by LeatherBear

The basic outfit of leathermen has common elements accented by items of individual taste and affordability. Even the common garments may be varied, remembering that if you stray too far, you will upset the overall look you are striving for. Read More...

The GAYBC Radio Network is just beginning to lay the foundation for an incredible line-up of news, talk and entertainment programming. Over the next several weeks and months, we'll introduce a variety of shows that feature the best line-up of broadcasters, journalists and entertainers serving the diversity of the GLBT community.

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Before I give you the basics about construction, I want to digress momentarily (okay, for this whole column) into the world of commercial leather garments. By commercial, I mean mass-produced – you can find more than one or two of the same item – jackets, chaps, pants, shirts, hats, gloves, and any other softline goods made of leather. You can find these goods in leather shops, motorcycle dealers, mall stores, mega-marts, and online. Here’s a warning, in the form of an agonizing cliché: you get what you pay for. If you aren’t sure what quality garment leather should look and feel like, I recommend you check out two places, neither of which am I, or the Four Lakes Bears, suggesting you do or don’t do your shopping at. Think of it as research.

The first place is Wilson Leather. You know them; they are in most malls. Say what you want about chains, but when you want to see and feel leather that ranges in quality from good to excellent, and at fair prices, you’d be hard pressed to find more of the goods they sell in one place. It’s unlikely, though, that you will find much there to build your leatherman collection. Ask the young lady behind the counter for assless chaps, and watch her face (then RUN)! Yes, they will let your nelly ass into The Barracks in a Wilson Leather jacket, but it generally is not the look you are seeking. The other place: your local Harley-Davidson dealer. Harley leathers are simply the finest they can be, and made to be tough as well as tough-looking. Biker gear is the foundation, also, of the look leathermen are going for, but that’s another article.

Now, can you buy a leather jacket for under $50, chaps for less than $100, and assorted other goods at equally WILD FABULOUS PRICES? Of course you can, especially online, and in mega-stores. Here’s what you will get: leather that is as thin as a sheet of paper, and heavily lined with fabric, or heavier leather that is, well, kinda hard, and, hmm, not…quite…black, but more of a…charcoal. Or, maybe it’s a little too black, and all chemically-smelling. Look for odd cuts, like chaps that are cut from differing types of leather. Maybe a section is much softer and a bit thicker than the others, and sort of wrinkly. Watch for pigskin, employing the help of a friend if you aren’t sure what it looks like. Look for parts like edging, trim, or piping that isn’t actually leather, but naugahyde or vinyl. If you’ve ordered even one piece of TAKE ADVANTAGE OF OUR BLOWOUT PRICES leather online, you know exactly what I’m talking about.

It isn’t a bad thing to buy inexpensive leather (although maybe we could go into the environmental and sweatshop ethics, among other things). I own some. We can’t all afford to wander down to the local leath-O-rama and cover our substantial bods in the highest quality gear. It would not be hard to spend a couple large to make oneself presentable enough to be in the audience at International Mr. Leather. We make do. We buy a nice vest, and maybe a hat. A harness – ooo, I’m making myself hot – or a studded belt. Chaps? Well, the ones I want are $450, or I could order the ones online for $45. But wait! I saw those chaps downtown for $125… The point, my little bearfriends, is to know what you are buying. All in all, I’d rather see you in one good, or even mediocre, pair of chaps or a vest, instead of fully decked out in ultra-cheap gear that smells like a napalm factory and looks like it was dipped in black paint.

Next month: hmm, which harness should I buy? Are you really charging $100 for these cuffs?

Tags: Leather Care

Over the past couple of months we’ve discussed basic care of your leather gear, and made a good start on knowing quality leather when you see it (and are considering investing). Picking up from last month’s article about leather weight and tanning processes, we are going to proceed to leather finishes. Remember, we are focusing on the black leather gear worn by leathermen.

Much leather gear -- cuffs, harnesses, belts, and other items made from straps -- starts out as vegetable tanned, or vegetan top grain sides, smooth, clean, pale in color, and treacherously absorbant. Garment leather, for jackets, vests, chaps, gloves, and boots is more likely to be chrome tanned. You can tell the difference by looking at an unfinished cut edge: if there is a silver or white stripe along the edge, it is probably chrome tanned. Either is fine from a quality standpoint; the only reason not to choose chrome-tanned leather is that the process is more environmentally destructive than vegetable tanning.

Chrome tanned leather is usually dyed and finished in the tanning process. This results in a denser, harder feel. By “harder” I don’t mean inflexible, but more difficult to compress. After dying, it is cut into patterns, resulting in the telltale line. Vegetan is almost always cut into straps and shapes before dying and finishing. To make black vegetan, the leather may be dyed another dark color, most often blue, before soaking in black dye. Because it comes from an animal, there is variation in the density and absorbency of leather from one square inch to the next; so dying the item blue first results in a more even black color. Final finishing with a wax or shellac-type coat is done after items are assembled. Waterproofing may be applied at the same time, but the best waterproofing is proper leather care as discussed in the July 2006 article.

Another way leather may be colored and finished is, believe it or not, with a coat of paint made for this purpose. While acceptable for some types of leather products, this is not okay in leatherman gear. You’ve probably seen leather that looked chipped on a fold, or that the finish and color peeled off of. This is a process used to make inexpensive items look good when they are new. Remember the hair grain we talked about last month? Look for that, especially on larger items like jackets and chaps – its absence is one sign of painted leather. Paint covers up a world of imperfections.

Closely inspect the color and finish of any leather item you are considering buying. Compare prices to other similar items – it’s fine to buy a lesser quality item if that is what you are expecting and paying for. It will still last like leather, but it may require extra effort to keep looking its best, and the time may come when its black, smooth look is forever lost.

For maximum quality, the color of the leather should be pure, even black. A bluish hue is a sign of a lower quality dye job. The surface should be smooth and satin, but not glossy. It should look like…well, like leather. A waxy feel is a sign of hand finishing. You won’t want to fold the leather over hard, as this may permanently mar the finish, but gentle flexing should reveal no change of color. The color should not come off on your hand when you run it along the edge of the leather (although it may bleed onto clothing over the course of a day – we’ll talk about that next month). A place where you most frequently find the best color and finishing is in belts, so look there for examples. For an example of bad coloring and finishing, look at cheap wallets and jackets.

I want to mention two more things before closing this month. First, bonded leather. Bonded leather is most often found in less expensive belts, but can be seen in almost any kind of leather product. The item may be marked, sadly, “genuine leather.” Sometimes you will see “bonded leather.” This is a product made by grinding up scrap leather and mixing it with a flexible resin to produce a flexible, semi-plastic product. Looking at cut edges is the best way to distinguish bonded leather. If its too clean, too shiny, and too perfect to be leather, it probably is not.

The other thing is pieced leather. This is found more and more in jackets, vests, and other items produced cheaply and in volume. It’s easy to spot – the leather looks like patchwork, sewn together with heavy seams. There’s nothing wrong with this, but don’t pay more because it looks cool – it’s actually a way to cheaply produce items that normally consume large pieces of leather.

Next month we’ll finish out the qualities of leather by talking about actual gear construction – where corners are cut, steps are skipped, and how you can avoid paying for things you aren’t getting.

Tags: Leather Care

Leather, simple as it seems, is a term that applies to any use of the skin of an animal. Typical usage of the word “leather” implies tanned (chemically-treated) skin from which the hair has been removed. Rawhide is a non-tanned, but clean, dehaired, and dried skin. It is hard and tough, but can be beaten to make it pliable. Rawhide is used for traditional drumheads, and beaten rawhide for moccasin soles. What many people refer to as “rawhide lace” is almost never rawhide, but latigo, a very tough form of leather achieved through a particular tanning process.

Common sources of the leather that interests us are cows and pigs. Leather from sheep, goats, horses, deer, elk, and buffalo are also fairly common, but have a particular feel and are generally not used for leatherman gear. Leather can be made from the skin of virtually any mammal, though some are better suited for fur or “hair-on” uses, and most reptiles. For our purposes, and with some exceptions, cows are the predominant and best source of leather. Cowhides can be used for any leather product. Pigskin is generally used as a less costly substitute for cow leather, though it is sometimes used in garments for its particular grain. Learn to recognize pigskin by it’s coarser, more widely-spaced hair pattern, which can sometimes be difficult to discern. You’ll most commonly see it in jackets, chaps, gloves, and other garment items. Over time, cowhide looks and wears better.

A hide can be tanned, or converted into workable, durable leather, through numerous processes, including oil, chemical, vegetable, and brain tanning. Each of these processes yields a product with a particular feel and usefulness, each has certain qualities, and each has certain drawbacks. Most of the leather we use commercially is either chemical- (“chrome”) or vegetable-tanned. Vegetable tanning produces the majority of what is used for leatherman gear. Sometimes this leather is referred to as “vege-tan.” Vegetable-tanned leather is the most diversely useable type of leather.

A tanned cowhide is uneven in thickness, from over a half-inch thick over the shoulders of the animal, to less than an eighth-inch over the legs. Once the tanned hide has dried, it is skived to an even thickness, in much the same way as lumber is planed. After skiving, the hide is split to produce a hide of top grain (the smooth side) and suede. A suede hide may also be called a “split.” The top grain hide can be split in any thickness from paper thin to over a quarter-inch. If it is truly top grain, you can see the hair pattern on the surface of the leather. The thickness of the leather is its ounce weight, and you will see leather referred to as 1-2 ounce, 4-5 ounce, 10-11 ounce, etc. Originally, this referred to the weight of one square foot of leather. By weighing a hide, and measuring its thickness according to a standard, the square footage could be calculated easily and more precisely. 2-3 ounce leather makes a nice jacket or wallet, 4-5 ounce does well for chaps, 8-9 ounce is a fairly stout belt, and 10-11 ounce will make straps to hold up your bearfriend in his sling.

A vegetable-tanned hide is a peachy, Caucasian flesh color, which darkens with exposure to sunlight (not for the same reason you do). Fairly stiff, it is also porous, and will instantly absorb any liquid it comes into contact with. It should only be handled with clean, dry hands or cloth gloves. This leather is priced by the square foot, but sold by the hide or, more often, by the side, which is one-half of a hide, cut from neck to tail. Most sides are 20 to 25 square feet. Depending on the ounce weight, you may pay $250 or more for a side of untreated, vegetable-tanned leather. This leather is ready to be cut, tooled, dyed, and used, but that is for next month.

Tags: Leather Care

The Gays of Our Lives played to full houses opening weekend, and at least one reviewer was enthusiastic! Here's the review from the Capital Times. The show continues through March 31 at the Bartell Theater, 113 E Mifflin Street in Madison. Reservations available at 661-9696, extension 3, or on-line at www.stageq.com.

Review from The Capital Times is here.
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1. Keep it dry. When your leather gets wet, it needs to air dry slowly. Light items that won’t stretch out of shape can hang loosely on a hanger. Jackets and heavy items should be laid flat on a towel, and turned several times a day to prevent mildew. If your leather really gets soaked, wrap it in newspaper, paper towels, or absorbent brown paper overnight, then unwrap it and hang or lay it flat to dry. Never wring leather, and never put any leather in the dryer.

2. Keep it clean. Leather, like a sponge, is extremely absorbent. It absorbs any liquid it comes in contact with – ink, beverages, oil – and even water will often make a permanent difference in the way leather looks and feels. Some solids will also permanently stain leather. Lighter colored leathers can sometimes be dyed to cover stains. If the leather is black, many stains won’t show once you clean the leather. Still, sometimes the texture of the leather will be affected. Pat – don’t rub – spills with a clean, dry cloth if wet, or a slightly damp cloth if dried. Suede should be brushed clean.

3. Treat your leather. All smooth-finished leathers should be treated regularly with an oil or wax product. What is “regularly?” Some folks treat their leather after most times they wear it. At a bare minimum, work over your leather with saddle soap and mink oil or a similar product, according to the manufacturer’s instructions, once a year. Boots and belts should be wiped clean and polished several times a year. Rubbing oil into your leather protects it, adds to its life, and increases its beauty. It also familiarizes you with every character of your leather, and shows you where repairs may be needed.

The best time to treat your leather is soon after you wear it, not just before you wear it again.

Your leather is a valuable investment, whether it is a full set of chaps or just a belt you wear to work. Keep it looking good, and it will hold up its end of the deal.

Next month I will talk about getting what you pay for when you buy leather goods, including different qualities of leather, and what to look for in leather construction.

Tags: Leather Care