Testing our Veg. Tanned Leather for Consistency with a Leather Gauge

For most companies, when they purchase synthetic materials they can assume that they are going to be extremely consistent. The leather industry is quite different, especially for us. The reason for this is because leather is an extremely natural material, especially vegetable tanned leather. Once we receive and un package the leather the first thing that we must do is check for imperfections. Imperfections can be very inconsistent finishes, scratch marks, wrinkles, and so on. A lot of the previous listed imperfections must be severe for us to reject the leather. Now, the main detail we look at is the actual thickness of the leather. How we do this is by using a leather thickness gauge that is shown in the image below. By using the spring loaded gauge with a deep throat we are able to get accurate readings of pretty much the entire hide. Thickness consistency is wicked important for us because we use long strips of leather to make belts. If our belts are extremely thick on one side and extremely thin on other it does not work. To make a very nice high quality belt you want the thickness to be consistent throughout the strap. Thanks for reading and we hope this helped explain a bit of the leather crafting process!