Shrink factor on Leather Chafe Sleeves?

Sep 8, 2014
2,551
Catalina 22 Swing Keel San Diego
Hey everyone, sorry I've been a bit absent from the forum the last 6 months. New job, new small business, now I'm flying Hang Gliders for giggles... jeeze, I don't slow down much, LOL.

So I made some chafe sleeves from 1.5mm grey suede leather to cover the lashings portion of a deadeye tension system (pics will be added below from mobile ap). I'm not new to leather work, but I haven't made leather that will exposed to salt water until now. So I'm wondering what kind of shrink factor I can expect once this cover gets wet?

So some details on what you see in the pics below;
I have a sample deadeye tension system set up on my rigging bench. The "shroud" is 10mm NE Rope Endure 12, the lashings are 5mm Endura 12. A few heavy rubber bungie straps create light tension so I can do the lashings and complete it with a frapping knot.
I got a full hide of 1.5mm grey suede leather. I cut my piece about 105 mm wide by just over a meter long (4 & 1/8 inch by about 40 inches). I cut long strips from industrial self adhesive velcro at 1/2" wide from a bigger 2 inch roll. I used heavy polyester upholstery thread to sew the strips up the edges with my Pfaff 360, size 100 needle.
I trimmed off about 2.5 inch from the end to get the final size and that cut-off piece because the 'end cap' you see in the last pic, neat huh?

So anyway, the fit is really nice but not too tight. There is def a little room in the sleeve around the lashings but its not baggy. Now I'm wondering how tight this will become once wet and then dried. I guess there really is no way to measure that until it happens?

Let me know your thoughts.
 
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