LEATHER TANNING

Leather starts as a raw animal hide at the slaughtering house where it is put into a shipping container packed with salt. The salt is enough to preserve the hide for an almost indefinite amount of time. These containers of raw hide are then bought by tanneries on the open commodities market.

In order for the hides to be of any functional use, they need to be preserved through the process of tanning.

Tanning is the act of preserving a hide by removing all of the flesh, hair, moisture and oils and soaking the hide in the tanning solution of choice. There are 3 main types of tanning processes and only one that is used for 80% of leather produced:

VEGETABLE TANNING (“VEG-TAN”)

saccoo caracas , saccoo lapaz

Veg-tan is considered the original, “true” tanning. The leather is tanned in vats with the extracts of bark and leaves from a variety of tree species, mainly oak. The reason it is considered “true” tanning is because the word “tanning” actually derived from the process of using the tree “tannins” to treat the hide.
Unfinished and untreated veg-tan leather is a light tan/pink colour that has a look of “raw” leather. It is a lot stiffer than chromium salt tanning and can also be sensitive to water.
Veg-tan leather is most suited to applications where very heavy-duty leather is required such as saddlery and horse tack, belts, luggage, baseball gloves, medieval costuming, and high-end wallets.

OIL TANNING

saccoo hunter

Oil tanning is a rare practice that was originally derived from using the oil in the brain of the animal to preserve the hide, as per the saying, “Every animal has enough brains to save it’s own hide.” Oil tanning, typically, also involves using smoke to “lock” in the tan and to preserve the hide’s stretch.
This type of leather is common among hunters and home-tanning enthusiasts but rare for commercial supply. When smoked, it is easily distinguished by the strong, acrid smoke smell the leather has. Many types of “oil tanned” leather on the market are actually veg-tan leather that has been impregnated with oil to make it supple and water-resistant.

TYPES OF HIDES

A tanned, un-split bovine hide is extremely thick, approx. 9mm (3/8 inches). The hide is then separated into several layers, the thickness of each layer being determined by what end product is being made.

FULL-GRAIN

saccoo caracas , saccoo lapaz

This is the finest of leather: the original grain of the animal’s skin is clearly visible and is free of defects. On a hide, there is only one layer of top-grain so it is extremely valuable. These hides are usually used for only high-end upholstery applications, leather shoes, and high-end leather goods.

TOP-GRAIN

saccoo hunter

Top-grain is similar to full-grain, however, because of the different ways the animals may be raised, the hide may have a certain number of defects, which are often corrected. These defects may include scars and cuts from barbed-wire fence, branding, and holes from parasites that may have burrowed through the animal’s skin (although parasitic holes cannot be ‘corrected’).
Defects are corrected by lightly sanding off the original grain from the hide and using an embossing stamp to imprint a new grain pattern.
Top-grain is typically used to make “distressed” or other types of leathers with extra finishing processes applied.
However, the stamp used to imprint a new grain may either be a bovine print or it may be one of a variety of other animals such as an alligator or snake. The majority of exotic animal leather available on the market is actually corrected-grain bovine leather.

NUBUCK

Nubuck is top-grain leather that has too many defects in the grain and therefore the entire top layer has been sanded, raising a small amount of nap, to leave a velvety smooth, suede like texture.