The Leather-Making Process and The Characteristics of the End Products

Description

The course considers the main methods for processing leather and the product characteristics typical of the numerous items produced by tanning.
Training begins with a look at the various types of raw material, describing their characteristics and main areas of use, goes through the various stages of the leather-making process, pausing to consider the aspects that most affect the technical and aesthetic characteristics of the finished products, and concludes with a practical session in which the properties of the various different types of leather are described with the help of a carefully-chosen set of samples and a catalogue given to each participant.

Programme

RAW MATERIALS

Structural characteristics of the most frequently used hides and skins and the products they are generally employed in

USE OF THE TERMS “HIDE”, “SKIN” AND “LEATHER”

Defining a material as “leather” pursuant to current legislation

MARKET INFORMATION

The Italian and International leather industry and related sectors

TYPES OF TANNING TREATMENT

Chrome tanning, vegetable tanning, white tanning,, synthetic tanning: the characteristics they impart to leather

POST-TANNING OPERATIONS

Retanning, dyeing and colours, fatliquoring

FINISHING AND LOOKS

The effects, the techniques and the achievable properties

DESCRIPTION OF THE DIFFERENT COMMERCIAL TYPES OF LEATHER

How to recognise finished articles (nubuck, suede, glazed, milled grain, laminated, pull-up ecc.): terminology and characteristics

Full-sized leathers are used and a folder containing samples of some items is handed out in order to enable the participants to perceive the sensory and technical characteristics that distinguish each type