Machine processing after finishing:
★ Plating:
the leather may have been plated after applying the base coat to seal the leather & to reduce absorbency.Plating after completely finishing is to impart the leather a shiny surface. The higher the temperature the lower the pressure required to get average plating or embossing effect.
★ Embossing:
Greater pressure is normally used in embossing than is used for the normal plating process.
★ Glazing machine:
This process is mainly carried out upon leathers which have been protein finished. Its main function is to flatten the grain, makes the leather surface smooth as well as glaze. Full grain aniline leather, calf and kid leathers are usually glazed.
★ Polishing & ironing:
- Polishing machine sets the leather and gives it softness, a uniform gloss & remove any dust.
- Ironing is similar to glazing but heat from the iron draws grease to the surface goving
natural looking gloss to the leather.
★ Sorting or grading:
All the leather pieces in a lot are not alike. Some pieces may have grain defects. Some pieces may have perfect grain but with slight looseness. Few may be of sound and silky without any defect.
Grain defects may be slight or severe type. So on the basis of these, sorting can be done
on following grading:
Grade-A: Tight grained defect less leathers or aniline or pigment finish leather.
Grade-B: Loose grained defect less for pigment finish.
Grade-C: Slightly grain defected leathers for corrected grain finish
Grade-D: Leather with severe grain defects to be split finished.
★ Measuring machines:
A large variety of machines are available for the measurement of area of finished leathers. For instance -
1.The plano-meter:
May be used for manually for finding the surface area of small irregular shaped skin by following the outline of the skin anti-clockwise with a pointer and reading the area on the central dial after completing the outline to starting point
2. The pinwheel or plan wheel type
3. A range of machines:
Which work on the electron beam or magic eye principle i.e there is no physical movement of parts, that do the measuring only a breaking the light-beams. Most accurate and measured in square feet, square metres, etc.