Sunday, September 25, 2011

Horween American Football Leather

Well, sort of... And then not quite




I just purchased some new leather and I have been wanting to show you pictures of it. Unfortunately the weather hasn't been friendly lately, so it has been impossible to take some pictures in good, natural lightning.

The leather was bought from a very friendly man in the US, who got the leather from his job. Now this isn't the regular football leather, that the American tannery Horween supplies to the likes of Wilson (check this video out), but it was specially tanned by Horween, according to this man. Knowing the relationship between Horween and the company, that he worked for, I do believe him.

Like I said, the leather was specially tanned for a very special project. Somebody got the idea that if the grain of the leather was inverted, then the ball would float better. Just like it is the case with the golf ball and its dimples. So instead of a convex grain, the grain was concave. The idea was patented - along with a lot of other things - but when the final project was realized, nobody seemed to care. They were all pretty satisfied with the regular football. This meant that the whole project was scrapped pretty quickly and instead the man, I finally bought the leather from, took it home with the intention of making leather aprons, but that didn't work out either.

I should probably have thought twice about buying two large hides of a leather, which were used in not only one, but two failed projects. But I loved the story and I love the colour and the grain of the leather. It is a bovine leather, but the grain texture is unlike anything I have ever seen. It could give the impression of an exotic leather, or possibly fish or bird skin. But it isn't and I have to say that the leather feels very hard wearing, although it is slightly thinner than the leather I normally work with.





If you have any good ideas to, what this leather can or should be turned into - not footballs, please - then please share your ideas in the comment section or send me and e-mail, I would love to hear from you.



5 comments:

  1. Hvor er det smukt. Umiddelbart tænker jeg taske.
    Prøv evt. at poste på styleforum, der plejer folk er at være fiffige.

    Iøvrigt tak for en god blog.

    Hr. M

    ReplyDelete
  2. Hej Hr M, jeg er glad for, at du synes, at bloggen er god. Jeg håber, at du vil deltage med flere kommentarer og input.
    Jeg tror også, at læderet vil være ret godt egnet som taskelæder og jeg har da også gået og brygget lidt på en idé, om at lave noget af det til en tote/shopper.
    Styleforum er et godt forum og også mit favoritforum, men lige netop i forbindelse med gør-det-selv er superfuture et bedre sted faktisk. Der er blandt andet en tråd dedikeret til os, der godt kan lide at lave læder selv.

    God dag

    Venligst, Simon

    ReplyDelete
  3. A pair of inverted leather Oxford shoes ;)

    ReplyDelete
  4. That is not a bad idea, Mike :-)

    I think I have an DIY moccasin tutorial lying around somewhere.

    The grain of the leather seems tough, so it might work. Now that we are thinking out loud.

    ReplyDelete
  5. Instead of an oxford you could also consider a a Norwegian split toe
    http://blog.leffot.com/wp-content/uploads/2011/06/DSC_0015.jpg
    or a derby
    http://images.esellerpro.com/2468/I/639/30/Shop_FileResources_images_products_zoom_stach.jpg

    Hr. M

    ReplyDelete