TANNING
\tˈanɪŋ], \tˈanɪŋ], \t_ˈa_n_ɪ_ŋ]\
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By Oddity Software
By Noah Webster.
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of Tan
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The process of converting hides into leather; a browning of the skin by exposure to the sun or weather.
By William Dodge Lewis, Edgar Arthur Singer
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A process of preserving animal hides by chemical treatment (using vegetable tannins, metallic sulfates, and sulfurized phenol compounds, or syntans) to make them immune to bacterial attack, and subsequent treatments with fats and greases to make them pliable. (McGraw-Hill Dictionary of Scientific and Technical Terms, 5th ed)
By DataStellar Co., Ltd
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The practice, operation, and art of converting the raw hides and skins of animals into leather by effecting a chemical combination between the gelatine of which they principally consist and the astringent vegetable principle called tannic acid or tannin. The object of the tanning process is to produce such a chemical change in skins as may render them unalterable by those agents which tend to decompose them in their natural state, and in connection with the subsequent operations of currying or dressing to bring them into a state of pliability and impermeability to water which may adapt them for the many useful purposes to which leather is applied. The larger and heavier skins subjected to the tanning process, as those of buffaloes, bulls, oxen, and cows, are technically called hides; while those of smaller animals, as calves, sheep, and goats, are called skins. After being cleared of the hair, wool, and fleshy parts, by the aid of lime, scraping, and other means, the skins are usually steeped in an infusion of ground oak bark, which supplies the astringent or tanning principle, and thus converts them into leather. Different tanners, however, vary much in the mode of conducting the process of tanning, and also the skins intended for different kinds of leather require to be treated differently. Various improvements have been made in the process of tanning, by which time and labor are much reduced; but it is found that the slow process followed by the old tanners produces leather far superior to that produced by quick processes.
By Daniel Lyons
