Leather used for the leather going into men's clothing belts.
Beamhouse
The area of the tannery where the unhairing and liming processes are carried out. Before modern machinery the processes of fleshing, scudding and others were carried out over specially designed wooden beams using curved two handled knives with sharp or blunted edge according to the operation. Hence the name.
Bating
The process prior to tanning proper where the fibres of a hide or skin which have been plumped or swollen by liming are reduced and softened, thus assuring pliability in the product. The word is a form of "abate" in the sense of reduce.
Bag Leather
A form of vegetable tannage in which the skins are sewn together in pairs to form bags and floated in tan liquor. This method avoids drawn grain and gives good spread of leather.
Bag and case leather
A general term for the leathers used in travelling bags and suitcases. It does not include the light leathers employed for women's fancy handbags. The staple material for bag and case leather is cowhide.
Aniline Leather
Leather which retains its colour only from dyestuffs rather than from pigment, and as a consequence looks more natural.
Aluta
Roman name for tawed (alum tanned) leather. Aluta was used for sails in Venice, and for shoe uppers in ancient Greece.
Alum Tanning
A process of tanning with alum, used in combination with salt, egg yolk and other substances. Used for the original feathery golf balls. "In 1845 we more than doubled that. Hard work it was. I can still smell the leather, feel the heat. We used to use a chest clamp to literally compress and push those goose down feathers into the ball. Of course you cut six strips of bull hide and you soaked it in alum and of course you took three of 'em and stitched them inside out there, and the feathers went back in, and you compressed and compressed, and the idea being that as the leather shrinks as it dries out and the feathers expand. Then that gives you the compression." Quoted by Wally Uihlein, Sept 1998, at St.Andrews Golf Congress.
Ageing
The process by which certain types of leather are at some stage of manufacture allowed to lie in piles to "age".
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