A side of vegetable-tanned leather laid flat on a cutting table with chalk marks around flaws for leather hide layout.
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Reading a Leather Hide Before You Cut It

ByPeter Joeseph 'Briefcase Maker' Kalafatis

Six questions to answer at the table, before the knife decides them for you.

A leather hide on a cutting table is a map of one animal’s life, and reading it before you cut means knowing where the spine ran, where the leather stretches, where the scars are, and which piece of your pattern belongs on which part of it. The money is already spent. The leather is home. This is the second look, the one at the bench with a knife in reach, and it is a different look from the one at the rack. Buying a bend is its own job, and the site’s piece on reading a bend before you pay for it covers that one.

Video: Inspecting 2 white natural vegetable tanned leather sides, from Marcellino NY Briefcase Maker on YouTube.

That video is me going over two white natural vegetable-tanned sides. I go over every hide when it comes in, before any of it turns into a briefcase. The questions below are the ones people ask at that point, answered from tannery pages, a trade training standard and the makers on Leatherworker.net, with my opinions marked as mine.

How should I lay a hide out before I mark anything?

Flat, face up, one layer, and all of it in view.

A hand circling a healed scar on a leather hide with tailor's chalk before cutting.

Lay it down the way it came off the animal. EOS Fabrics, a supplier that teaches leather cutting, says in its guide on layout, cutting and marking leather to lay skins face up and flat on a cutting table, and never to cut skins as a double layer. Cut two at once and, the way I see it, the bottom layer is a blind cut through leather you never looked at.

The Australian training standard for upholstery cutters, unit LMFUP3004B, Lay out patterns and cut leather, puts the same idea in trade language. The hide is spread out and inspected to find flaws and the harder and softer wearing parts. The direction of natural markings and the finished side are identified. Only then do patterns go down.

That is a furniture standard, not a saddler’s one. The order still holds on any bench where somebody is about to cut something they paid good money for. Spread it, look at it, then plan.

My opinion: take your time here. A hide will sit on the table for an hour without complaint, and it will not forgive the wrong cut in a second.

Where does the backbone run, and why does a strap care?

Firm along the spine, looser toward the belly. Run the strap with it, never across it.

Find the backbone line first. Everything else hangs off it, and every source below measures from it.

In a Leatherworker.net thread asking whether leather has a grain like wood, ClayB says the hide is firmer along the spine and at the butt end, while the belly and neck stretch more. For a strap or belt, he cuts from the firm area and runs it lengthwise along the hide. Run a strap from the spine toward the belly, he warns, and one end will be firm and the other stretchy.

Another thread, on understanding stretch in veg tan, says the same in other words. slipangle says the leather with the least stretch is closest to the spine, cut parallel to it, and that the belly stretches the most. TinkerTailor puts it in the plainest terms of anyone: lay a belly strap next to a back strap and the belly will sag a lot more.

Weaver Leather Supply’s page on understanding a leather side agrees from the seller’s side. It calls the back the best buy for products that need length and durability with the least waste, naming reins, stirrup leathers and leashes. On an average hide, it says, about 10 inches of width along the back yields 8 foot straps.

So a strap goes along the spine like a pipe run along a joist. Never across.

Which part of the hide goes to which part of the work?

The best leather goes where the work is hardest and where the eye lands first.

Macro of tight leather grain near the backbone beside looser grain near the belly.

There are two jobs here, strength and looks, and they mostly point at the same leather.

For strength, the hide cutting thread on Leatherworker.net is direct. In hide cutting tips, TomE says the strongest, firmest straps come from the butt near the top of the animal, and that the shoulder is spongy. JLSleather keeps the solid rectangle from the back for belts and straps, sends the shoulder to holsters and sheaths, and says the belly is useless for straps but can serve as lining. bland warns that the brand areas are weaker and do not stretch or form well.

For looks, EOS Fabrics says to always use the best parts of the skin for the front or main pieces. The training standard says to put the low-wear parts of the hide on the components that get used least.

On my bench this is simple. Briefcase panels come out of the bend and nowhere else. The shoulder goes to small parts. The belly goes in the trash. And if a hide comes in wrong, it goes back to the supplier, which is cheaper than finding out halfway through a case. My Leather Choices page lays out what I buy: Grade A full-grain vegetable-tanned bridle.

The belly is not always junk for everybody. Weaver points out that a belly piece sewn to the back of a bend gives comfort and keeps all the strength of the piece it is sewn to. Know what each area is good for before you decide it is good for nothing.

How do I mark flaws without marking the leather?

Chalk the problems first. Then plan around them like a puzzle with holes in it.

Before a single pattern piece goes down, go over the grain and find the trouble. Scars, holes, brands, a thin patch. EOS Fabrics says to mark any holes or blemishes you want to avoid with chalk, and to test a chalk wheel on a scrap first to make sure it will not leave a permanent mark. For pattern marks it suggests a very soft 6B pencil or chalk.

In my view that test matters most on vegetable-tanned leather, where a mark that stays on a panel is a mark you sold.

Weaver’s side page explains why the neck end needs a closer look. It says the neck can carry barbed wire scratches and fat wrinkles that tanners smooth but that may still show, even though the neck has as much tensile strength as the bend, sometimes more. A scratch there is a cosmetic problem, not a structural one. Mark it, and decide what can live on top of it.

For the pattern itself, I scratch it straight into the grain, by eye and with rulers, not templates. That is what my video “Scratched Out briefcase Pattern on brown Sedgwick English Bridle Leather” is.

My opinion: a scar is a planning problem, not always a reason to send a hide back. A healed mark on a gusset that sits inside the case is a different thing from a mark across the front of the flap. If you want to tell a natural mark from a surface that has been sanded and printed over, the piece on telling full grain from corrected grain is the place to start.

What order should I cut in?

Big pieces first, from the best leather, then fill the gaps.

A leather strap freshly cut parallel to the backbone edge of a vegetable-tanned side.

EOS Fabrics calls layout similar to working a puzzle, and gives the rule that matters: start with the larger main pattern pieces first, then fit the smaller pieces in around the edges. It also suggests cutting matching pieces, like two fronts, from the same skin when possible, so they match.

The strap makers start somewhere else, because their big pieces are long. In the hide cutting thread, TomE cuts each strap the full length of the hide, starting with the best leather along the back. JLSleather takes the belly off first by measuring in from the spine at each end, then takes off the neck, squares the two cuts, and makes the final straight cut against a straightedge. fredk trims the shoulder first, then cuts straps of different widths without going too far toward the belly.

Different orders. Same logic. The piece that needs the most of the best leather gets first claim on it, and everything else eats what is left.

The training standard adds one more line: lay patterns out to get the most use of the hide. Off-cuts are not waste either. Handstitched, in that thread, sends his to small items, bookmarks and belt keepers. My own cutting post walks through this on a bend, piece by piece.

Does any of this matter as much as people say?

My case for reading every inch, then the man who says most of it is noise.

I have made the argument for the whole post: lay it flat, find the spine, mark every scar and plan every piece before the knife moves. I believe all of it, and I inspect every hide when it comes in because my name goes on what comes out of it.

Now the turn.

In the same grain thread, Dale says the only direction he ever noticed was with certain stitching groovers, which cut well one way and hardly at all the other. Apart from strength, he says, where the pattern sat on the hide made no real difference to him. Rawhide, in that thread, says leather does have a grain, just not like wood. And EOS Fabrics, which tells you to align main pieces with the lengthwise grain, admits that the grain on leather is not as precise as it is on fabric.

That is most of the ritual gone. What survives is stretch. A strap cut across the hide, or one that runs from spine to belly, will show it under load, and csolar, hanging a weighted strap and logging the distance between marks, was watching for exactly that. The rest, the hours spent turning pattern pieces a few degrees on a firm bend, is mostly a maker calming his own nerves before a cut he cannot take back.

I do it anyway. My hands do not hold still otherwise. But if you are new and it is a choice between reading the backbone and reading the tea leaves, read the backbone, cut the strap along it, and get on with the work.

Fiskars 18 x 24 Inch Self-Healing Cutting Mat: A self-healing cutting mat, 18 by 24 inches. See it on Amazon (affiliate link).

OZXTYO Tailors Chalk, 4 pcs: Four pieces of tailor’s chalk. See it on Amazon (affiliate link).

General Tools Scratch Awl with Hardwood Handle: A scratch awl with a hardwood handle. See it on Amazon (affiliate link).

Victor 18-Inch Professional Aluminum Safety Ruler: An 18-inch aluminum safety ruler for guiding a blade. See it on Amazon (affiliate link).

IRWIN Carpenter Square, Steel, 8-Inch by 12-Inch: A steel carpenter square, 8 by 12 inches, for checking right angles. See it on Amazon (affiliate link).

Leather Round Knife with Wooden Handle: A round knife with a wooden handle for cutting leather. See it on Amazon (affiliate link).

As an Amazon Associate I earn from qualifying purchases. A commission may be earned if you buy through this link, at no extra cost to you.

Sources

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