“It is a durable and valuable natural material obtained from processed animal skins with many uses from fashion to furniture.”
Leather has been used to make various products throughout history. The popularity of leather is due to its quality, durability, and style, and timelessness. With its robustness and flexibility, the leather is convenient and also enables daily use. You can be sure that leather products will last for a long time. Real leather is a reliable and durable material with an abundant character that heals over time and can last for decades.
“It is the final product of tanning to make the raw skin of an animal durable and also very flexible.”
The history of leatherworking;
Leather is one of the first materials that human beings use to meet their needs. Leather, which was used for covering purposes in primitive ages, later became a strategically important material such as scabbard, stirrup, and quiver in wars.
It supplies the raw material necessary for the leather industry production from the livestock sector. The skins obtained from slaughterhouses and other slaughterhouses are cleaned and classified from oil and other foreign substances and made to be preserved according to the usage patterns. Raw leather is the by-product of primary importance in value among the by-products of meat production.
Leatherworking, a sector in which the Turks have been operating since the 15th century, has become one of the critical areas in the second half of the 20th century. Although the leather industry has an ancient and deep-rooted structure, it remained a business that passed from father to son in the early years of the Republic. The effectiveness of the state in the leather sector started with the establishment of Sümerbank. Tanning and shoe production has been one of the industry's leading events for many years.
Starting from a more liberal Turkey in the 1950s is a private sector-driven development and implementation of trade policy. It made it reach until today, increasing its share in the sector of private enterprise.
First processing of leather;
The skin consists of 65 percent water, 32.5 percent protein, 2 percent fat, and 0.5 percent mineral salts. It has three layers a top, middle, and bottom. The middle skin covers 85 percent of the surface and is then processed part.
On the other hand, the quality of the skin is measured by the cleanliness of the surface. The faults on the skin are caused by the effects of the chemicals used, the wrong applications during the processes, or traces produced by the animal's environment. During skin processing, the rawhide is first pickled and protected from bacteria and used without spoiling. The brining process is applied in 3 different ways; salted, pickled5, or brine by drying. Plant leather, mineral, and synthetic chemicals (tannins) 6 are used for the leather to gain a flexible structure and durability. Tanning is the whole process of making the skin resistant to heat, moisture, bacteria, and providing unique character. The place where these processes are carried out is called tanneries.
Tannery;
Leather is the name given to the brown factory. It comes in raw leather and leaves the factory as finished leather. The hides of all kinds of animals come here as wet or salted skin, and after going through various stages, they leave the factory as tanned or finished leather. In leather tanning, the main thing is to convert the skin from an organic object to an inanimate object. The tannery is a word that comes from the bobbins. Debbağ was the name given to the person who worked leather in the old language, and the place where this work was done was called Debbağhane. Today, this word has come as a tannery. In the Ottoman period, the pot was one of the essential crafts. The profession had hearth furnaces, and the Piri was also Evrah. Leather processing is complicated, demanding, and must-be did the job. The leather becomes a product through various chemical and physical processes and is presented to our service. Each method has its importance. Doing something wrong or missing can make the skin unusable.
Thousands of dogs were commonly fed in tanneries for fresh dog feces. During the same phase where it is chemically treated after mechanical cleaning of raw skin, hair, oil, and meat layers since fresh dog feces are needed enzymes, they can collect in feces in the hands of children in the places where there are tanneries. They brought them to tanneries.
The workshops where the skins of the animals were processed would ignite for dog feces. Because the skin kept in a single fresh dog stool could be soft, free from hair follicles, open pores, thin, that is, good quality. For this reason, dog farms were established. Thousands of dogs have been fed, produced, and even a systematic business organization has been found to raise the dog's feces before it dries hot.
Today, leatherworking is completely dead and the same result has begun to be obtained artificially with new chemicals.