Is goat skin your preference for hilts? Also, do you always dye your own or do have you ever used some of the pre-dyed leather?
I bought some goat skin a while ago to make a wallet for someone. I then started using the leftovers for these wraps. The goat skin lends itself well to this because it is thin enough to flex and wrap, but not as thin as something like calf skin which is like paper. The goat skin seems to be just right. I suppose other stuff will work, it is just that I had a big piece of this stuff laying around and it works better than the cow hide pieces I have for making belt pouches, which are a little too thick. Goat skin also has a real nice natural texture to it so it has some character without having to do any stamping or tooling, but it will accept stamping if you want to add more detail.
Someome on another theard suggested taking an old purse or leather vest (like from a thrift store) and cutting it up. That would probably work well, too, since it will be a good thickness to work with. This might be good way to get some exotic leather like gater skin for a resonable price. Reptile skin would probably look nice on a Sith saber. You could say it came from some foul best you have slain.
As far as the dye, I do dye my own pieces. I use Fiedbings leather dye. You can find that at Tandy or any shoe repair place. It comes in just about any color you could want, not just browns and black. I use neutral shoe polish as my final treatment. It will even out the color a little bit and protect the leather. The polish you can find almost anywhere, like Wallmart or Walgreens. I am not fond of the pre dyed stuff. I think it looks kind of fake. The little bit of blotchiness in the hand done dye job looks better, in my opinion. Also, the hand done dying will naturally weather itself in time where as the pre dyed stuff tends to look brand new forever. I like my leather to look wore.
