About leather

All about leather

Leather is a material that has accompanied mankind since time immemorial.
Many people appreciate leather as natural material and are interested in – but often do not really know which one they have on hand. We want to give you a small introduction to determination and preparation of the most common types of leather . What is leather ?

Leather is an animal skin that has been processed so that they

a) In the dry state does not break and
b ) In the wet state will not rot .

This transformation from a simple rawhide into leather proceed during tanning process

Different types of leather

On grain pattern of skin it can be seen what kind of animal it was. Thus, the grain pattern is called the image , which results in the tanned skin through the pores , the hair root canals and skin structure .
A magnifying glass or the thread count is often a need to examine the leather goods . The most common types of leather are cow and calf leather . But sheep , lamb , goat or buffalo leather are popular leathers for wallets and bags. Pigskin is primarily used as a lining . True reptile ,as snake, crocodile and ostrich leather are considered exotic and are relatively expensive .

Depending on the species the thickness of dermis varies. You have thickness from 0.5 to 1 mm ( goat, sheep or lamb )and up to 7 mm thickness ( cow ) . the skin is split depending on the thickness in 1 to 3 layers . The upper layer (the ” hair side ” or ” grain side ” ) is the highest quality layer . Their fine solid skin fibers is very tear – resistant and durable. It is used for the production of smooth leathers .

The lower split-off layer has two rough sides and is used for the production of ” split leather ” . The fibers are less dense and finely intertwined than in smooth leather , so that the split leather inherently less fixed and is stable . However, it is obtained by the tanning (depending on tanning procedure) and gets a considerable tensile strength and is in production often so refined that it looks like leather .

Nappa leather is a smooth , soft leather, cured from the upper layer of the skin ( grain side ) originates . Rindnappa for example is used for upholstered furniture .Lammnappa for clothing, calf nappa for shoes and clothing .

Nubuck -leather also comes from the top layer of skin , but one has thereby the uppermost grain layer lightly sanded so that a velvety surface.

Suede leather is the flesh side of the skin which is buffed so that a leather comes out with a velvety surface and a light nap .

Basically, no matter what kind of animal, one distinguish between PLAIN LEATHER and ROW Leather.

For the plain leather skins upper side of the animal is used. Despite the name of this leather surface is not “plain “, but you can see the skin texture, pores and also existing custom details like Dorn cracks or creases are evident.

For raw leather the surface, however, is sanded, roughened. This is done to hide skin damage or even to use split hides still can. Colloquially suede is often referred to as suede, nubuck or sued.

By today’s options leather can be colored in all colors imaginable. In addition to almost any leather, an embossing or finish can be applied in order to give it a very special look. Cross print, paint, crocodile or ostrich embossed are very common and as a layman hardly to differ from the original . These methods are used in leather processing anywhere..