Leather Watch Straps

Leather Watch Straps are the most common watch bands used with watches. They are very flexible and durable. Thanks to a variety of possible leather which can be used to produce a leather watch strap, leather watch straps can vary by colour, pattern or grain. This makes leather straps very unique and fashionable. For example the orange leather watch strap can be installed on a watch with the dial in orange. The most accessible leather is calf leather hence most of the watch straps are made of it. However, exotic leather such alligator/crocodile, ostrich, shark or lizard leather is also used in production but straps can cost relatively more.

There are many different ways how a leather watch band can be built. The technique of producing watch straps differ from one manufacturer to another. However in the simplest possible way a classic leather watch strap has three elements such as upper leather, fleece padding and lower lining. The upper leather is wrapped around fleece padding and tucked under lower lining. Then all three pieces are stitched together. There are also straps which are made of a single piece of leather. It means that there is no upper leather, fleece padding or lining. The strap is cut out of a sheet of leather in wanted shape.

The leather industry is a very big and complex structure. There are many legislations and definitions which concern many areas i.e. Health & Safety or International Trade. One of the major tasks of the leather industry in the UK is utilizations of hides or skins which would, if the industry did not exist to process them, create an enormous waste disposal problem with the attendant health hazards. Leather is a renewable natural resource and if leather wasn't produced it would have to be replaced by synthetic materials non-renewable resources.

According to the definition leather is hide or skin with its original fibrous structure more or less intact, tanned to be imputrescible. The hair or wool may, or may not, have been removed. It is also made from a hide or skin that has been split into layers or segmented either before or after tanning. There are more professional terms and definitions used in the leather industry. Some of them have been listed below.

• ANILINE DYED - Leather that has been dyed by immersion in a dyebath and has not received any coating of pigment finish.
  
  
• ANTIQUE GRAIN - A surface pattern of markings or creases, usually irregular, in which the hollows are often given a contrasting colour to produce a two-tone or two-colour effect. The creases are produced by embossing, boarding or other similar means.
  
  
• BARK TANNED - Leather vegetable tanned mainly by means of the tannins contained in the barks of trees, the leather in process coming in contact with the raw bark.
  
  
• BUFFED LEATHER - Leather from which the top surface of the grain has been removed by an abrasive or bladed cylinder or, less generally by hand. In the case of upholstery leather the buffing process is invariably carried out by machine though it is sometimes incorrectly described as "hand buffed".
  
  
• CORRECTED GRAIN LEATHER - Leather from which the grain layer has been partially removed by buffing to a depth governed by the condition of the raw material and upon which a new surface has been built by various finishes.
  
  
• CURRIED LEATHER - Leather, usually vegetable tanned, which has been subjected to the currying process, i.e. a series of dressing and finishing processes applied to leather after tanning in course of which appropriate amounts of oils and greases are incorporated in the leather to give it increased tensile strength, flexibility and water-resisting properties.
  
  
• EMBOSSED LEATHER - Leather embossed or printed with a raised pattern either imitating or resembling the grain pattern of some animal, or quite unrelated to a natural grain pattern.
  
  
• FULL GRAIN - Leather bearing the original grain surface as exposed by removal of the epidermis and with none of the surface removed by buffing, snuffing or splitting. In contrast see "corrected grain".
  
  
• GRAIN - (1) The pattern characterised by the pores and peculiar to the animal concerned, visible on the outer surface of a hide or skin after the hair or wool and epidermal tissue have been removed. (2) An abbreviation for "grain split".