Leather is made from the hides or skins of animals,birds, reptiles, and fish. Two main stepsare involved in this process. First, the hides orskins are cured or dressed to prepare them fortanning. This curing process removes all theflesh, hair, and foreign matter. The hides arethen tanned to produce durable, useful leather.There are two general tanning methods—bark or vegetable and chrome tanning.In chrome tanning, salts of chromium are usedto process the hides. Chrome-tanned leathercannot be tooled, but it can be dyed andembossed.
Vegetable tanning makes use of the tannicacid that is found in bark, leaves, and othervegetable products. Leather made by vegetabletanning is toolable and is, in general, the mostsuitable for leathercraft.
Tanned leather, which is about the color ofhuman skin, is smoother grained, but can befurther finished by dyeing, glazing, buffing,graining, or embossing.
