The Harness Makers' Guide. 



On the other hand, the dealer or saddlers' ironmonger more 

 frequently stocks a light fleshed leather, under the impression that 

 it is not weighted. Now this is a fallacy, for whereas harness 

 leather, weighted on the flesh side by drumming or brushing into 

 it melted sugar or other heavy weighing saccharine matter, possesses 

 a light, bright coloured flesh, while the leather well and thoroughly 

 curried with best cod oil and tallow is not so firm as the dry, 

 harsh, smart-looking weighted leather, but has a well-filled, fat, 

 dark mahogany-coloured flesh. With this latter there may be a 

 little more difficulty in keeping the wax on the thread, but this is 

 of little importance as compared with the more waterproof nature 

 ©f the leather, its freedom from any tendency to crack, its well 

 lubricated fibre, increasing in a remarkable way the tensile strength 

 of the leather and its consequent durability. 



Touching on the subject of cracky leather, it may be mentioned 

 that the most fruitful source of this complaint is the drumming in 

 of melted sugar, glucose, or other crystalline weighting matter 

 which penetrates the grain, and it follows that when this cools it 

 forms minute crystals, fixing the fibre and making the surface 

 brittle. There are, however, two other genuine causes for this 

 trouble. When the raw hide arrives at the tannery, and before it 

 goes to the liquors, it is passed through "limes" of varying 

 strengths to part the hair from the pelt, and this makes the grain 

 brittle and has to be counteracted by subsequent bating and scouring 

 processes. If this is not scientifically and thoroughly done it will 

 never produce a kind mellow grain, and that absence from crack 

 that is so vital to the durability of the leather. If the stitches 

 sink readily and easily into the grain, it may be taken as an 

 indication of a well-bated and thoroughly scoured leather, and care 

 should be exercised in sewing such leather not to pull through too 

 hard. The third cause of leather cracking is too quickly drying 

 (after setting or resetting) in a strong east wind. This requires 

 care in the drying sheds, and the louvre or weather boards should 

 Ije regulated accordingly. 



Any unbiassed article on the subject of " Choosing Leather " 

 must necessarily draw attention to the almost universal use of 

 artificial weighting materials in the production of harness leather, 

 with the object of being able to sell at a low price. It may be 

 taken as an axiom that all such weighting materials of a deleterious 

 nature are soluble in water, and it therefore follows that if two 

 pieces of leather, one weighted, the other not, are soaked in water 

 and re-dried, the weighted piece will suffer greater loss in weight 

 than the unweighted piece. For exact data, the pieces to be tested 

 must be cut from the same part of the hide, and must be of the 

 same substance and weight. It also follows that the leather that 

 lias lost most will be the least waterproof, for a sound bark tannage 

 and scientifically blended greases are little affected by immersion 

 in water. On the other hand, it is a fatal test for common extract 

 tannages and artificial weighting materials of any kind, as both 

 are soluble in water and soak out during the period of immersion. 



Though the adulteration of harness leather is so universal, it^ is 

 not always practicable for the harness maker to detect it with 

 certaintv, and it is a safe plan, when buying from your ironmonger 



