El Paso herald. (El Paso, Tex.) 1901-1931, 1914-08-08
S10,000,000 FOR
FITTING AUTOS
WITH LEATHER
Enormous Amount Required
For Motor Car Output;
Would Circle Earth.

Ten million dollars worth Of leather
will be used in the automobile indus
I try IN America during the 1914 season.
The average car requires IS complete
Z hides, the touring car taking about
Z three and the roadster a little over
two. The average area Of the hides
I Tor automobile upholstery is so square
feet and since 100000 hides will be
used during the season, the area Of
leather required will be OOOO 600
square feet the statistician Of Auto
mobile has figured
This amount Of leather would be suf-
Ilclent 70 circle the earth at the euua-
tor with band As inches in width
The average cost Of this leather to
the automobile industry is about 20
cents to the square foot.
The animal from which the leather
IS taken for automobile upholstery is
the steer or COW. That generally used
Is the steer, which furnishes the hest
leather for this purpose. The are Of
the animal from which the hide is
taken is anywhere from TO years.
averaging about 3.5. These cowhfdes
are tan in the russell and then split into
Iolr olf1erent grades known as hand
DuIIs, deep Bluffs and splits
The hand buff is the side nearest the
halr, but split by hand; the machine
bluffs are the sides nearest hair. but
split by machinery; deep bluffs are
taken from the side nearest the flesh
The length Of time it takes TO pre-
pare hide from the time il reaches
the tanner until it is shipped to the
automobile factory varies all the way
from 10 weeks up TO six months. de-
pending upon the particular quality.
the hides are ordered in different
Quantities which vary from contracts
OF from 5000 TO 10000 hides covering
Lhe season down to mail orders Of
from % 10 100 at a time.
Tanning Long Process.
MauV of Tha rnnurrfn -F
Ihey estimate what their output for
the year viii be, place their order for
leather in advance. in the same man
ner as would be the case for iron or
quantities sufficient 10 meet the needs
OF the lots Of cars coming through
the assembling room.
While artificial leather has been
generally used only for binding pur-
poses up to a short time ago the indi-
cations are that, with the curtine- OF
costs IN the low priced cars, many OF
these Will be equipped with imitation
leather This is provided, Of course,
that II can be sufficiently proved that
the imitation leather will not have anv
marked tendency to peel or oxidIze un-
der the influence Of rain. sun or tenn
perature conditions. These limitations
generally have a heavy cloth founda-
ton The outlook for imitation leather
Is 50 great that the one COMPANY of
Detroit has put up a special plant to
supply the market.
On the car itself. the use OF the
leather faced cone clutch in - percent
Of the cars Of American manufacture
alone makes a cousiderab bic addition
to that used in upholstery.
Besides this there are numerous odds
and ends, such as straps and other
accessories, even as far along the line
as gloves, which swell the grand total
to such an extent that il is impossible
to make any accurate estimate as TO
the millions Of dollars worth Of bust
ness that the automobile has brought
to the leather industry