• Pelle intera FAPEL
    Manufacturing Process of Leather

     

    PHASE 1: Leather preservation

    Once the animal’s skin has been removed, it is sprinkled on both sides with salts so as to avoid putrefaction

    PHASE 2: Soaking

    Leathers, once at the tanneries, are put in a drum that enables the elimination of salt. Hides are then soaked in water in order to remove possible dirt residuals and also to give them back the right hydration that was lost during the preservation

    PHASE 3: Lime-Pit

    Hides are shaved using calcium hydroxide (lime) and sodium sulfide

    PHASE 4: Fleshing

    Fleshings in the interior part of the skin are removed

    PHASE 5: Trimming

    The useless parts (edges, skinning parts, etc.) are cut away with a knife  

    PHASE 6: Splitting

    This is a mechanical procedure that is necessary to divide the hides into two parts along the section. The grain (hair/upper side) is separated from the split (meat/lower side). In this case, it is said that leather is split ‘in trippa’.

    PHASE 7: Tanning

    Tanning is needed to treat the hides so as to prevent putrefaction. This process is run in special wooden drums, usually with the help of chrome salts and sodium bicarbonate (this type of tanning allows to obtain leathers suitable for several articles). At the end of this step leather shows a light blue colour, and for this reason it is called Wet Blue

    PHASE 8: Pressing

     Through this operation, excess water is eliminated and the hide is stretched.

     

    FA.PEL Srl’s job starts at this point of the leather production chain. Our company is specialized in the production of cow split leathers. Depending on the article and on the customer’s needs, we use butts, shoulders and bellies. Therefore, the selection of raw material (in trippa split or Wet blue split) represents one of the most delicate phases in order to obtain a quality product consistent with the customer’s requests. For this reason, the provision is a phase looked after in an obsessive way by FA.PEL Srl. Moreover, thanks to 25-years of experience in the field, this results to be one of the main strengths of our company.

     

    PHASE 9: Splitting

    If the splitting hadn’t been made before tanning, it is then carried out in Wet Blue

    PHASE 10: Shaving

    It is necessary to give a uniform thickness to the entire split

    PHASE 11: Re-tanning, Dyeing and Fattening

    This procedure takes place inside drums where leather splits come into contact with water, colorants, fat substances, anti-mould and re-tanning chemical agents able to give the leather its desired colour and softness.

    PHASE 12: Drying

    Once out of the drums, the wet splits are dried via vacuum suction (machinery composed by steel plates that suction water through a vacuum de-pressure

    PHASE 13: Trimming

    Once again, the useless parts or those that impede the following manufactures are taken off with a knife

    PHASE 14: Staking

    Mechanical procedure that soften the split stretching its fibers through the beating of vibrating cylinders

     

    SUEDE (A)

    PHASE 16(A): Buffing

    The split’s surface is slightly scraped using sandpapers which make leather more ‘closed’ and aesthetically superior, and they also give leather a velvety aspect.

    PHASE 17(A): Fulling

    Operation that allows the leather to be softened by mechanical buffeting within dry drums

     

    FINISHED (B)

    PHASE 16 (B): Finishing and Ironing

    Depending on the article to be done, layers of colour or covering effects are given to the leather. This application is done using spray guns.

    The process of ironing is necessary in order to stretch and extend the resins contained in the leather, so that these give a better result to the finished split.

    PHASE 17 (B): Printing

    Through flat printing or rotating printing we give our leather the desired aspect (MADRAS, DOLLAR, COCCO, SAFFIANO, etc.)

     

    PHASE 18: Trimming

    During this process regular edges are given to the finished product

    PHASE 19: Check and Selection

    Split leathers undergo a quality and surface properties check

    PHASE 20: Measuring

    Leather is measured with electronic equipment