leather gear

[farmboy]

I have got some leather gear to go wth my CW era firearms.
Boxes, belts, etc.
The belts and shoulder straps are like others I have observed.
They seem awfully thin and stiff. Not the stuff of heavy use.
Were the originals like this?
Jus' curious.

[cw1865]

I actually sell leather goods online and have learned quite a lot about the industry. The brief answer to your question is NO, the leather goods produced in the 19th century were much thicker. The splitting machines that are used today are very precise and quite literally split the leather on its width side, the machines are amazing and they quite literally double the amount of usable leather, BUT at the expense of thickness. These machines simply did not exist in the 19th century.

Also a sizable percentage of the leather used in the 1860s was what was called belting leather which was quite litereally used to make industrial strength leather belting. There's nothing more durable than that! A lot of the goods were made out of this stuff. Its very expensive today....Hope that helps.

[johan_steele]

If I may ask, where did you purchse your gear? THere are a lot of vendors out there and their quality varies greatly.

[farmboy]

I have picked up various odds and ends at various places.
I believe cw 1865 pretty well covers it.
I'm real familiar with leather gear from 20th century Europe.
Heavy and durable. Not much of the gear I have, like cartridge box slings seem to be as sturdy.
I grew up on a frm in the 50's and seem to recall leather goods being more durable in those days.
We had a big leather belt that ran from a pulley on the farmall to power various old machinery we had.
That was quite an item.
Thanks, fellers.