Chromexcel Process

[card_richelieu]

A nice description of the process of making Chromexcel leather:

http://horween.wordpress.com/2010/03...excel%C2%AE-2/

 

[Insight]

Chromexcel. One of my favorites, and probably my single favorite if I had to choose one. The picture above gives some idea of how long the formula has been around (and this journal is full of different trials and doesn't even contain the original, standardized recipe). Whether because it's right, or because we're just terribly stubborn, we've left the processes and formulas for many of our leathers largely unchanged. We have had to substitute some of the components that were traditionally used in small quantities - whale oil was replaced with another marine-creature derived oil, one that's more available and not controversial.

Chromexcel, or CXL as it's written in the building, is a combination tanned leather that undergoes at least 89 separate processes taking 28 working days and utilizing all 5 floors of our facility. Needless to say, it's complicated. For any tannery, the chemistry that transforms salted or cured hides into leather often requires a degree of "cooking." By cooking I mean there are slight variations that must be managed and corrected from lot to lot. This arises from the fact that we're taking many component parts, putting them through a multitude of steps, all the while trying to achieve an end result that is as uniform and consistent as possible. There are additional complexities in that we're taking hides and materials that are naturally occurring - that each hide is in itself unique in that it came from animal as a byproduct of the meat industry is just a single example in a long list. Retannages are derived from tree barks, dyes and stains are derived from naturally occurring pigments, and it's all mixed and applied using heat, steam, pressure, hands, and time.