Storing Leather

[Centaur]

I just recieved a nice 12 sq ft piece of 7/8 oz shoulder leather from Seigel's of California. It came rolled up, in a long box.

My question is, is it better to store the leather rolled or flattened out?

 

[R Dannemann]

The ultimate luxury would be flat storage.

I keep mine rolled up until use because of space. Working with a bit of a curl doesn't seem to be a problem and usually the piece has decided to become flat before stitching.

Keeping it dry & clean is probably more important.

 

[L6steel]

I have mine stashed under my bed laying flat. When I need some I draw the pattern on it and cut off what I need. Sure beats draggin a huge chunk of the stuff thru the house.

 

[george tichbourne]

I put a hole in a corner and hang it up on the wall beside my leather bench.

 

[Nabok]

Either way, but keep it out of the light unless you plan on dyeing everything you make. The sun will "sunburn" vegetable tanned leather fairly quickly, artificial light is much slower but I think will still end up causing a reddish color. When I was doing leather work for a living we kept the weights of leather that we used a lot laid flat in a storage rack but we still tried to keep it covered with cardboard, stuff that didn?t get used often was kept rolled up in boxes. I saw one shop that used large diameter PVC pipe to store their leather.

Todd