Oiling is a process whereby
leather
Leather is a strong, flexible and durable material obtained from the tanning (leather), tanning, or chemical treatment, of animal skins and hides to prevent decay. The most common leathers come from cattle, sheep, goats, equine animals, buffal ...
is hand coated (usually by brush or tampon) with either a raw (un-emulsified) oil or a combination of raw oil, blended with emulsified oils and a penetrating aid.
Hand oils can include fragrant oils that help with the smell associated with the leather, e.g.,
pine oil
Pine oil is an essential oil obtained from a variety of species of pine, particularly ''Pinus sylvestris''. Typically, parts of the trees that are not used for lumber stumps, etc. are ground and subjected to steam distillation. As of 1995, sy ...
. Hand oils commonly consist of sulfated vegetable oils, e.g. sulfated
castor oil
Castor oil is a vegetable oil pressed from castor beans, the seeds of the plant ''Ricinus communis''. The seeds are 40 to 60 percent oil. It is a colourless or pale yellow liquid with a distinct taste and odor. Its boiling point is and its den ...
.
Oiling provides the leather with lubrication to increase their softness
allowing it to flex repeatedly without cracking. Leather fibres that are dry and un-lubricated break very easily. Oiling does impart colour and an element of water resistance. Oiling would normally be performed on full grain
aniline
Aniline (From , meaning ' indigo shrub', and ''-ine'' indicating a derived substance) is an organic compound with the formula . Consisting of a phenyl group () attached to an amino group (), aniline is the simplest aromatic amine. It is an in ...
leathers. The most common type of leather oiled is vegetable tanned leather.
See also
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Currying
In mathematics and computer science, currying is the technique of translating a function that takes multiple arguments into a sequence of families of functions, each taking a single argument.
In the prototypical example, one begins with a functi ...
*
Russia leather
Russia leather ( or ''yuft'') is a particular form of bark-tanned cow leather. It is distinguished from other types of leather by a processing step that takes place after tanning, where birch oil is worked into the rear face of the leather. This p ...
, a historically important oiled leather, curried with a birch oil that gave it a distinctive scent.
References
{{DEFAULTSORT:Oiling (Leather Processing)
Leathermaking