I've been struck by some of the Japanese and Korean artisans using very thin leathers such as Crispe, Togo and shrunken calf, I even bought some Alran French Chevre goatskin which I've seen used as well. What bothered me was (apart from the import duty) was that the goat skin doesn't edge well using a hot creaser, it's thicker than expected and spongy. I can't see this being used as a body, pockets and liner without resulting in a "normal"-thick wallet...nothing like the sleek wallets of these Japanese makers. It could simply be that the videos and photographs are "misleading" and giving the appearance of much thinner materials? The image below is of a Crispe leather wallet.
This is Goat creased by me. Mid Temp, a bit of pressure
One of the thing to consider is what do you have underneath your piece of leather? If you are creasing a single layer of goatskin, there is a good chance that the guide of the creaser is touching your paring stone/hard surface that you have underneath. And is limiting the amount to which the crease is pressing down on the skin.
If that is the case, you have got 2 solutions:
1- Bring the edge you want to crease to the edge of the stone/surface you have underneath so that the creaser's guide will glide along both the edge of your leather piece and the support underneath.
2- Use a piece of firm leather underneath my skins. When creasing a thin piece, the creaser's guide will actually crease the leather beneath and allow for the creasing tip to go down deeper into your goatskin.
Aye, I meant "crease well" but I had it hotter than I could touch my wrist with....any hotter and it'd be sizzling, I'll keep testing and i'm sure It'll click somewhere. Thanks for the info about the band-splitter, it makes sense and it confirms my suspicion that there's more to it than I thought. Thanks again! :-)
Hello,
When you say: "the goat skin doesn't edge well using a hot creaser", do you mean "crease well"? If that is the case, I can assure you, Alran Goat Skin creases extremly well. Maybe your creaser was not hot enough?
Also, the type of leather uses has nothing to do with the overall thickness of a wallet (broadly speaking). Using a goatskin at it's full thickness (1.2ish mm) will result in a chunky wallet. Using the same goatskin, split down to 0.8mm for the pockets, 0.5mm for the liners will result in a way way slimmer wallet. Skiving the edges of every single piece will also help reduce bulk at the edges.
This is just to say that it is more a problem of choosing the correct thickness for each part than of which leather to use that will dictate the finale chunkiness of the wallet.
And yes, them Japanese and Korean artists you are talking about make slim wallets. Really slim. But i would bet my finger on it that they all have access to a band splitter to thin down every single part as desired.