METHOD FOR CONTINUOUS STRETCHING OF LEATHER AND OTHER LIKE MATERIALS AND LINE FOR EFFECTUATING THE SAME Russian patent published in 2006 - IPC C14B1/58 C14B1/26 

FIELD: method and equipment for continuous stretching of wet leather materials.

SUBSTANCE: method involves the following steps: a) withdrawing uniformly wetted leather materials after procedures of treatment with liquids, said treatment procedures including tanning, additional tanning or like procedures; b) performing partial preliminary drying of wet leather materials in order to provide for residual relative moisture content of said materials within the range of from 35% to 65%; c) stretching leather materials having said moisture content by applying localized mechanical loadings in directions substantially perpendicular to plane of said materials in order to reach preliminarily set increase in leather material area; d) drying stretched leather materials to state at which residual relative moisture content of said materials is within the range of from 7% to 30% to stabilize and thermally fix stretched leather materials. At the stage of stretching in wet state, leather materials are held under substantially constant relative humidity conditions. Mechanical loadings are distributed substantially uniformly over the entire area of each individual leather material without gripping its edge portions so as to reach substantially uniform radial stretching. Line for continuous stretching of wet leather materials comprises various means and machines for effectuating respective procedures of said method.

EFFECT: significant increase in area of leather materials under treatment procedures.

16 cl, 3 dwg