Leather for Sporran Making

[artificer]

I have been considering trying to build my own sporran, but have been having a hard time finding a supplier for leather. Yes, I have considered finding a leather coat at Goodwill/Thrift stores to practice with and probably will. However I got to wondering how the hide gets from animal to ready to use? I have friends who hunt so deer and other wild game hides would not be hard to come by but then what?? I know that we have so wonderful leather workers on this forum and I would love to learn from your experiance.

Graham

The process of tanning leather is quite involved, but there are two main types.

Vegetable tanned leather- (USUALLY tooling leather, but there are other types like harness/bridle leather)

and

Chrome tanned leather (jackets, gloves, etc).

If your friends hunt and you would like the hides tanned you can look up tanneries in your area. There is usually a small or even 'hobby' tanner for hides in any area with enough wildlife to sustain hunting.

As has been recommended, Tandy Leather is a good place to start.

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