Chamois leather () is a type of porous leather, traditionally the skin of the
chamois (''Rupicapra rupicapra''), a type of European mountain goat, but today made almost exclusively from the flesh split of a sheepskin.
United Kingdom
The
British Standard
British Standards (BS) are the standards produced by the BSI Group which is incorporated under a royal charter and which is formally designated as the national standards body (NSB) for the UK. The BSI Group produces British Standards under the a ...
BS 6715: 1991 defines chamois leather as:
"Leather made from the flesh split of sheepskin or lambskin, or from sheepskin or lambskin from which the grain (the top split) has been removed by
frizing
The leather manufacturing process is divided into three sub-processes: preparatory stages, tanning and crusting. All true leathers will undergo these sub-processes. A further sub-process, surface coating may be added into the sequence. The list o ...
, and
tanned by processes involving oxidation of marine oils in the skin."
United States
In the United States, the term ''chamois'' without any qualification is restricted to the flesh split of the sheep or lambskin tanned solely with oils (US Federal Standard CS99-1970).
Chamois leather is often counterfeited with goat or pig skin, the practice of which is a particular profession called by the French ''chamoiser''.
History
The term ''chamois'' as used to refer to specially-prepared leather originated sometime before 1709,
referring to the prepared skin of any goat-like animal,
specifically the
European antelope—commonly called the "chamois"—and exclusively used by the
glovemaking industry of southwest
France
France (), officially the French Republic ( ), is a country primarily located in Western Europe. It also comprises of overseas regions and territories in the Americas and the Atlantic, Pacific and Indian Oceans. Its metropolitan area ...
. It was discovered that when tanned in the local
cod oil of nearby
Biarritz, the result was a material of unprecedented absorbency. This leather was fashioned into soft white gloves designed for carriage footmen, who were responsible for the care and polishing of
carriages. This industry usage later transferred to the
chauffeurs of the "
horseless carriage
Horseless carriage is an early name for the motor car or automobile. Prior to the invention of the motor car, carriages were usually pulled by animals, typically horses. The term can be compared to other transitional terms, such as wireless pho ...
s" invented in the early 1900s. The popularity of chamois leather greatly increased with the advent of mass-produced
automobile windshields, which needed to be washed frequently for visibility purposes, but were inconvenient and time-consuming to dry through alternative means.
Properties
Genuine chamois leather has almost no abrasive properties, and can be used as a very absorbent drying material for any
automobile
A car or automobile is a motor vehicle with wheels. Most definitions of ''cars'' say that they run primarily on roads, seat one to eight people, have four wheels, and mainly transport people instead of goods.
The year 1886 is regarde ...
surface. This has made it a popular product for car cleaning and drying.
The elasticity of the skin's pores, which are very close, allow it to be used in micro-filtration. Its water
absorbency makes it good for other uses, such as in
cycling shorts
Cycling shorts (also known as bike shorts, bicycling shorts, chamois, knicks, or spats or thigh cling shorts) are short, skin-tight garments designed to improve comfort and efficiency while cycling.
Their useful properties are:
* reduce win ...
(although most modern cycling shorts now use synthetic "chamois" leather). It was also used in purifying
mercury, which is done by passing it through the pores of the skin.
Chamois was historically used as a gasoline filter. When soaked with clean
gasoline
Gasoline (; ) or petrol (; ) (see ) is a transparent, petroleum-derived flammable liquid that is used primarily as a fuel in most spark-ignited internal combustion engines (also known as petrol engines). It consists mostly of organi ...
, chamois will not allow water to pass through its surface fibers. This property is used to filter fuel that has been stored in drums prone to ingress of water, or from any other doubtful source. The technique is to provide a large-mouthed funnel with a wide outlet surface that supports a woven wire base, or metal plate with a grid of holes. The lower part of the funnel is tapered to fit the receptacle or tank-filler aperture.
A suitably sized chamois skin is soaked in clean fuel and placed over the grid in the funnel and brought up the sides, forming a bowl, to prevent any leakage past the skin. Fuel can then be pumped into the top of the funnel by the
fuel dispenser
A gasoline pump is a machine at a filling station that is used to pump gasoline (petrol), diesel, or other types of liquid fuel into vehicles. Gasoline pumps are also known as bowsers or petrol bowsers (in Australia), petrol pumps (in Common ...
and watched for signs of water accumulation. The process can be stopped to lift out the assembly from the tank and the trapped water removed so that the job can be continued. Chamois leather is used thus as a
fuel filter by boaters,
auto detailers, and aircraft refuellers, particularly of a past age when aircraft were flown into very remote areas.
Uses
Chamois leather is widely used for drying and buffing vehicles, such as cars and vans, after washing.
Small pieces of chamois leather (often called "chamois cloth") are commonly used as blending tools by artists drawing with
charcoal. The leather blends the charcoal more softly and cleanly than the artist's fingers, which can leave smudges.
The chamois is also used to lighten the drawing (or portions of it) by removing some charcoal in a more subtle and nuanced way than most erasers could. The charcoal can be washed from the leather using soap and water.
Chamois leather is used around professional film and
video camera
A video camera is an optical instrument that captures videos (as opposed to a movie camera, which records images on film). Video cameras were initially developed for the television industry but have since become widely used for a variety of oth ...
viewfinder
In photography, a viewfinder is what the photographer looks through to compose, and, in many cases, to focus the picture. Most viewfinders are separate, and suffer parallax, while the single-lens reflex camera lets the viewfinder use the main ...
s, as it provides comfort and absorbs sweat from
camera operators who spend a long time with their eye planted on the viewfinder.
Divers
Diver or divers may refer to:
*Diving (sport), the sport of performing acrobatics while jumping or falling into water
*Practitioner of underwater diving, including:
**scuba diving,
**freediving,
**surface-supplied diving,
**saturation diving, a ...
use towels made of chamois leather to dry themselves between jumps, as they can be quickly dried by squeezing them.
References
{{Leather
Leathermaking
Leather