Wet Salted Bellies, Trimmings & Heads
The largest exporter of raw leather
Common uses of Wet Salted Cow and Bull Bellies
Wet Salted Bellies come from the cut of Cows or Bulls hides and once tanned, they find their use in a wide range of areas: from manufacturing cheap work gloves to sandals, footwear and leather goods. We are today the most diversified company in the sale of leather operating on the global market, we professionally supply all types of leather, from raw to finished leather, for this reason, together with competitive prices, we are able to satisfy all types of customers.
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The choice of raw material plays a key role in the tanning process. Mapel is today the largest exporter of wet salted cow and bull bellies and of wet salted trimmings and heads, with hundreds of containers exported each year. We are specialized in the trade and selection of economic wet salted leather and raw hides in general.
What is “wet salted raw leather”?
The terminology used to indicate the leather skins during its production process is very specific, especially with the “raw leather” term is indicated a skin not yet subject to the tanning process; with “crust leather” and “fully finished leather” terms, are defined the skins that have been split tanned, greased, dried and finished. With “wet-blue leather” term it is indicated a skin tanned with chrome, but not finished, with “wet-white leather” the one tanned with vegetable tannins. The wet blue and wet white skins needs to be finished (dyed, greased and final finish). Both “crust” and “wet-leathers” are intermediate products that are traded.
Depending on the finished product to be obtained, the leather must have different characteristics and consequently must undergo different treatments. In example the leather for the upper is mostly tanned with chrome, rarely with tannin and must be soft, flexible and resistant to folding; while the hides intended for book binding, are generally thin hides with mixed tanning, for which an intense liming is required, followed by a tanning with the vegetable technique.
Raw leather hides (and therefore wet salted skins and bellies) belong to the initial stage of preservation of the skin, which after slaughter can in fact be preserved through two main methods. Conservation consists essentially in the first stabilization of the collected material that prevents the rot of the skin and can occur in different ways.
The main leather preservation methods
The first method is the “drying“, which consists in extracting as much water as possible from the skin (dehydration) and can take place in the sun (traditionally used in very dry tropical areas such as Africa and South America, Uruguay, Paraguay and Argentina). This form of drying being usually too rapid (sun-dryied) leads to poor conservation which substantially dries the external part too quickly while the internal part deteriorates which does not dry completely. A variant of this form of drying consists in carrying it out in the shade (air-dryied). In this way the previous problem is alleviated but it does not solve it completely because the skins are often not well stretched and therefore take on an irregular shape and folds.
A second more elaborate drying method is to dry the skins after they have been pulled with lumber through the frames and placed in suspension under the canopies for the time needed for total drying. As a general remark, with reference to the above points, it is necessary to specify the specific weight of the material: sun dried skins are those with the highest specific weight because they retain a higher percentage of moisture. Stated “100” the “green weight” (leather just extracted and skinned) sun-skinned skins will have a weight of “85”, those shaded in shade “80”, and those on frames “70”.
The third way to conserve the raw skins it is the use of salt, usually sodium chloride. It’s the most popular preservation mode today and allows us to get the best quality skins.
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