Caring For Your Leather #3
01/05/07 21:27 Filed in: Leather
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.
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.