, JLSleather said:

That don't look bad.. like ya say.. nice to know if that's consistent one order to the next.  No pricing on their site, either.

 

I paid 5.35 a square. Their site is pretty basic. Im cool with that. Think shipping was around 14 bucks here to AZ for one double shoulder.

Its dark in the pic. Its not that dark in person. My camera freaks with fluorescent light and I just took that real quick on my bench when I finished it weeks ago just to post here at some point.

Edited December 31, 2016 by Boriqua

[JLSleather]

At that price, not much reason left not to try it.

 

[KeithHideWorks]

Is Golinger good to deal with? Do they sell backs?

I have a great leather supplier by me, just wanting to compare prices and see what the real price will be for wholesale. 

[Mattsbagger]

I contacted ALD about if they had any 2/3 or 3/4 drum dyed. They said they would send some samples. Got them but they are all 15 oz samples. Looks like nice stuff though. You know how it goes with samples though send the best they got.lol

[Weaver Leather Supply]

On 1/18/2017 at 8:23 PM, Mattsbagger said:

I contacted ALD about if they had any 2/3 or 3/4 drum dyed. They said they would send some samples. Got them but they are all 15 oz samples. Looks like nice stuff though. You know how it goes with samples though send the best they got.lol

We have 3/4oz drum dyed Chahin English Bridle.  Nothing in strap/tooling in that weight dyed however.