What is Leather Technology?
Leather was one of the first manufactured materials, and the Leather Technologist can claim to be a member of an ancient profession. The output and quality of leather has steadily increased and improved for at least the last 3,000 years, and for the last 100 years or so the UK has been a pioneer in the field of formal education and training in Leather Technology.
Tanners convert the raw hides and skins of animals into leather. At its simplest, leather is hide or skin which has been treated so that it will not decay, and will last for hundreds of years. Every hide and skin is unique, and varies not only from species to species, but even between individual animals. To these natural differences of grain pattern, stretching properties and strength, further features are added which tanners can tailor during processing, such as colour and softness. The complexity of leather manufacture becomes apparent.
Leather is turned into a wide variety of articles - footwear, clothing, bookbinding, gloves, saddles, harness, belts, wallets, luggage, bags, gas meter diaphragms, driving belts, gaskets, hydraulic seals used in aircraft, rockets and underwater craft, upholstery including automobiles, sports goods and many others. Tanners keep the end use very much in mind, and since many of the uses are subject to fashion, such features as eye-appeal, colour, texture and drape, while difficult to quantify, are essential to success. Using modern techniques of production engineering, tanners must retain the individuality of each skin and, without losing its appeal, produce leather to a degree of uniformity required by customers.
Although the leather industry has a long history, the pace of change has been rapid in the twentieth century, and accelerating in the last decade. The time required to process raw hide or skin to finished leather has decreased from over a year to a matter of days. Quality, variety and consistency of product have improved in response to customer demand.
While remembering its craft past, the leather industry is now firmly established as a technology based on scientific principles. From the early 1900s, the scope and depth of knowledge of protein chemistry and of the other natural and synthetic products used in leather manufacture have advanced at an accelerating pace. The Leather Technologist has become familiar with a wide range of pure and applied sciences, and with the constitution and properties of many types of material.
To produce high quality leather, Technologists must understand the nature of the materials used, the way in which they react, the means of controlling this reactivity, and the methods of testing and analysing the finished product. With this knowledge as a basis, tanners must become familiar with all the practical tanning processes and machinery operations that are necessary to prepare the skins for tanning, the tanning process itself, and the many subsequent operations which determine thickness, softness, texture, colour and waterproof-ness of leather.
Many students choose a course of Higher Education without having explored the opportunities afforded by this fascinating, challenging and rewarding industry. This is surprising, since leather is very much a part of everyday life, and is always in demand for fashion, sport and comfort.
Understanding the reactions and processes occurring during leather manufacture involves a fascinating blend of the strict disciplines of the pure sciences with the practicalities of the continuous batch production of a material whose aesthetic appeal must be maintained, whilst creating its utilitarian properties. The pure sciences involved are chemistry, physics, biochemistry and microbiology, combined with mechanical and chemical engineering, polymer sciences, statistics, computing and management.
The successful student who possesses a qualification in Leather Technology usually has no difficulty in finding a suitable post within the industry. There are excellent opportunities for obtaining senior positions in the leather and allied industries in production, quality control, research, management and marketing. These opportunities are available worldwide.
Author: Dr Paul Richardson, British School of Leather Technology, University College Northampton
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