Mst.

Sharmin Aktar
Lecturer
Dept: Leather Engineering
ILET, DU
Mechanical operation prior to

post tanning operation

Mechanical processes after tannage
Samming
The content of water existing in the lcather as a result of tanning, even after intermediate storing,
is too high for a subsequent treatment of thickness by shaving, chrome splitting or setting out and
should be reduced. This is done by treating the leathers on samming machincs.

Sammying is dewatering of leather (c.g.wet-bluce, rctanned leather) mechanically by pressure as

part of wet end operation.

Formerly hydraulic samming presses were used. These had the disadvantage of producing
inverted plcats and an uneven draining effect. The modern rotating samming machines consist of
a striking out roller for prevention of inverted plcats and two fecd rollers, each having a loosely
titted milled felt sleeve. As a result of increasing rationalization cfforts, through-fecd samming
machines have been in use for some ycars.

Objectives:
Bring the moisture content of the leather into suitable range of working condition. If the
leather is too wet/dump/or too soft/less resilient/,it will be dragged and torn by cylinder
of the shaving machine/the subsequent operation/.On the other hand, if it is too dry/hard
or horny/,it will not be pliable enough to lie snuggly against the guiding bolster of the
shaving machine and also be difficult to wet back.
Slightly reduce the water content of wet blue and reduce the weight and transportation
costs, especially if the product is to be sold at this process stage.

Setting out
Is mostly performed at the end of wet processing before drying. The set-up is similar to that of
the samming machine, however hard rubber rollers of different Shorc hardness instead of felt
rollers and a striking out roller of spccial design are used. This ensures good setting out.

Setting out is flattening and slight stretching of leather with reverscly moving bladed rollers. The
latter is one of the mechanical mechanisms to achieve better arca yicld.

Objectives:
Avoid creasing/pleating/of leather so that we can achieve area yicld not only by flattening
by blunt blades but also by avoiding/reducing/tearing during shaving.It has also some
drying/sammying eflcct.
 means

done manually
by
Shaving leather. Formerly this
was
leather is fed
of the machine. The
thickness
determine the final on a shaving thickness. In
Serves to mechanically the set
performed shaved to
shaving knife, today it is roller and machines
have
of a of a pressure
reduced. The
blade-cylinder by mcans

not substantially widths of

the leather is
to a sharp-cdgcd accommodate

c o n t r a s t to splitting,
the firmness of machines c a n
modcrn broad shaving a single
operation.
widths of 300-800 m m . The their entire width in
web shaved o v e r
whole hides can be of flesh
3200 mm such that the removal
up to considered as
end opcrations,
is simply thickness adjustment
leather, as o n e of the wet well as
Shaving of tissuc remains as
such as adipose demand.
attached structures the customer
and looscly
to the would be
lcather type and
into a salable from according

Objectives: skin a r e a in a precise

manner

thickness throughout the

to a uniform
commercial
the leather as
To bring by
obtained splitting operation)
than c a n be
(and with greater accuracy
uniform thickness. appeal of the
leather should be of aesthetic
attached tissues and
fibers that reduce the
To r e m o v e the loosely
r e m o v e flesh offal
remains, if any.
flesh side leather and to fiber especially for
suede
surface dyeing by exposing the inner
To intensify

Splitting their entire surface into

uscd for splitting thick hides over
machines are
Band knife splitting firmness of the leather is
split). Thereby the
upper split (grain
split) and lower split (flesh limed pelts, the
is gained by the second split. Compared to the splitting of
reduced, however area advantages and disadvantages:
chrome-tanned leathers shows the following
splitting of
Advantages:
Saving of manpower
Exact thickness of split
Faster through-feed
Continuous work process without change of drum

Disadvantages
More strongly wrinkled grain
Stronger neck folds
Slight loss of arca
the lower split is tanned well
Higher consumption of material since
as
 Mst. Sharmin Aktar
Lecturer
Dept: Leather Engineering
RECHROMING ILET, DU

Re-chroming
Here wet bluc is treated again with chrome tanning agent so that more good result is obtaincd.
Before re-chroming acidification is done by using weak acid like formic acid, oxalic acid etc.
The pI value of this operation is 4.0-4.2.

However, 90% of the leather is made by using chromium salt due to the limited availability of
vegetable tannins. Though chrome-tanned leathers arc superior to vegetable-tanned leathers in

terms of hydrothermal stability and mechanical property, the substrate homogencity is not
obtaincd during the chrome tanning process. In commercial language, tanners generally believe
chrome-tanned leathers are empty in naturc. The leather industrics carry out an operation called
re-chroming in order to normalize the chromium oxide content in the batch of wet-blues.

Objectives
T o improve the quality
of leather
Increase the chrome fixation of leather
Give high hydrothermal stability
Make hydrophobic leather which improve water resistant property
Improve light-fastness property

Chemicals used for re-chroming

1. Basic chromium sulphate and

2. Chrome syntan

The chromium syntan used during the rechroming operations is a masked chromium
salt,
wherein chromium ligand complexes are coupled with condensed aromatic sulphonates. In such
syntans, the preferred aromatic compound is the phenol or naphthalene and the condensation is
carried out in the presence of formaldehyde as cross-linker. Use of this chromium syntan results
in the reduction of aromatic syntans in subsequent post-tanning.