Compared two leather suppliers for a recent project and one was way ahead

I needed some new calfskin for a few rebinds I had lined up, so I ordered from two different places to test them out. First was a big online leather supplier I'd used before, paid about $45 for a half hide. The second was a smaller place I found through a forum recommendation, same price for similar size. When they arrived, the cheaper feeling leather had these weird dry patches and a few scars I had to work around. The smaller supplier's hide was consistent all the way through, no surprises. Took me maybe 3 extra hours to cut and pare the first one to avoid the bad spots. Has anyone else noticed a big difference between the big leather houses and the smaller specialty shops?

2 comments

2 Comments

ray2102d ago

Totally agree! I had almost the exact same thing happen with a couple of tooling leather suppliers last year. The big box store hide had so many belly cracks and soft spots I ended up tossing half of it.

gavin_mason311d ago

Was that the same big box place everyone talks about? I swear they dump all their junk hides on newbies.