Its first use of Hand Tooled Leather is lost in
history but
perfectly preserved leather items have been unearthed from
3,000-year-old Egyptian tombs, it is mentioned in the Bible and ancient
literature. Hand tooled leather has been highly valued in most civilizations though it original origins are lost in history.
-
Legend maintains that Spanish Moors decorated their homes
with hand-carved leather, probably the first recorded use of tooled
leather. These decorations were a variation of
wallpaper, possibly displaying various patterns, family names, crests or
coat of arms in his book "Historical Carvings in Leather."
-
Among the first guilds established during medieval times,
leather workers eventually controlled eleven of the 111 recognized
trades in London. In France, Charles the Sage established the Fraternity
of Leather Workers in 1397. In England, the Saddlers and Skinners Guild
built its guild hall in 1422. Richard Hukluyt, an English leather dyer, researched the Persian art of carving flowers into leather in 1579.
-
During the time of the Aztecs, artisans tooled leather items
as well as carved similar patterns in stone. Maddox states that they
probably performed "set stamp work," in which the leatherworker first
carves a design into an instrument and then hammers the instrument---and
transferring the design---into the leather with a wooden mallet. Many
modern raised-flower designs can be traced back to Aztec patterns.
-
Leather tooling became popular among cowboys and ranchers of
the "Wild West" for its ornamentation and expression of personal style.
Elaborately tooled saddles helped express pride in their owners'
horsemanship and identified individual possessions among cowboys with no
horses of their own. Chaps---especially bat wing chaps, with wide wings
buckled to the leg only at the knee---provided large surface areas for
tooling, overlays and inlayed leather patterns. Cuffs, originally
created to protect shirt sleeves and wrists from harm, became a fashion
statement when worn by rodeo riders.
-
Because of its thickness and quality of fibers, crafters of
leather tooling use only tanned cattle hides. These hides may be
split---or cut horizontally---several times, producing more useable
leather for a variety of commercial uses. Leather tooling crafters also
use only full-grain leather, which has had the hair removed but retains
its grain or epidermis. They require the finest leather, which covers
the choicest beef cuts.
-
Tanning leather removes its hair; increases its strength,
softness and pliability; and helps make it waterproof. Although several
tanning processes exist, leather to be used for tooling must be tanned
using vegetable materials such as bark, leaves, nuts and woods
containing tannin. Examples of these materials include hemlock, oak,
chestnut and quebracho or the iron tree. Traditionally originated by the
Biblical Hebrews, historic vegetable tanning took up to two years to
prepare a thick cowhide.
-
Throughout history, crafters used dyes to accent their
tooled leather. Before the mid-1800s, they created all dyes from
vegetable matter; since that time they have used products produced by
coal-tar or petroleum. The porous nature of leather allows the dyes to
soak into the grain and retain their color for many years.
Check out the hand tooled leather items I am curating in my store Just the Good Stuff
No comments:
Post a Comment