Enough Leather

[KHickam]

I have 2 elk hides that I am gonna start working soon - they will be approximately 16 -18 sq feet when I finish brain tanning them, and smoking them. I have wanted a leather hunting frock or jacket for a while now. I am not a huge guy but I am bigger than I should be I am 5'9" weigh around 200 lbs and have a 44" chest and my shirt size is 16 1/2

Will this be enough or should I order another raw hide to begin working

 

Lay out your pattern on the hides. Do you have enough leather?

You do have a pattern? :wink:

 

[KHickam]

Not yet - trying to find a good pattern for it - like I said the hides are in the green - I got to wash the salt out of them - scrape them and buck them then dress them and frame and soften them. All of which will take me a month or so - and since they are not dressed yet would only be an educated guess - reason I am asking is because the supplier has limited numbers of salted hides and may not have any left in a bit - don't like elk for moccasins or leggings at all

 

[BrownBear]

Wish my wife was handy to fill in more (and more accurate) details, but it goes kinda like this:

Anyone experienced at sewing and working from patterns (my wife's been at it over 50 years) can gander a pattern and tell you exactly how much material and what dimensions you'll need for the project. It's more than just the square footage of material, but also the lengths of the runs for the various pieces.

Kinda like optimizing the layout for a bunch of parts onto a sheet of plywood before you cut it up. You can save a whole bunch of plywood by laying it out right, but no amount of twisting and patching together will make up if your pieces are longer than the material.

I shudder to think of the leather I wasted in my early years by simply grabbing a hide and hacking out the pieces I needed. I generated some huge scrap piles along the way. Now I'm real careful about how I lay out cuts from a hide or side, and I don't generate big enough scraps to be used for anything but finger cots.

 

[Ringel05]

I was looking at a buckskin shirt someone made, they claimed it took 4 hides. It was a fairly large shirt.

 

[Rifleman1776]

don't like elk for moccasins or leggings at all

My elk skin breeches are the most comfortable piece of clothing I have ever worn.
Would like to have some elk mocs. But not likely since I have given up on ronnies.

 

[Billnpatti]

I'd love to have a pair of elk skin breeches but it might endanger the herd and put elk on the endangered list. :haha:

 

[Rifleman1776]

I'd love to have a pair of elk skin breeches but it might endanger the herd and put elk on the endangered list. :haha:

Mine were made by a friend more than 20 years ago. They have been kind enough to grow with me. :grin:

 

[omarick1948]

I think to be on the safe side. I would get one more hide, as brain tanning three hides instead of two isn't that much more work, as your already will be set-up to two others. __ you can always use any extra leather for other projects.

JMHO, :wink:
Rick

 

[Claude Mathis]

I was looking at a buckskin shirt someone made, they claimed it took 4 hides. It was a fairly large shirt.

Correct, the way the Plains shirts were made. 1-front, 1-back, 2- sleeves.

 

[tenngun]

Braintanning robs some useable size.It takes 4 hides to make a shirt but deer tend to be in the 8-14 foot range.You wont realy be able to tell until your done tanning.Then how taliored are you going to make it?.If you have a two piece back it will take more skin then a single boxxy fit."crude and ill fitting"is right for frontiesman coats...but so is well taliored and you want to be happy for years to come.Most likly you will need a third skin.

 

[Doc Arroyo]

Work out your pattern first. The war shirt posted is four deer hides, but your elk should be 1 1/2 to 2 times bigger. A war shirt of a square cut hunting shirt requires less material than a more tailored coat like the Metis style coats. Shape and placement on the hides may take more than you realize too.

My buckskin coat has a tailored back piece that only looked right if cut from the center back of a deer hide. If I had stuffed the pieces tight together I could have made due with 4 deer hides, but making sure the leather grain was in the right direction, and the thickness worked for the various parts, I used 6 deer hides for the coat. Using the extra hides helped me build a coat that hangs right, fits the way I want, and will probably outlive me.