Know Your Leather
Leather Crazy You
So you’re nuts about leather. Your leather envelope, leather padfolios, leather passport holders, wallets, belts, shoes, and bags say so. This passion has led you to be finicky over leather items and it is no joke to provide people like you leather items for gifts. What if you’re at the giving end?
There are endless supplies of leather goods online and offline, wholesale and retail, and almost every imaginable item for men, women, teens, and children. If you are lucky, you can get discounted prices and rock bottom deals some lucky days of the year. The problem lies in the choices of items and the type of leather your beneficiary would like to have - and there is the price angle to mull over, too.
But how much do you know about leather? Leather is the processed hide of animals, and is differentiated by how it is made. Leather is processed by vegetable or chrome tanning, rawhide treatment, and boiling. The different procedures produce varied types of leather appropriate for different purposesand products.
Know Your Leather
Boiled Leather — Your leather covered book or hardback is an example of boiled leather. Boiled leather is not used for wearable items or upholstery because it’s hard and inappropriate for the purpose.
Vegetable Tanning — Vegetable-based ingredients are used to tan the animal hides. This process results in leather that is strong yet supple. The big downside is the leather’s susceptibility to water. Exposed to water for long, the leather changes color, shrinks, and becomes hard. Leather processed this way assumes different shades of brown..
Chrome Tanning — This uses chromium or chrome salts to darken or tan the leather. The process allows the tanning of the leather in different colors, too, and helps preserve its elasticity and form, in spite of exposure to water.
Rawhide — This is a process that requires the stripping down of the animal hides. Once thinned and roughened, these are soaked in a lime solution and then stretched. This type of leather makes for sturdy shoes and laces. By the way, your favorite band’s drum head is made of this type of leather.
Animal hides for leather are not limited to cow hides. Even snake and crocodile skins make unique leather. Do not get fooled, loook into leather items according to [kind|type[/spin], class, grade, thickness, material content, toughness, serviceability, and price. Prove to them you know how to leather it up.