I have acquired two small tanned hides. One is a goat skin and the other is small kangaroo. Both have nice clean inner sides, but still have the hair/fur on the outer skin.
Q1. Do I just shave this for a raw leather finish?
Q2. Once the hair/fur is removed and it comes time to colour it, is there special dye or can I just paint it with a leather paint (used for shoes)?
If it has the hair still on it's probably not going to be tanned in a way that allows dye to work well on it. If you got it for tooling purposes you wasted your money. Most of those hair-on hides are for decoration and upholstery.
Thanks for that. Neither hide cost me anything as my father tans hides himself and he gave these to my wife for her 'teddy bear' making thing she does. She said that the leather would be course for her, so I decided I'd see what I can do with them. I was hoping these might be good to make a pair of leather MAGs from.
For shoes you'll want to find calf skin. It's pricey as hell, but really nice stuff.
Yeah so I now know. Like $500+ for a decent hide.Risu said:
This is my first attempt so given the outlay ($0) if it does not work out, no big loss.
OK started to remove the fur today off the roo hide. Man, what a job. I've gone through a pack or razors and have done maybe about 1/4 of the skin. I even experimented with VOOM hair removal stuff and it kind of works in very small areas.
If anyone have any proven methods for this, I am all ears.
That's why I don't buy leather online. There's a place in LA that sells full calfskin hides for about $150. I've had my eye on them for a while, can't wait to have the capital to start making my own shoes.
Didn't buy this online, it was given to me. I might ask my father is he is doing anymore tanning, to soak it lime or what they use to make the hair fall out.
Until then, it back to the razor I guess.
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