We love handmade, love the warmth and stories behind handmade leather goods, I wonder if you have ever noticed the texture and stitching of each handmade leather goods, because these details are what make rustic and exquisite leather goods, and it is these handmade skills that make our love more genuine.
Popmoca has been making handmade leather goods for more than twenty years, from early morning to late evening, following the footsteps of the seasons, focused and persistent, but also accumulated a lot of experience, now these precipitations are gathered into {seeking the beauty of technology} from time to time to share to love handmade leather goods you.
Seeking the beauty of techniques
Features of Leather
Good leather is hard to find, and a craftsman who is worthy of good leather is even rarer.
Leather is like an individual personality, with its personality, and treating each leather seriously is the basic dignity of a craftsman. When you treat it well and respect it, it will be like a fish like water, like the wind like a dragon, into the way you want it to be.
Wallets, backpacks, shoes, car seats, sofas, cell phone cases, etc. The time you spend every day in contact with leather is much longer than you think about yourself. Thinking seriously about leather, leather becomes extra important for everyone. From ordinary leather users to newcomers to the leather pit, and then to the experienced master craftsman, each of us is troubled by the same problem, what leather is "good leather", when facing a leather should be from what aspects to judge its quality?
As the saying goes, an insider should look at the door, and an outsider should look at the hustle and bustle, and the selection of leather should not be considered only from the aspect of value. Such a selection method often leads to a variety of problems in the subsequent use: errors in the process, the effect of the expected discrepancies, incompatible tools, and so on.
What kind of vegetable tanned leather do you want? What kind of vegetable tanned leather do you want?
From the producer's point of view, there are only two perspectives to measure the merits of leather.
1. The difficulty of each process applied to the leather during the production process.
2. The final result of the finished product, how much does the appearance and texture of the leather contribute to it?
In terms of appearance, the choice of leather surface texture is particularly important.
Full-grain, trimmed, half trimmed half grain, different leather surface treatment process brings a very different texture, usually, grass hall tend to light trimmed leather, leather surface neatness is higher, high gloss texture, make the leather more advanced.
Appearance is an easier criterion to judge, but the difficulty of the process operation is often difficult to identify at a glance.
For the leather density, firmness, oil, tannic acid type of judgment will need to have full experience or some individual tips. For both makers and users, there is a preference for hides with higher oil and better density and firmness. Such hides are relatively superior, both in terms of handling and the results after use. The value of good leather is often much higher than the premium price of the leather, both in terms of the quality of the piece and the time saved for the maker.
Oil is not everything about leather, but oil can affect everything
Oil is one of the most important indicators of leather.Vegetable-tanned leather with high grease is not only excellent in terms of luster, elasticity, wrinkle, and bending resistance, but also in the process of "sealing".
The edges after sealing are polished, and the color is much darker than that of the less greasy leather, giving it a more advanced luster and making the work look stable and layered.
Not only sealing, but even cutting such a basic process also need the cooperation of good leather, when the cutting knife walking in the better grease leather, the kind of hot knife-like cutting butter feeling of ease, ease of operation, will greatly enhance the accuracy of cutting, and even better labor-saving.
Many people will choose to hand fatten the poorer hides after they are purchased. But at present, there are only a limited number of reagents for hand greasing, among which only cow's foot oil, horse oil, and mink oil are available, only horse oil can stay in the leather fiber, and it is not seen to be fully combined with the leather and stay. That's why most leather lovers find that the leather after playing once the cow's foot oil, only the color becomes darker once, a day or two later will return to the original lack of oil state.
Therefore, in the tanning process, the tannery will usually give priority to the use of horse oil, so that the tanned leather will have relatively long-lasting oil retention, but of course, there are also special types of hides with other oils, such as fish oil.
Style is The wind vane of leather selection
There are many different types of leather, each with its characteristics, the fundamental reason is that the production needs of leather goods are also different. So is there a difference in the quality of leather? If so, what are the criteria for judging it?
The answer is extraordinarily simple - is the style of leather goods.
The style of leather goods is composed of three aspects: the basic leather material, the applied technology, and the structural design of leather goods. One of the most basic is the leather material.
For example, rugged, wild, vintage style is based on crazy horse leather and oil wax leather and born; literary, fashionable, simple style is full-grain and lychee grain cowhide design. The style touch brought by the basic texture of leather is the basis of the design.
It is not simply a craft feature but accumulated over time, generations of craftsmen and users together constitute an aesthetic system that is difficult to shake.
Popmoca selected leather for the Italian vegetable tanned cowhide, the density of the leather tightness, while the leather and added horse oil to ensure the abundance of oil and lasting, the leather surface after the series of time will produce magical changes, greatly increasing the texture of the leather.