The Upholstery Forum

@Bondo497 ,

Man I can smell deer a 2 thousand miles away. Keep that hide and soak it in a tub of Ivory bar soap for a week then scrape the hair off, stretch it out and let it dry it will be a nice piece of leather.

@BigRig
Thanks for the advice!!! He has been trading the hides for the processing but next one I'm keeping!

@BigRig
I just talked to my son and he said no he wasn't trading them anymore and he was only getting $10 for them so he said I could have all of them he gets this year. I may do some wallets and hand bags but either way they won't go to waste anymore.

@Bondo497 ,

Gloves are the ticket for them!

@Bondo497 ,

Here is an idea for you, if the gal is traditional archery you can use the hide to make a quiver. That would be great practice for you.

@BigRig
Yeah I guess it would be too thin for a wallet. I think she does bow hunt some so yeah she would probably like that. ...... Working on Christmas!!

@Bondo497 ,

Me too man! Mocassins with that deer hide, visit Tandy Leather for a variety of furs (rabbit).

@BigRig
I just ordered from their outlet website Thursday, I got some remnants of veg tan leather and a shoulder of their Sundance.

when I was young my uncle lived in Oregon . He would have me mark around my hand and send him drawing to have a pair of deer skin gloves made I never used for work till I almost out grew them but gosh were they tough used mostly when loading baled hay. Now Kansas have so many deer I watched about a dozen cross my pasture between the creek and the timber . Sure gets my dog upset

@hapyrdr
I'm sure going to give these hides a try. Here in Georgia they just passed a law legalizing hunting over a baited field because there are so many and truthfully the reason is probably insurance companies are paying out so much for deer collisions. Problem now is how long will the population last now that you can cheat hunt per say?

yes the hunting laws have changed here a lot over the years I've done in a couple of vehicles to the deer I think the deer population will do alright we grain feed them here you know

@hapyrdr ,

I watched two videos and proceeded to a third of a 04 hour video and was completely lost at 11:24minutes in when you have to translate measurements to a diagram but absolutely no explanation on his diagram. I did see allowance for shrinkage of leather in the measurements so would think this is not necessary when doing it in vinyl. Let me know how you make out on developing a pattern for your wheel.

If you look at this pattern there is NO way that I can fold the pattern in half and run an empty needle down to get my holes for hand stitching as both sides of the wheel are different shaped pattern.

How is a guy supposed to get holes in this? I have a pretty good pattern made out of vinyl and leather is ready to cut but missing a serious element here! I have Serabraid ready to go, thanks RELICATE!

I wish I could help you out. But I’ve never done a steering wheel. Want to try but not on a customer. Maybe just a thought is the forked tool that workers use to punch holes in leather?

@Cody, I have done some and have been using the fork so am just going to stitck to that since I do not think there is much way around it. So anybody reading this able to tell me the spacing between the holes?

@BigRig You can mach - glue the vinyl pattern you have and mark it incrementally with whatever your favorite marking choice is (I like the pens from Leatherseats.com) starting from center out on each section. Typically i do anywhere between 4-6mm depending on the sitch style. Then run it through your sewing machine by hand and hit your alignment marks.

@jdenison89 , thank you! I am going to do this with the vinyl pattern and see how it goes before cutting the leather. Ever use goat skin? That is what I have for leather.

I useally run it through my sewing machine with no thread installed so that it just makes holes.

@John, so both sides of the pattern are not the same. I would just run the empty needle down one side the whole diameter of the wheel cover. No guarantee holes will match up but thats ok?

Depends on the style of stitching your doing. If your worried about each hole lining up then make sure to start the holes at the same point. Also the fabric stretches witch will all the holes to align them selves when you pull the thread tight.