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Файл:Innovative Technologies for Manufacturing Leather and Fur Products. A Study Guide
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However, for some animal species, skins of young animals are
the highest-valued, such as the skins of reindeer calves, skins of karakul
or other fur sheep breed lambs, and skins of beef calves and colts (hair
calf/foal skins).
Skins of reindeer calves older than one month are not very suitable for
fur ware. Karakul lambs have the most valuable skins at the age of two-three
days upon their birth. As a lamb grows, the quality of its skin gets lower,
because its hair coating “outgrows” with the curls losing their form.
Within the first month of their life, baby seals have fluffy, soft,
white/cream-colored hair coverings (whitecoat). Then, upon shedding,
a thinner, coarse, and low hair coat. Adult seal skins are covered with very
coarse and low hairs without fur fibers. Hides of adult domestic animals,
such as cattle or horses, are unsuitable for producing fur wares and only used
to produce leathers.
Skin changes with the animal’s growth. Young animals’ skins are
softer. During puberty, their skins get thicker and then, basically, do not
change. In their old age, the skin elasticity and firmness become lower, and
the hair covering becomes dryish and thin.
For many animal species, females are smaller than males and have more
mellow, but not so rich hairs. Sexual dimorphism is especially distinctive in fur
seals, as to the sizes of females and males (beach masters). However,
there are some exceptions. For instance, beaver females are larger than males.
Tups have coarser hairs and thicker skins than ewes. In Greenland
seals, adult males (saddlebacks) have hair color that differs from that of
females.
Skin quality dependency on the individual variation manifestations of
animals. Differences manifested by the animals of the same species, sex, and
age, inhabiting the same geographic area during the same season result from
individual variation. Such differences are mostly determined by heredity. Individual variation manifests in the differences of the hair covering color,
height, thickness, and softness. In some animal units, such as marten or sable,
color gradually changes from one tone to another. In other animals, color
differences are sharper, such as in white fox and blue fox. There are no color
transitions. In some zooids, such as sable or beaver, hair covering contains
some gray hairs.
Fur color variation determines the necessity to sort pelts by color, such
as the pelts of sables, minks, Arctic foxes, or red foxes.
Effects provided on skin quality by stock breeding, nutritive conditions,
and husbandry. In fur farms, various colors of mink pelts were obtained, such
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as black, dark brown, white, blue, silver-blue, and beige. Nutrias are bred
that are colored in pearl, golden, silvery, or beige. Brand new, unnatural strains
of foxes, such as silver-black, platina, and white-faced foxes.
Keeping animals during their hair cover maturing in sheltered cages
prevents them from adverse effects provided by sunlight and moistness upon
their fur and from hair blooming and browning, ensuring the production
of more valuable pelts.
Malnutrition during hair covering formation determines dull hairs and
hinders the growth of over/guiding hairs and changing summer fur for winter
one. Protein malnutrition of blue foxes causes the hair covering defect named
Samson hairs, i.e., a defect of no (or practically no) over/guiding hairs
that are incapable of covering fur fibers.
Different properties of pelts made of different animal breeds. Karakul
lambkins are characterized with bright hairs that form typical curls of various
types and shapes throughout the skin area. Their necks are covered with
curls. Head and legs have moire patterns. Tail is wide in the base area, tapered at the tip, and has a typical appendage.
Lambskins of Sokolsky, Reshetilovka, and Moldavian fur sheep
breeds have glasslike luster, slightly bright, or opaque hair covering
that forms curls less valuable than those in karakul skins. Neck is covered
with loose curls that transit into uncurled straight hairs at their tips. Head is
covered with smooth hairs. Tail is narrow or slightly tapered (krimmer).
Lambskins of fat-tailed sheep breeds are characterized by rather
coarse, glasslike luster, slightly bright, or opaque curly or smooth, straight,
slightly wavy hair covering. Neck is short and wide. No tail.
Lambskins of fine and half-fine wool sheep breeds have thick, soft,
and uniform hair covering consisting of small-ring and pea-shaped curls.
Imported Hides. Some interesting stories are related to chinchillas.
Here is one of them. For their fur, chinchillas have a rich heritage of being
a valuable trophy. Word “chinchilla” itself indicates the popularity of chinchilla fur even before Europeans discovered Americas. According to the legends of South American Indians, the animal is named after Chincha people,
a tribe of Indians who wore the soft pelts of the mountain rodents.
It is difficult to say whether Indians started name themselves after
the animals or, on the contrary, the animals have kept alive the memory of
the tribe that was destroyed by the mighty Incas many centuries ago. These
sketchy details indicate clearly that chinchillas were hunted intensively as
long ago as at the dawn of the authentic Indian civilization. We have more
comprehensive data regarding the “afterlife” of the valuable rodents.
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Below, for instance, there is an extract from the book titled Comen-
tarios reales de los incas (Royal Commentaries of the Incas) and written by
Inca Garcilaso de la Vega, a well-known chronicler and author born by
a royal Inca mother and a Spanish conquistador, soon after the South America had been conquered by Europeans: “There is another variety of this animal, Viscacha, their tail is long like the cat’s one, they live in deserts and do
not notice people, even when being killed by them. In the time of the Inca
kings, and many years after, if someone has the opportunity to get some Viscacha hair, they spin it to give variation to the colors of the fine cloth they
weave. The color that it has is pardo claro [light brown], color of ash and it
is very soft and smooth. It is a thing very highly regarded by the indios: they
only use it in the clothing of the nobles.”
Indians are known to be interested in both the chinchilla fur and
the meat of the small animals, which they used as a medication for tuberculosis.
Indians preserved the valuable rodents; hunting them was strictly limited during Inca times. Therefore, by the beginning of the European conquest
of South America, chinchillas were still widely spread within the western
part of the continent, in latitude 10–40 degrees south.
In subsequent years, chinchillas were hunted in an unashamed manner.
Not surprisingly, chinchillas have soon become a rare object on the greater
part of their primordial habitat. As a result, by the middle of the 20th century,
chinchillas were extinct in vast areas. K. D. Schmidt wrote in 1945 that chinchilla had been hunted to extinction within the largest part of its areal in
the Cordillera. In 1951, Oliver P. Pearson noted that the animal was perhaps
extinct in Peru at all.
Currently, chinchilla is protected by laws of the countries where it is
still found. The animal was included in the International Union for Conservation of Nature (IUCN) Red List of Threatened Species. However, chinchillas are still being hunted illegally. Nevertheless, the number of valuable
animals starts growing, albeit quite slowly.
We owe M. F. Chapman, an Argentinian mining engineer, the emergence of this new fur-farming object. In 1920, Mathias Chapman hired
twenty-three Indian hunters with much ado, having obtained the permit from
the Chilian Government. Within three years, they had to explore the hard-toaccess areas in the Andes and trap as many chinchillas as possible, while
the animals had already become a rarity. It turned out to be no picnic. Many
of the hunters had not even seen the big game for the entire lengthy period.
Eventually, they only managed to capture 11 animals. Only three of these
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were female. Chapman did his best to conservate chinchillas. They live deep
in the mountains, and the low-pressure and low oxygen-content air is more
usual to them. When descending from the mountains to flatland, all animals
experience considerable difficulties: They often suffer from metabolic disorders, worse brain functions, and failing sight. Chapman spared neither time
nor efforts to accustom the chinchillas trapped to flatland conditions new
to them. A special research laboratory for studying chinchillas was opened
near Los Angeles, California in 1926. Later, the rodents brought by Chapman became the initial population for the mass reproduction of the new species of caged furbearers. Historically, the price of one chinchilla pair reached
$ 3,200. By mid-1960s, there were several thousands of farms and ranchos
breeding chinchillas in America and Canada.
Chinchillas appeared in our country not very long ago. A plane bearing
the first batch of the animals came to Moscow from Denver, USA in 1960.
One hundred pairs of the valuable animals purchased by the Central Union
of Consumer Cooperatives (Centrosoyuz) of the USSR from the Atigone
company came a long way within over seven days. Non-flying weather redounded upon the animals, and four of them died.
A half of the animals shipped from America was handed over
to the Research Institute for Rabbit Breeding and Fur Farming in Podmoskovye (the Moscow Oblast). Unfortunately, no proper conditions were created for the animals, they started ailing, and had to be killed. But the other
animals got into the more caring hands of the researchers at the Union-Wide
Research Institute for Hunting Industry and Fur Farming located in Kirov.
In the Institute’s development farm, the animals did well and started reproducing.
The best asset of this animal is its fur. It is very special. Unlike other
animals, chinchilla’s hair follicle produces a real flock of hairs, not just one
hair. This makes chinchilla fur very thick and fluffy (about 25,000 hairs per
1 cm2). Natural color of chinchillas is bluish gray, with light belly.
For now, many decorative colors have been bred, such as white, beige,
black, violet, etc.
In its appearance, chinchilla resembles a small rabbit with a fluffy tail,
like that of a squirrel. Its body is 25 cm long, and its tail is 9–15 cm long.
It weighs 400–700 g, and its lifetime is 12–20 years. Prices for an individual
chinchilla may range within RUB 2,000–30,000, depending on the color and
quality of fur. Raw chinchilla skins from farmers and breeders are sold for
1.5–2 thousand rubles. Prices of factory-made chinchilla furs may range
within 2.5–7.0 thousand rubles depending on their quality and market region.
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2 . 2 . R a w h i d e D e f e c t s
Raw hide/skin defects mean damages that reduce the quality
of hides/skins and hamper processing thereof. Defects may be general or specific, i.e., characteristic of specific green hide types. In terms of their causes,
defects can be growth damages and post-mortem defects.
Growth damages affect the raw stock quality to a greater extent. Postmortem defects can reduce the raw fur quality to a considerable extent
(up to 70–80 %).
Growth damages occur yet when the animal is alive, due to malnutrition or housing or resulting from mechanical or other impacts. Post-mortem
defects develop in hunting or slaughtering the animal, as well as during primary processes, storage, or transportation of raw hides/skins.
Growth damages. Main growth damages:
– Sores – tender or scarred place that occurs dur to a disease or wound-
ing of animals;
– Poorness – meagerness, laxity, and looseness of sheep/goat fur
skins, caused by the malnutrition of animals;
– Pock marks – healed and unhealed, normally perforated damages of
fur skin (most frequently occur in sheepskins);
– Grubs – holes of 1–5 mm in diameter, which are caused by warble
fly pests on the hides/skins;
– Damaged grains – skin areas with damaged or no hair coat, rubbed-
off epidermis, and damaged or no outer corium, which develop due to bacterial or mechanical skin damages;
– Scratches – linear mechanical damages of animal skins, which de-
velop through contacting sharp objects or thornbush; and
– Cockle – calloused wrinkles in the hide necks, typical of kip skins,
calfskins, and bull hide (in baby calf skins, these wrinkles are not deep, and
they are called mammary folds); cockles do not allow using the raw skins
in manufacturing elk-uppers.
Defects characteristic of hair coatings:
– Allay of colors – lower bloom of hair coating, typical of overmature
late-winter, early-spring and spring hair coatings (due to sebaceous follicles
that stop exude sebum during ecdysis);
– Thinning – appearance of thin-hair areas on the skin (due to the be-
ginning of ecdysis);
– Felting hair – areas of pelts with felting/feltlike hair (due to mechan-
ical impacts, especially during ecdysis);
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– Bald patches and suckling patches mean thinning guard hairs and
fur fibers (bald patch degree can be low, medium, and high, and suckling
patches can be small-, medium-, and heavy-scale);
– Molting clumps mean skin areas with old, unshed hairs that stand out
above the young ones that are lower (typical of mole skins);
– Broken beard hairs mean guard hairs damaged in the upper part
of their stems (it is formed due to mechanical effects upon animals in late
winter and in spring);
– Unshed summer hair means the presence of summer hairs in matu-
rating hair covering;
– Scraggy skin means loose, faint, and thin sheep- and goatskins
due to the long-term starvation of animals in winter, for which reason
the fur is lack luster and poorly connected to fur skin. This defect is typical of spring skins;
– Drafting fur means thinning the sheep fur at a certain height leading
to hair fragility (due to the animal disease, during which the hair was growing thinner);
– Starving fur fineness means fur thinning due to the strong starva-
tion of the animal (such sheepskins are hardly suitable for producing furs
and fur coats);
– Chafe-mark means a skin area without hair coat due to skin diseases,
such as itch, lichen, etc.;
– Samson-like hair (open hair covering) means obsolescent guard
hairs of blue foxes having the normal fur-fiber growth;
– Pin holes mean needlegrass-seed-caused sheepskin damages that
hinder shearing and fleshing (they are easy to see on air-dried sheepskins,
while pin holes are hard to see on wet- and dry-salted sheepskins);
– Barb invasion means contaminating the sheep/goat wool with bur-
dock seeds, in which wool tangles around such barbs;
– Adhering dung means contaminating the wool of sheep, goats,
calves, and foals with manure, where such animals are managed poorly;
– Brassiness of hair coating means yellowing of the white hair in arctic
foxes due to contaminating it with the oil of sea animals, arctic foxes prey upon;
– Pitchiness means contaminating the hair of sables, squirrels, and
martens with pitch/wood tar (the tar glues hairs together in lumps);
– Punctures mean damaging the skin and hairs of animals in fights,
where skin fiber is of a darker color (this defect occurs in the skins of muskrats, nutrias, hares, and rabbits);
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– Shagginess means hair stems radiating outward from one point
(they occur in hibernating animals, such as ground squirrels, marmots,
and badgers);
– Deformed whorls mean locks, such as in astrakhans, poorly defined,
i.e., felt-like, shaggy, or forced down strongly);
– Twists of the outer coat fibers mean hair coating with the curved tips
of top hairs (they occur in the skins of caged minks due to their contacts with
cage metal);
– Undesired hair color shades mean various deviations of hair colors
from the standard ones, such as brownish in steel-blue minks or orange in
pearl minks;
– Branding mark means a mark applied onto the animal hair with in-
delible paint;
– Mange means the scabies or scabs of dried purulent secretions on
hide surfaces, caused by a fungus that affects follicles or stratum corneum; it
is characterized by shorter and thinner hair (mange occurs in dogs, foals,
calves, and sheep); and
– Flay marks on hair are formed at some sites of sheepskins, in case
of carelessly shearing or treatments of skin diseases in sheep.
Post-mortem defects. These defects can be:
1) Formed in hunting or slaughtering animals;
2) Caused by the improper primary treatment of rawhides; and
3) Formed due to the improper storage, packing, and/or transportation
of raw materials.
Defects caused by hunting or slaughtering the animals:
– Bullet holes are skin holes made by bullets or shots;
– Blood stains on hair mean the presence of coagulated blood;
– Burned hair means hair tips burned while smoking the animal from
its cave or hole; and
– Fallen skin means a skin flayed from a fallen animal, characterized
by purple-red fur skin.
Defects caused by the improper primary treatment, that is, flaying, degreasing, and curing defects:
– Flay marks mean the deep cuts of fur skin in case of carelessly flay-
ing or trimming hides/pelts;
– Slashes mean linear part-through notches on the superficial fascia
side, resulting from poorly qualified flaying/trimming of skins/pelts;
– Holes mean through-holes in the fur skin;
– Sections and flay-cuts mean linear openings in fur skin without los-
ing the area, but breaking its integrity;
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– Breaks mean linear openings in fur skin without losing its area,
which are formed due to pelt updraws; and
– Lumps mean meat/fat/tendon components left on skins when flaying.
Storage-related defects include:
– Hair slipping means a weak hair-skin bond, which results in hairs
easily falling out;
– Rotten stain means hide/pelt destruction on grain or superficial fas-
cia side, caused by the activities of putrefactive microorganisms;
– Fat-burned spots mean the fur skin fragility of greasy skins due
to fat oxidation when storing in the conditions of increased temperature;
– Lump drying means that skins were dried unflatten, i.e., in lumps;
– Cornification means coarse and fragile skin at some sites or through-
out the hide/pelt area due to drying in the sun or near heating facilities (cornified sites are unable to be watered and curried);
– Moth/tick/cockroach marks mean hide hair/skin damages caused by
moth larvae, leather beetles, and cockroaches;
– Mildewed hair means changes in hair color due to the long storage
or under sunlight;
– Mildew means hide/skin damages caused by mold fungi when stored
in a damp location; and
– Creases mean deep cracks and fractures in epidermis, which occur
in sharp bends of the hide when packing or transporting.
All green hide defects listed above affect the quality of curried
hides/pelts, some of the defects, such as chafe-marks or creases, increasing
in the manufacturing process. Some other ones, such as holes or flay marks,
remain the same, reducing the effective area of the hide/pelt.
Rawhide grading is determined by the number and severity of defects.
Standards provide for two, three, or four groups of undressed furs, raw
furs, or karakul, depending on the defects and their sizes.
2 . 3 . S e l e c t i n g R a w M a t e r i a l s f o r S t o c k s
All raw materials are collected in batches based on their purposes and
then brought by rawhide plants or bases and private entrepreneurs to tanneries and skinneries. Dividing hides into batches is named “selection”.
According to the current standards, a production rawhide batch is
the number of flayed hides of one production purpose, one species, one
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weight or area and thickness, one habitat or breed, one slaughter feature, one
curing technique, density, and grade, and recorded in one document, in which
the quality of the rawhides is registered. Batch size shall be set upon an
agreement between the manufacturer and the consumer. Hides can be examined and graded on tables. There are mechanized and semiautomatic processing lines that exclude labor-consuming manual operations.
Quality of fur raw materials and semifinished furs depends
on the plumpness, thickness, height, silkiness, color, and shine of hair;
on the toughness, thickness, and density of the fur skin; and on having or not
having any defects.
Grading includes the quality assessment and size measurements
of skins in accordance with standard requirements. It supposes dividing
the skins by species, strains, grades, and defects. For some fur-bearing species having strongly pronounces sexual and individual variations, standards
usually introduce grading by hair colors and patterns, as well.
Properly lighting the pelt during grading is very important. Normal
daylight is considered as the best for pelt grading. Bright sunlight adds luster
and reddish tints to a pelt. In electric light, it is practically impossible to precisely grade undyed or light-dyed pelts by color or tincture.
Proceeding to pelt quality assessment, professionals identify their species first and then the strain, size, color, grade, and defects of each pelt.
For its hairs be smooth and even during examination, it is recommended
to shake the pelt up.
Smaller pelts, such as marten or mink, shall be taken by the shell with
one’s left hand and by the snout with one’s right hand and then shake it up
with the right hand in wave-like movements. Larger pelts, such as fox
or Arctic fox, should be placed with the shell onto the table, pressed with
one’s left hand, and then use one’s right hand to raise its snout a little and
then shake the pelt up in the same wave-like movements.
To identify the pelt grade more precisely, it is necessary to examine
the hair and skin, paying attention on the thickness, density, and color of the superficial fascia. Grease, rotten, and dingy raw materials are clustered in special
batches. Valuable pelts are processed individually or in small batches.
Batch size is determined by the volume and performance of the main facilities installed in the enterprise. To consider the grades of a batch consisting
of the pelts of different grades, they are transferred into conditional first-grade
units, taking the coefficients given in Table 2.1. To establish the fur raw material
batch grading, they recalculate or account per head. At the same time, discounts
for grade, size, and defect group shall be considered.
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Table 2.1
Coefficients for transferring various raw material grades into
the first-grade units
Grade
Larger skins
Smaller skins
(other than sheep-
skins), horse or pig
Sheepskin
Woolen
Half-wooled
Beaver
-lamb
Wooled
I
100
100
100
100
100
100
II
87
85
89
88
86
89
III
66
60
68
66
61
67
IV
46
40
54
50
42
52
2 . 4 . D e f i n i n g t h e C o n c e p t s o f L e a t h e r
a n d F u r . P r i n c i p a l l y C l a s s i f y i n g L e a t h e r s
a n d F u r s
Leather is the corium of an animal skin, the fibrous structure
of which is basically retained, but the physical, physical and mechanical,
and chemical properties of its structural elements are changed based on
the purpose.
Fur is an animal hide, from which the hypodermis tissue and (sometimes partly) corium are removed, the fibrous structure of the fur skin is
mostly retained, but its physical, physical and mechanical, and chemical
properties, as well as those of hair, are changed, depending on the type and
purpose of the fur.
Leather is classified based on its applications, namely:
– Shoe leathers;
– Harness leathers;
– Garment-and-fancy leathers; and
– Technical leathers.
Shoe leathers are divided into shoe upper leather and bottom leather.
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