Leather is tanned hides and skins. Animal hides and skins go through some processes and after tanning, they turn into leather. The history of it is ancient. The first specimen that is found was made 5000 B.C.
It is one of the most used materials. People use this from a very ancient time for different purposes. Leather-made bags, shoes, upholstering, goods, etc are largely used and famous across the world.
Leather
You will be able to two know briefs by reading below.
What are hides and skins?
o Hides: Domestic animal’s outer coverings which are >25 lbs at raw state.
o Skins: Domestic animal’s outer coverings which are <15 lbs at raw state. And the outer coverings of any wild animal.
Composition of hides and skins:
In composition, water has the major percentage. The percentage of different substances is below:
Water 60-70%
Protein 19.2-32.75%
Fat 1.5-12.5%
Mineral salts 0.36-0.5%
There may be other substances (like pigments) but the percentage is very low.
Cross-sectional parts of hides and skins:
Hide (or skin) has three parts if we concede its cross-section: epidermis, dermis, and hypodermis.
Cross-section
Epidermis: Approximately 1% of the total substance. This is a very small part of the total. The outer part is the epidermis. we call it “grain side”.
Dermis: This is the largest part of hiding or skin. It has two parts: dermis major and dermis minor. The dermis is about 83% of the total hide.
Hypodermis: This is called flesh side when it turns into leather. This is the deeper part of hiding. It is about 16% of the total hide.
Processes by which hide or skin turns into leather:
- Soaking: In this step dried hide (or skin) again gets wet.
- Liming: We treat soaked hide with lime.
- Lime and hair removing: Using sodium carbonate and hair removing agents, we remove the hair of hide’s surface.
- Pickling: To control the pH of the hide.
- Tanning: Chemical and mechanical treatment. It turns putrescible hide to non-putrescible leather.
Tanning Process
Variations:
On the basis of nature there are two types of leather:
- Natural: made from animal’s hide and skin.
- Artificial: made from chemical and mechanical changing of any substance.
Businessmen sell leather in for variations. Those are:
- Full-grain: This type is exactly what it was during hide. That means no change in grain pattern or anywhere. This is the best in quality as the fibers remain unchanged for not doing any edition on it.
- Top-grain: This type has reduced thickness. Splitting of thick full-grain leather produces top-grain. This is the grain side of thick leather. Top-grain is 2nd best in quality.
- Corrected-grain: It has an artificial grain pattern. If there is a need of changed grain pattern, we may occur artificial change in grain pattern. It’s called corrected-grain leather. This type is 3rd best.
- Split: This is the flesh side of thick leather which was split. The fabric orientation of it is poor. It is the lowest quality.
Use in different purposes:
Any kind of footwear like shoes, boots and also purses, wallets, office bags, vanity bags et cetera are most common goods we use everyday life. People always use those for various purposes. If you don’t want to pay top bucks for new products, findused.forsale. Your chances of finding a good deal within your budget are great here.
