Leather price?

[wisconsinteacher]

I stopped at a shoe shop to ask about leather for my new knife.  They want $12 a square foot.  Is this fair or not?

[Roughcountry]

It would depend on the leather. What kind, where in the side it comes from and so on.

I would say you could get good skirting, out of the very best area in a side for slightly less.
 (about 11.00 a foot) If you went with number 2 grade you could drop anouther buck off that price. Number 2 grade will have slight blemishes that might not matter to your project and may be just as good in the long run.

Keep in mind that the best leather is close to the back bone, with the best of that in the butt. When you are buying by the side, all the leather below the break in the side is junk and can only be used as liner.( but you pay the tannery the same price as the stuff in the butt)

So most shops charge at a higher rate for the better leather to cover the cost of you leaving them with the junk. Or worse they will sell you the junk to cover the cost of buying the good stuff   :(

[LC]

Well it sounds like Roughcountry knows his leather for sure so I'd take and seriously consider his advice. But I'm just a hobbist knife & sheath maker and what I do is watch Tandy sale ads and alot of times they have 1/2 shoulder sales for around $29. I usually order the 6/7oz and it will have a couple "range" spots on it but it's usually very consistent in thickness and about 85% useable for me. Now that equats to ALOT of sheaths. I use to buy full shoulders of top quality leather for around $90.

[skullworks]

I do like LC! I couldn't afford to pay $12 a foot for leather...OUCH!

[DANA HOLMAN]

Teacher, check out tandys like LC said, after christman i bought 1/2 side of 9 oz for 45.00, it had about 13 sq ft. i think it was 2.99 sq ft. at the time. normaly it runs about 3.99 or 4.99 sq ft. also jantz supply has leather 8-9 oz for 9.95 sq ft. they are in okla.
dana

[OconeeDan]

Tandy 7-8oz double shoulder Item 9051-32 is perfect for most sheath applications.  4.65/sq ft, for wholesale club price.  5 something retail.
Dan

[R H Clark]

Also the shoe leather is probably not veg. tanned.You only want veg tanned as crom.tanned will cause a carbon steel blade to rust.