About LeatherSecrets

What This Site Is — And Isn’t

LeatherSecrets is a small, independent, advertising-supported site built around one subject: leather. That means six free calculators for people who work with hides, a set of buying and care guides for people who own leather goods, and a museum of leather craft and history built from public reference material. Display ads are what pay for it — there is no subscription, no paywall, and no account required to use anything here.

It is worth being just as clear about what this site is not. LeatherSecrets is not a leather shop, a tannery, or a repair workshop, and it has no affiliation with any tannery, brand, or leathercraft body it may mention. It is not staffed by a formal team of leatherworkers with published credentials, and nothing published here should be read as an appraisal of a specific hide or finished piece. It is a reference and toolset, not a service.

The calculators on this site do arithmetic on the numbers you give them — a hide’s weight, a project’s area, a waist measurement — using standard leathercraft conversions. They cannot see your actual hide, machine, or stitching, so treat every result as a starting estimate, not a guarantee. For anything that matters — a costly hide purchase, a load-bearing strap or harness, restoration of an heirloom piece — check the number against a qualified leatherworker, the material supplier, or the manufacturer before you cut, buy, or repair.

The Tools

Each calculator solves one specific, recurring leathercraft problem:

• Leather Weight → Thickness Calculator — turns a supplier’s weight-in-ounces listing into a millimetre thickness you can check against a pattern or a caliper.
• Hide Yield Calculator — divides a hide’s usable square footage by a project’s footprint to estimate how many copies it will cut.
• Leather Project Cost Calculator — multiplies project area by price per square foot for a materials-only estimate, useful for pricing a commission or comparing hides.
• Belt & Strap Length Calculator — adds a buckle-and-tip allowance to a waist or fitting measurement so you cut the strap long enough the first time.
• Rivet Spacing Calculator — divides an edge or seam length by your target spacing to lay out an even run of rivets.
• Saddle Stitch Thread Calculator — multiplies seam length by a thread factor so you cut enough waxed thread before you start stitching.

All six are free, run without an account, and live at the addresses linked above — there are no other calculators on this site beyond the ones listed here.

Guides & The Leather Museum

Beyond the tools, the blogcarries buying and care articles — how to tell full-grain from corrected-grain, how often to condition a jacket, what to look for in a well-made belt. The Learn section is a reference on leather types, tanning methods, and leatherworking terms, and The Leather Museumis a browsable timeline of leather craft and history. Both the Learn reference and the museum are drawn from Wikipedia and Wikimedia Commons rather than written in-house, and are presented as background reading, not as this site’s own original research.

Why There Are Ads

Keeping every tool and guide free means the site has to be paid for somehow, and that somehow is display advertising. Ad placement does not influence which leather goods, tanneries, or brands are mentioned in a guide, and no advertiser gets a say in how a calculator works or what a page says.

Questions, corrections, or a tool idea we’re missing? See Contact.