Production of Sued Leather from Wet Salted Goat Skin

A term taken from the French, "gants de Suède" (Swedish gloves), and applied to a leather finished on the flesh side by buffering so as to raise a velvet-like nap. The typical suede leather is produced from the smaller skins, such as calfskin, kidskin, lambskin and goatskin, although cowhide has also been used.

The nap is produced by buffing or wheeling the surface on the flesh side, or the split side of flesh splits; velvet suedes, however, are buffed on the grain side. A common criterion of good suede leather is that the fibers of the nap should be of uniform length and tightly packed together, in order to give a resilience to the nap so that it does not readily shown fingermarks. c The firmness of the nap depends upon the density and compactness of the fiber structure. Velvet suedes are finer than flesh suedes and a younger animal, such as a SLUNK , produces an even finer suede.

A principal concern in making suede leather is to retain the fine nap and still produce a soft leather; however, the leather must not be made soft by means of improper FAT-LIQUORING, because even a small excess of oil will produce a greasy suede nap.

Suede leather, often tooled in blind, was used in England as early as the 17th century, and in the 18th and early 19th centuries in blank book binding.

Two distinct layers will be seen-

1. Thin upper velvety layer, and
2. Thick lower compact layer.

The thin grain layer, compact but highly splitted and practically free from interfibrillary materials is like the flesh layer. The reticular sheaths around the collagen fiber bundles are completely ruptured and the fibers are separated from each other in the upper layer while in the middle portion the reticular sheaths remain intact even though sufficient degree of splitting inside the fiber bundles are maintained.

BRIEF DISCUSSION ABOUT SUEDE UPPER LEATHER PRODUCTION

Suede shoe upper leather is one of the most fashionable items in the world market. The suede shoe upper is mainly used in cold countries where the leather has to perform the role of shoe upper and garment together. In suede leather no looseness is desire and on the other hand it has to be soft in nature. So the control is very important from beam house to finishing.

The review on production of suede upper leather indicates that it requires a good understanding of science and technology of leather making, constant vigil and care during processing and abundant common sense in suitability monitoring the fee stock and the process.

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