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Types of Leathers used in glove making.

LEATHER: is a natural product ideal for glove making owing to its great strength and flexibility.

TYPES OF LEATHER:

COW HIDE LEATHER: some lower priced gloves are made from cowhide leather, ideal for working gloves. Nubuck the top grain cow hide leather is used for some casual styles of glove. Nubuck is sanded or buffed on the grain side, producing a velvet-like surface. It lacks the suppleness and appearance of Hairsheep leather but is resistant to wear.



HAIR SHEEP LEATHER: a superior leather for gloves is hairsheep, cabretta leather. This top grade leather is mainly sourced from Ethiopia or Nigeria. It has great strength, plus the important benefit of natural elasticity, which helps the glove to fit properly. The sheep itself grows hair not wool. This is a consequence of its environment. Hairsheep leather is neither thick nor bulky like cowhide. The leather benefits from softness of touch, suppleness, strength and lasting comfort. Hairsheep is durable and is particularly suited for the manufacture of dress gloves.

Hairsheep gloves

SHEEPSKIN & SLINK LAMB: the finest lambskin is normally from New Zealand and is often referred to as slink lambskin. It is used only in the most expensive lambskin gloves. Sheepskin leather is often called shearling. It is widely used for casual and country gloves and have a looser fit than other types of leather gloves. It is very warm to wear in cold weather, and has its own natural wool lining from the wool on the sheep. The sheepskin leather is heavier and firmer than slink lambskin. Sheepskin wool is a pure organic product.

Sheepskin gloves Slink Lambskin gloves

GOATSKIN LEATHER: occasionally used for gloves, it is hardwearing but coarser than other gloves. May sometimes have a Nappa finish to soften the hide. Usually used for cheaper ranges of gloves.

LAMB NAPPA: this leather is chrome-tanned producing an extremely soft and supple leather. Used for high quality leather goods.

Nappa gloves

DEERSKIN: the finest deerskin comes from North America. Deerskin along with hairsheep leather has the benefit of great strength and elasticity, but has a more rugged appearance with more grain on the surface. It is very hard wearing and heavier in weight than Hairsheep leather. It is most popular in men's gloves.

Deerskin Gloves

PECCARY: Is the world's rarest and most luxurious gloving leather, originating from wild hogs in South America. We, Gloves on Hand supply Dents gloves which is one of the few glove manufacturers in the world that still uses this very special leather. The major reason is that only a master glove cutter with unique skills can cut this special leather. It is also a difficult leather to sew, requiring a hand sewer with special skills of dexterity to sew the luxury leather. Peccary leather is very hard wearing and it is increasingly found in fewer and fewer shops, due to its rarity and exclusiveness.

Peccary Gloves

PITTARDS: Pittards is a tannery in Yeovil, England and is the world's premier glove tannery. Pittards is dedicated to producing the world's finest and most technologically advanced gloving leathers. The Tannery invests in the most modern machinery to protect the environment. Its luxury leathers are used by Dents, and the world's leading designer brands. Dents leather buyers have been buying hairsheep leather otherwise known as Cabretta from Pittards for over 100 years, but they also source other types of leather globally. Pittards gloves are known for their colour fastness and water repellency. Gloves made from Pittards tanned leather

LEATHER GRADES:

The grade or quality of leather is usually indicative of appearance and not glove wearing quality. The wearing quality, ie softness and toughness is generally determined by the weight.

Full Grain:A soft and subtle hide ofter taken from the upper section. These hides are not buffed or sanded which means the grain remains in its natural state allowing best fiber strength and durability along with better breathability.

Top Grain:Unlike the name this is not the highest quality. Slight imperfections where a deer or lamb may have rubbed against a branch could be on the leather. Hence this leather is often stamped with a grain, often to imitate peccary leather which has a natural course grain apperarance. The major advantages over a full grain hide is its price plus Top Grain has a greater resistance to stains

Split Leather:Often used to make suede. It is taken from the fibrous underlayer that is found once the top grain has been removed. There are variety of techniques to make a split leather look full-grain. One way is to apply a leather finish to one side of the split leather which is then pressed together through rollers giving the aperance of a full grain. A full grain if lightly scratched will leave a lighter coloured streak.

TANNING: tanning is the process that converts the raw hide or skin into leather, a stable material which will not putrefy and can be worked on in many ways to produce different types of leather. The hides are located in a drum and immersed in a tanning liquor. The most commonly used tanning liquor is chromium, which leaves the leather once tanned a pale blue colour (due to the chromium), this product is commonly called “wet blue”. The hides soak in the tanning material while the drum slowly rotates and the liquor gradually penetrates through the hide. The skins are then dried and sorted according to type, weight and quality.

Tanning Drum "Wet blue" Hide

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