Leather is one of the fundamental products of early civilization. It was one of the earliest discovered materials that could be produced to fit several diverse needs. Leather ended up being essential for several other truly basic products that civilization could never have developed without. The leather trade developed from the simple need to make clothing and tools that would not rot away. Leather was really the first example of rudimentary chemistry to engineer a base material to fit specialized needs. As leather crafters became skilled, they learned that different methods of curing and tanning leather could drastically change the leather's base characteristics. Some leathers could be made hard and firm, others soft and flexible. This versatility has made leather a prized commodity in nearly every time period and culture.

The Down and Dirty Details of Leather Tanning

Production of leather is not a simple matter. First appropriate hides must be obtained. These generally come from cattle that are raised and slaughtered, though other animals such as buffalo can work just as well. After this, the leather workers remove all traces of animal flesh they can from the hide. After this, the hide must soak in water for several days to purge it of blood and oils. Next, the hide is salted to dry it out for a few days. Next a paste is made from lime and water which is applied to the hair on the hide. After several days the lime paste makes rubbing the hair away a reasonable task. After this, the hide must soak in water for another two days to saturate the lime paste away. After this, the hide is rubbed down with all manner of extracts and boiled in vats of foul smelling concoctions for days. These chemical treatments are part art and part science among leather workers. The materials used are generally quite common such as herbs and bark. After this treatment, the hide is stretched out on a rack and left to dry for several days, only then will it be considered actual leather. Occasionally after this the leather is further treated with more finishing oils and dyes. Now it is finally ready to be cut and sewn into useful products.

Who does Leather Working?

The making and fashioning of leather is one of mankind's oldest professions. Throughout history, this process has been subdivided into several specialized crafts with specialized titles. Titles like skinner, tanner, cobbler and glover are all related to professionals which were involved in the process of animal hides being turned into useful products. For the sake of simplicity, we will use "Leather Workers" as the generic classification for all individuals who cut, clean, salt, boil, lime, treat, tan, dry, tailor and fashion animal hides into leather goods.

How much leather working can we get done?

The amount of work that Leather Workers do is expressed and represented in LWS, or Leather Working Units. How many LWUs worth of work that can be done come from how many Leather Workers you have, and what their ranks are. A table providing information about how many LWUs a Leather Worker produces is provided below.

Other Required Materials and Tools

Animal Hides- The most basic thing a leather worker need to ply his craft is animal hide from which to make leather. All manner of animals can and have been used, with cattle, deer, sheep and pigs being common. Animals can be kept and breed for this purpose or hunted. Most information shows that cattle produce about 45 square ft of hide each. Because flat cloth-like materials in this system are measures in 10 by 10 ft sheet units, we will assume that each head of cattle produces ½ unit of hide when slaughtered. Smaller animals well produce less. More information about raising, slaughtering and hunting animals can be found in other sections. In real life there are serious considerations about what kind of leather from what kind of animal is needed for what kinds of products. That is complexity far beyond what I want to deal with here, so we will assume that animal hide is animal hide.

Tools - Any leather worker who you want to work his craft will need to have a set of "Leather Working Tools". These kits contain special skinning knives, scissors, punches, hammer and awls. They also contain some rudimentary wood whittling tools to fabricate small wooden components for leather products as well as frames to stretch and dry leather on.

Lime- Lime solution plays a vial part in preparing hide to be tanned into leather. Fortunately lime can be dug up anywhere and easy refined by those who know how. Because of this, we figure this effort to collect and refine necessary lime into the LWUs of all projects. If you have leather workers working leather, you can assume they are producing the lime solution they need.

Table- Properly preparing, cutting and tailoring leather requires a sturdy table to work on. Each leather worker must have 1 large table to himself to work properly. Not having one will decrease his LCU output by half.

Cauldron- Because an important part of producing leather is soaking it in water at various points and boiling it with special concoctions, you will need a big metal pot. More specifically, you will need 1 cauldron for every 2 leather workers plying their craft. Cauldrons are large metal creations that are generally cast iron.

Fuel- Because creating leather requires boiling it in a cauldron, your leather working enterprises will require fuel. Fuel is generally in the form of fire wood, coal or charcoal. Unlike many other firing processes, coal or charcoal are no more efficient at boiling the cauldron than firewood, thus firewood is generally the fuel of choice because it is cheapest. Running a leather industry consumes 20 units of fuel per unit of animal hide being converted into leather.

Extracts- Chemical treatment is the most important part of the leather tanning process. In modern days, leather companies have state of the art chemical formulas engineered and produced by high end chemical companies. In the dark ages, leather tanners learned to produce their own concoctions by trial and error using materials like bark, and leaves which were readily available. In this system we assume that you need not provide your leather workers any special materials for this because they are out foraging and experimenting with new mixtures all the time. Oil extracts are also applied after tanning and drying. These are derived and produced in the same manner as the tanning concoctions.

Needles- Because many leather products rely in sewing to be fabricated, sewing needles are important. Because leather is so much tougher than cloth, leather workers tend to break them more quickly then tailors. Sewing needles are used up (broken) during leather tailoring and will need to be provided / replaced frequently. On average, one Sewing Needle will be used up for every 100 LCUs your leathers workers use making sewn products. This does not include LCUs used in converting animal hide into leather. How many sewing needles are used up will be calculated on an item by item basis on the product list below for simplicity. Because they are metal and require very skilled crafting, they are rather considerable by medieval standards. Fractions of sewing needles expended are rounded up to the nearest whole on a month to month basis.

Thread- Thread is an important commodity to any professional who sews. Fortunately, leather crafters traditionally used sinew which was a byproduct of skinning and butchering an animal for hide and meat. Leather workers need not be provided thread because they use the sinew from the carcass the hide comes from.

Facility

Leather crafters do not need any sort of facility or building to work in fair weather. Letting them work without a building will give you 75% LCU efficiency during the spring and summer months. If you want them to work fall and winter, they will need a place to do that in. A basic building for leather crafter should have at least 40 square foot of floor space per leather worker. Traditionally, leather tanning is a particularly odorous industry and was frequently far from other buildings. Many older cities had special wards and districts where they stuck industries like tanning that were offensive to others too near to them.

Leather Goods

Example

Let's say you have 2 adept leather workers. Together they produce 600 LWUs per month. They will need 1 cauldron and 2 large tables and 2 sets of leather working tools to do their jobs. You would like them to produce as many saddles as they can this month. A saddle is 50 LWUs each, so they can make 12 with their 600 LWUs. Because a saddle requires ½ unit of animal hide each, those 12 saddles will require your leather workers be provided 6 units of animal hide (which generally entails slaughtering 12 heads of cattle). Each saddle consumes 10 units of fuel, so 120 units will be required in total. Each saddle uses up 3/10 a sewing needle, so 12 saddles use up 4 needles (36/10, rounded up to 4). Total cost of your 12 saddles is 600 LWUs, 6 units of animal hide, 120 units of firewood and 4 sewing needles.