Handmade Leather Belts

Leather is the ideal medium for handmade old world belt craftsmanship. An animal hide can be handmade into leather belts by several varied methods, each of these lend different properties to the end product. Leather tanned with vegetable-based products is soft and pliable but can be damaged by exposure to water. Alum-tanned leather, created with aluminum salts, is less supple and can rot in water, although it can be made in much lighter hues than vegetable-tanned leather.

A newer method of tanning leather belt material, using chromium salts, results in a very supple leather that holds up relatively well in water. Brain-tanned leather or buckskin, made with animal brains or other emulsified oils, is washable and significantly softer than any of the above varieties, but it is also the rarest, as it is costly and time-consuming to produce.

Stiffer, more durable types of leather, suitable for use in drums, handmade leather belts, book binding, and, historically, armor, are created with different methods. Rawhide is made by scraping animal hide, treating it with lime, and stretching it throughout the drying process. Boiling in water or wax is another method used to make extremely tough types of leather belts.

Other types of leather include patent leather, which has a very shiny, smooth finish, often coated with plastic; and shagreen, a rough leather usually colored green. Many special types of leather are used in luxury products from gloves to pocketbooks. Belting leather is heavy and durable and can retain its shape exceptionally well. Napa leather is known for its softness, as is slunk, made from the hide of a calf fetus. Vachetta leather is typically used as a trim on handbags.

The softer types of leather can be prepared in a few different ways. Full-grain leather, used in the finest leather products, is not altered past removing the hair and tanning the hide. Therefore, it requires raw materials of excellent quality. Top-grain leather is sanded on one side and given an artificial grain in order to hide imperfections in the raw material.