Fabrication |
Pre-Finishing |
After drying, the skin fibers have bonded to each other and the leathers have hardened a bit.
During staking, the leathers are softened by heavily vibrating metal pins.
Thereby, the fibers are loosened up towards each other and become more flexible.
The leathers become smoother and display a better surface.
At the Heinen tannery, the different parts of the hide are given very accurate treatment during staking.
Due to their different fiber structure, the belly and shoulder regions need less staking compared to the backbone line.
So, with the help of state-of-the-art machinery, an effort is made to make every side evenly hard or soft at each place - according to the customer’s wishes.
So, the softness of the leather is defined during staking.
16. Dynasec
To give the leathers a smoother surface, they are treated with heat and pressure on the dynasec machine.
During this working step, the leather surface is ironed at a temperature of about 90° degrees centigrade and carefully stretched, which gives the leather a smoother feel and appearance.
The smoother the whole piece of leather is, the easier it can be processed in the next production step: finishing.
17. Toggling Dryer
Soft and stretchy leathers are stretched and pulled on a metal frame to make them larger and smoother; then they are dried in the stretched position.
18. Trimming
During trimming, fringes and other unwanted parts of the hide are removed.
In its present stage, the leather is called "crust leather".
Crust leather is the name for the re-tanned and dried leather.
Technically, ”Crust” is a product ready to use.
All further working steps of the finishing stage only change the surface and visual characteristics of the leather.
