Preliminary Characterisation of Vegetable Leather Used in Heritage Bindery

Leather heritage and art bindery require special performances regarding physical, chemical, mechanical, organoleptic and esthetics characteristics but also a good stability over a long period of time. unlike chrome tanned leather, vegetable tanned leather is ecological, and provides better firmness, fullness, malleability and dimensional stability as well as heat and moisture plasticity, resistance to light radiations and hydrothermal stability. The leather quality requirements for niche domains like heritage and art bindery cannot be satisfied by the standardized industrial processes. In order to obtain the most appropriate mix of qualities, the selection of both fresh leather (e.g. animal species and age) and technology is required from batch to batch. Since vegetable leather is intrinsically an inhomogeneous material, still it is necessary an improved knowledge on the relationship between fabrication technology and leather properties. This paper therefore focuses on the mechanical characterisation of vegetable leathers in relation to their thickness and anatomic topography.