Quigley Shooting Association
Leather – Its Use in Historical Roles
Chris Barnard
I decided to write this article, because over many years of being involved in black powder shooting and re-enactment / living history, I have seen a fair few “period correct” items being made/sold that were made out of the wrong type of leather and sometimes not leather at all! The film and museum world are not exempt from the above either! And whilst this is not leather as such, I should also point out that the type of thread used for sewing is not always in keeping for the item being stitched. I once saw a French & Indian War “period” shooting bag (not possibles bag) that this guy was selling here in the UK made out of modern shoe upper leather stitched by machine with nylon thread. And it sold! If the stitching doesn’t show, then it is not normally a problem, unless you are a purist that is, but for any stitching that is visible, a definite no!
At this point I should explain the term “made out of genuine split leather”. This is not a true indication that the leather is always of good quality; there are good splits and bad, the same as anything else in this world. Most people do not know what the term “split” means, and why should they. During the leather making process, the skins/hides have to be reduced in thickness (we normally use the term substance or weight) as well as being made an even substance all over. This operation is call splitting, which can either be carried out after the hides have been limed or after being tanned. The hide is fed into a machine that literally splits it into two layers, one being the top grain or grain split, the other is called the flesh or drop split which is essentially the waste part of the hide. Do not be put off with that statement though. Some very good leather is and can be made from this. The obvious use as far as we are concerned is to make fringed soft rifle slips such as was made mainly by the North American Indians and frontier folk back in the 18th and 19th centuries. The tannage is normally chrome and the leather, yes suede is leather (some think it is something different) is normally very hardwearing and lends itself well to making these sort of cases. Work or gardening gloves are very often made of chrome splits as well as some suede jackets. Although soft, it never will have quite the nice, rounded feel and handle of a nice piece of deer or elk be it brain or chrome tanned.
To be honest, I am not sure where to begin, as there are many things to be taken in to consideration plus, I do not want to get too deep into the finer points of all the processes in making leather.
Now before I get started, I do appreciate that cost can play a big part when it comes to choosing and using the correct type of leather for any particular piece or pieces to be made. There will always be those that can afford “museum quality” leather and goods but there are far more people or organisations that work on a tight budget and most times, have to make do with what they can find. Leather is not easily bought on the high street and very often is only available by mail order from specialist companies. Very often, these will be able to offer help and advice on what type of leather would be suitable for any given item or period of history.
In all this there is one definite, that being, chrome tanned leather has only been around since the 1890’s, commercially that is, and even then, its use was minimal in these early years. Experiments in mineral/chrome tanning were carried out in 1858 by F. L. Knapp and then by Christian Heinzerling in 1878, followed by Augustus Schultz in 1884 and Martin Dennis in 1893. It wasn’t until the early 1900’s that tanners started to adopt this method of tanning both in the USA and here in the UK.
The majority of leather being produced worldwide today is tanned using chromium salts as well as purely modern made tanning materials that we call syntans (synthetic tans) Whereas, vegetable tanned leather has been with us for thousands of years. Nobody knows for sure when or how man realised that hides/skins could be preserved using tannin from trees. No doubt that it was found by accident.
I will not dwell on the processes used in tanning hides and skins (skins are from small animals, up to and including calf, hides from larger animals. The terms light leather and heavy leather generally refer to skins and hides) as they are many, but suffice to say that in its un-dyed tanned condition, chrome tanned leather is a very pale blue colour, in fact it is referred to as “wet blue” and in its dried condition, “pearl crust”. Vegetable tanned leather can vary from very pale beige to a mid brown colour. I am talking about modern leather here using modern extracts, they being spray dried powders derived from tree bark, wood, pods and leaves. Historically though, these extracts were not available to the tanner, the tannin would be leached out of the raw material and made in to a tanning liquor, the same as when you brew tea. Another way, was to break up the bark (usually aged for a number of years) in to small pieces and these would be thrown on to the hide in the bottom of a pit, another hide/skin was laid on top and this was then covered in bark, this went on until the pit was almost full at which stage, water was used to fill the pit to the top. This was a very slow process, very often taking one whole year to complete. The colour of the leather would have been darker that we are used to seeing nowadays with possibly a patchy appearance. I have seen examples of oak bark tanned leather from a very old, well established tanner here in the UK that had a slight mottled appearance.
Now that I have got the history out of the way and a brief outline of processing I will get to the point of this article. Too many times I have seen the very obvious use of chrome tanned leather in the making of early period items, admittedly it may have been dyed brown or beige to hide the blue chrome colour and make it look period correct. But the main giveaway being the colour of the raw edge after the leather has been cut. If the leather has been “dyed through” or “through dyed”, you will see more or less the same colour as the surface but if it is not, you will see a line of a very pale blue/off white colour this is a definite no no. That will kill your carefully worked out display or impression stone dead!
If you cut a piece of vegetable tanned leather, you will see the surface colour goes all the way through. Interestingly, in the case of sword scabbard butts, only the surface of the hides are vegetable tanned, basically just to give it some colour leaving a raw centre which will show up as an off white colour.