History
For more than 60 years Officine di Cartigliano has been studying, designing and manufacturingsystems for the fundamental passage of the leather from wet to dry
Our mission: making leather noble
Officine di Cartigliano SpA was born in 1961 from a happy intuition of the Commendator Corner together with the first Partners: Mr. Giuliano Liotard, Mr. Luigi Turato and Antonio Bianchini.
The management of Cartigliano remained for the first 30 years to Mr. Giuliano Liotard.
Since the beginning Cartigliano tends to achieve results through team research and to examine the possibility of using an alternative technology in the stage from damp tanned leathers before finishing.
The vacuum dryer unit
The first machine built was the vacuum dryer unit. Cartigliano started to study the best humidity conditions before and after the vacuuming, as well as the conditions of flatness, yield extension without using toggling, trying to get a good leather softness and (fundamental at that time) correction of grain defects.
The quality of a finished leather
In synthesis, since then, the quality of a finished leather could be defined by the following features:
- Flatness;
- Extension;
- Correct humidity condition around 10-12%;
- Resistance to the seam stitching;
- Grain fineness;
- Leather coating depending on its different destination;
- Correct softness and roundness.
Following the above considerations the first equipment Vacuum Dryer was running up. It was formed by a single table made of thick steel, planed and chromed, able to process two bovine sides of 20 feet each.
A watertight suction hood was laid on this single table. This hood was composed by a quite big volume evaporation tank with perimeter gaskets; the lower table was heated while the upper table was vacuuming.
The success of this machine was suddenly recognized and its importance was immediately understood by the tanning industry. After many years Vacuum Dryer has developed and arrived nowadays.
Since more than 40 years this machine has obviously been completely and continuously updated.
The first single table unit used to work at high temperatures in comparison to those used today: up to 90°C of temperature on the table, with a vacuum level which reached ideal values around the 110 – 120 mbar.
Nowadays multitable Vacuum Dryers can normally dry 240 sides per hour and 110-120 whole hide per hour with a vacuum degree around 8 mbar, reaching a table temperature that permits the leather not to exceed 37°C which is the temperature of the alive animal.
Cartigliano studies and researches all the steps that follow the dyeing and precede the finishing; because after the Vacuum Dryer the leather residual humidity is still high and not uniform, we need to recondition it in order to get to the correct humidity.
Since the end of the ’60s Cartigliano started to study the first drying/conditioning unit functioning thanks to the radio frequency.
Also this was a essential contribution to the tanning industry and explains how advanced and important was by the time the research and the offer of alternatives with a high-level innovation.
The third basic process to be developed, being at this point the leather dryed, before finishing, was the staking machine.
Today all the above machines have absolutely become necessary and crucial for a correct treatment of the leather. Obviously today’s Vacuum Dryers in comparison the old ones has mantained only the name; the Radio Frequency has been replaced step by step as by the LTD first (Low Temperature Dryer) and then by the TAIC unit (Treated Air Injection Conditioner).
The Radio Frequency was another genial chapter of Cartigliano’s story since it allowed the conditioning in the entire surface as well as in the deep thickness of the leather, achieving excellent results of uniformity, touchness, fullness and coating.
After years the last pride of the production is represented by the TAIC, a plant that works along the whole year without taking into consideration the weather, but reproducing the best “climatic” characteristics (temperature and relative humidity of the air) that are simultaneously injected against the grain and the flesh of the leather.
The following passage was to give continuity to the whole process of drying, conditioning and softening of the leather, considering always the solid points of the low temperature to be able to get leather with a maximum extension and, at the same time, by far the more natural, getting in this way an upgrade of the choices.
At the beginning the Cartigliano’s units were destined to the production of leathers for footwear and bags. Today, Cartigliano machines are a must for processing any type of leather and they represent the best quality-productive choice for what concerns the production of sheepskins as well as furniture and automotive whole hides. This can be achieved just modifying machines’ parameters and settings.
The year was 1999
Our goals
Cartigliano fixes great goals every day, considering that is a worldwide leader in the production of machine and installations for the leather processes: to prove that you just have to imagine that more than the 70% of the worldwide leathers have been processed by Cartigliano’s machines.
All the work done has been gotten thanks to studies and collaborations developed in continuous among Cartigliano, the Tanneries and the Leather Chemists.Cartigliano represents in fact a help and support to the tanneries and, thanks to the Research & Development Dept., we carry out every day trials with leathers coming from the all over the world.
An example of this is the creation of the so-called “Turellina” line. This line was studied for the production of whole bovine leathers for furniture and today also for automotive use.
At the end of the ’90s / beginning of 2000 there has been a strong decrease of the footwear leathers’ demand, so that there was a passage from furniture to the footwear production. Since that years furniture leathers were dried by means of ancient wet toggling systems.
Cartigliano has always been against to the toggling. Even if at the first sight the leather may appear to have some characteristics of optimal extension, we need to consider that the extensive strength of the pliers is practiced on the only perimeter area of the leather, while the central part is not opened properly. Therefore there will be a relevant effort on the leather areas which are naturally weaker and that gives (belly), while the central part is not opened.
The revolutionary idea is to open the leather from the centre towards all the extremities. A new technology development was born with the initial contribution of Schmidt, Austria (now Boxmark) for which the first Wet Stretching was created.
The Wet Stretching is a machine able to open, in every part of the leather and in the same way, a wet leather after sammying/setting out, asd previously mentioned and in continuous.
The combining of a throughfeed sammying/setting out, a Wet Stretching and a drying tunnel TAIC allows to keep a good flatness with a minimum yield loss. Here below the complete drying process is listed:
- Sammying / setting out;
- Wet stretching;
- Taic – humidity on exit of the first tunnel is around 26 – 28%;
- Wet stretching – with this second wet stretching, we are able to recover the little yield lost with the drying process;
- Taic – the leather is conditioned up to a desired residual humidity of 10 – 14%;
- Final staking.
This line represents the last effort made by Cartigliano for what bovine hides concerns and gives the possibility to get approx. 100 leathers per hour with 2 operators only who work at the beginning of the same line to feed the sammying/setting out machine. The time cycle for this type of line takes around 30 – 35 minutes.
Every single Cartigliano machine has been studied to represent the reference point for quality, production and yield and, at the same time, minimum maintenance.
The combination of single machines, set in logical sequence for the different types of leathers, allows to get “Just in Time” lines studied “ad hoc” that grant:
- Working time reduction;
- “Manpower” reduced at minimun;
- Middle-high quality production extremely uniform and constant;
- Inventory reduction;
- Great speeding up of production;
- Increase of number of running capital.
The “Cartigliano” spirit stamped on the search was born from an innate curiosity for the physical phenomenon that happens in the modification of state of various products.
Around 10% of the incoming is destined and invested every year in Research, protected by patents of international coverage, which constitution, maintenance and guardianship burden for around 400.000 U.S. Dollars per year.
The research is first of all effected for the primary sector: machines and plants for tannery industry.
But since some many years Cartigliano runs over in other two fields which are of fundamental importance for the human being: the feeding and the pollution.
2017
New Cartigliano technologies: 416 Nero Staking machine – Radio Frequency plant – Smart Factory.
2013
Cartigliano presents the new a-CNS Vacuum Dryer. It is a record: 80 units sold in the first 12 months, 4 International Awards.
2000
Cartigliano extends its horizon and invests in different sectors: Environment amd Food Industry. Some of Cartigliano know-how and patents are applied to civil/industrial sludge drying and pasteurization/sterilization with radio frequency of liquid and semi-liquid food.
1995
Cartigliano introduces Just In Time technology in the tannery. Cartigliano plants are installed “in line”, granting continuous and definite production. A new machine is introduced in the market: TAIC, Treated Air Injection Conditioner, it gives to the leather flat and planar characteristic, with a definite and constant residual humidity.
1992
Cartigliano de Mèxico is founded: a challenge for Cartigliano, as this facility represents a Research centre in central America for leather drying. Leon city will become over the years one of the most important technological centre for Automotive.
1970-80
From the first Vacuum Dryers plants, Cartigliano started with the production of the single head Staking machines.
In these decades the first multi-table Vacuum Dryers, Two/Three head Staking machines and first Radio Frequency plants are developed.
Tannery world is passing from manual operations to automatic processes thanks to Cartigliano plants.1961
Officine di Cartigliano Spa starts up thanks to its founder Commendator Antonio Corner.
The first Single table Vacuum Dryer is manufactured: a technological innovation that laid the basis for the following Cartigliano plants.
