Project Zomboid has an extensive crafting system. not only can you build new things, you can pull apart an recycle items. One material you can get through recycling is Leather strips. These can then be used to reinforce you clothing. Leather strips can be a little difficult to find. This guide will tell you how you can find leathers strips and how to use them on your clothes.
How to Get Leather Strips
Leather strips aren’t something you can just come across in Project Zomboid. They are obtained through crafting. Specifically, recycling other objects. To get leather strips you will need scissors and some form of leather clothing. (Leather jackets are generally easy to find.) Once you have scissors and a piece of leather clothing, right-click on the clothing in your inventory. You will see the option to Rip clothing. Select this to get some leather strips. The amount of leather strips you receive will depend on the item of clothing you are ripping up.
As you can see in the image above, we are ripping up a leather jacket. Tearing apart this jacket, I received 4 leather strips. You need to find scissors in order to do this. If you do not have scissors in your inventory the option to rip leather (and denim) clothing will just not appear.
Scissors can be found in desks.
What Are Leather Strips Used For?
Well now that you have some leather strips what are you gonna do with them? There are in general two main uses for leather strips in Project Zomboid: Patching up clothing and using them as a bandage. As using the leather strips as a bandage is pretty straight-froward I won’t go into too much detail on that. When you are bandaging a part, just select the leather strips instead of the regular bandage. Simple. The latter however, will need some more explaining.
Reinforcing and Patching Clothes With Leather Strips
Now that you have leather strips you can patch up your clothing. Well, almost. In order to sew patches into your clothing you are going to need a needle and some thread. This goes towards the tailoring skill. As you can see in the skills there is a tailoring skill. Levels in this skill determine how well your new patches will protect you. We will go into that later. To patch up your clothing, make sure you find a needle and thread. Now, get some leather strips. Find the item of clothing you want to patch up and right-click on the clothing. Select the option Inspect.
This will open a smaller menu in which you can see smaller areas of your clothing. You can see the blood level of each part of the item and other things like wear. This is the place you can add the leather strips. Using your thread and needle, select an area of the item and right-click again. Then, you can decide which type of material to add to the clothing item. As you can see in the image above, I am adding leather strips to my sweater and gaining some scratch and bite defense bonuses. Leather strips have the best defense values from all the materials.
Once completed, patches will also be visible on your clothing. They can start to look a little put-together once you have quite a few patches. If you aren’t really worried about the aesthetics of your clothing you can create some very protective clothing with leather strips.