Leather Industry Glossary (S-T)

Leather Industry Glossary - A collection of frequently used terms, abbreviations and jargons used in the Leather Industry with their definition and meanings.

Santa Croce..
….. Igualada, Vic, Alcanena, Solofra, Lyon, Arzignano, Guadalajara, Kano, Northampton, Ambur, Ranipet, Vaniyambada, Millau, Kano, Graulhet, Mazamet, Gloversville Some of the places in the world which are centres for the leather industry

Samm, sammying:
The mechanical extraction of moisture from leather after a processing stage. Most normally done on wet blue after chrome tanning, using a machine which carries the leather through felts.

Scud:
A film or deposit of waste matter appearing on the surface of leather in process after certain operations, esp. bating.

Scudding:
One of the preliminary processes preparatory to tanning. After bating or drenching the excess fermenting materials, together with dirt, fatty matter, hair follicles, short hairs, and glandular tissue, are worked out of the hide or skin.Mostly done by hand using a blunt two-handed knife over a curved beam. Can be done by machine.

Setting out:
This mechanical process is used at various stages in the finishing of leather to counteract the shrinking and stiffening resulting form the processes that have gone before.Most common after retanning, fatliquoring and dyeing. Normally done by machine using a knifed cylinder with blunted blades. Some modern machines combine sammying and setting and some incorporate a heated roller to help set the grain in a smooth tight configuration. Striking out is a similar process for heavy, vegetable tanned leather.

Shagreen:
From Turkish “saghri” and means the croup of a beast. Originally made in Persia from hides of asses, horses and camel, probably untanned. Seeds of a species of Chenopodium were trampled into the skin when it was moist and shaken out when it dried, thus leaving granular indentations. The material was then stained. In the 17th cent and later, shagreen was made either of finely granulated shark skin or of the skin of a ray fish, whose pearl like papillae were ground flat, leaving a lovely pattern.

Side Leather:
Large hides are cut in half down the backbone to make them easier to handle in the tannery. Each piece is called a side. Most shoe leather made from cattle hides is produced as side leather, while most upholstery leather produced from hides is processed as whole hides. Increasingly the cutting of hides into sides is done after tanning, at the wet blue stage.

Skirting leather:
A specialised cattlehide leather used for the skirts or hanging portions of saddles that come between the legs of the rider and a horse’s flanks.

Skivers:
The grain of the wool sheepskin when it has been split in order to prepare a suede leather for manufacture into chamois leather. Normally tanned with vegetable materials for use as in shoe lining, bookbinding or leathergoods.

Slat:
Vegetable tanned sheepskin produced from a skin whose wool has been removed by the sweating process. Mazamet in France is a famous source of slats.

Splits:
The lower flesh side section of a hide (normally) or a skin after it has been split. Normally made into a suede split.

Staking:
Mechanical softening of leather. Done by hand by pulling skins over a moon shaped knife, but mostly by machines of which tow types are common. The old “grab” staker with crocodile jaws which come together at a point where the operator offers the hide or skin and pulls the leather away from him while he restrains it carefully and the vibrating through feed machine invented in Czechoslovakia in the sixties. The former is more precise, but is also more labour intensive and skilled, while if not used carefully will lead to tearing and loss of area.

Stocks:
A wooden device previously used in oil tannages especially for chamois. Two wooden hammers pound the oil into the leather prior to hanging in a hot room for the oil to oxidise. The hammers are driven by an eccentric wheel. This process is now done in drums where temperature and humidity can be carefully controlled.

Strop Leather:
The leather from which razor strops are made. The best grades are tanned from the shells of horse hides.

Suede:
The finish produced by running the surface of leather on an emery wheel, with the result of ruffling up the fibres and giving it a “nappy” appearance. The grain of leather may be suede finished (called nubuck) but the process is more appropriate to flesh or split surfaces. The name was applied (originally in France) to a glove leather of Swedish origin and only later to the finish that characterised the material.

Suspenders:
One series of vats or pits used in tanning heavy leathers, the hides being hung so as to be exposed as freely as possible to the action of the liquor. The suspender pits usually contain the weakest liquor, and the hides are treated in them before passing to the handlers and layers.

Swamp:
An area near the Manhattan side of Brooklyn bridge just south of the current City Hall set aside for tanning in 1664. Remained for 275 years.

Sweating:
A process for loosening the hair or wool on a hide or skin by hanging the pieces near together in a close atmosphere, thus encouraging bacterial action. It has now become comparatively rare, being confined to out of the way places or primitive industries, and to a few special trades like that centering about Mazamet in France.

Tawing:
The old English term applied to the process of making leather with alum to distinguish it from tanning in a strict sense, the latter term having been originally confined to leather making with vegetable tanning agents. The English word has now become nearly obsolete, but in French the distinction between tannage and megissage is still strictly drawn.

Tacking:
A process of stretching leather at certain stages in the manufacture by tacking it on a frame or board. the method seems crude and slow, but is very effective for counteracting the shrinkage which follows certain operations, without applying excessive strains on particular portions of a piece.

Toggling:
A modernised method of tacking to dry leather, using toggles to hold the leather instead of nails. Originally the toggles were fixed into holes in a perforated metal plate which was put in an oven. More modern machines find and clip the leather mechanically.