Stahl India innovations

Stahl India's display at this year's Indian International Leather Fair in Chennai, January 31 to February 4, was almost exclusively made in India using wet-end and finishing products made at the factory at Ranipet. Based on Stahl's theme for 2003 of 'A New Dimension of Creativity', the display turned an international yet European look into one suitable for the Indian market and its need to export around the world. It showed Indian tanners how to produce leathers which are based not so much on intuition but more on a careful study of ideas and the materials, colours and structures that are available to them for turning these ideas into saleable leather. Using colours and effect predictions for autumn 2003 and winter 2004, the display demonstrated the importance of paying heed to the need for upgrading leather, for convenient production and for meeting the requirements of ecological legislation not just in India but worldwide. RC-13-041 is a new compact finish that was featured on both corrected and full grain leather for producing a basecoat with good fill and covering properties, at the same time printing and piling well. By allowing the leather to pass easily through the tannery, this compact finish helps significantly in reducing the inventory of leather finishing products. Cationic finishing products are important in India and help to produce the natural soft leathers that are so much in demand. Stahl India highlighted the complete range of products manufactured in India including binders, fillers, pigments and caseins, all of which are easy to mix and can also be used with anionic products. Super soft impregnation on corrected grain leathers were featured using RA-2393 and FI-18-174. Alongside, there is HM-22-409, a water miscible water repellent for suede and nubuck. It can be used also in showerproof finishes. Turning to the needs of a fashionable feel, a new acrylic topcoat, EX-54-562 gives a natural non-plastic feel and look and, because it has a much lower solvent content, replaces earlier lacquer emulsions. Similarly a soft, warm, non-silicone feel can be achieved using new Feel Modifiers FI-1285 and HM-22-677. A special area of the display was a variety of crunched, old, worn and elegant distressed leathers based on the use of FI-1895 water based pull-up wax. During 2002, Stahl India started manufacturing a range of wet-end products and Lustracide dyes. These have now been successfully introduced to the Indian market and were incorporated in most of the leathers displayed in Chennai. Good filling and softness properties resulted from the use of Renektan RS and ZY. Both of which will soon be manufactured at Ranipet, and from the use of TDS-free Corilene CPF products which offer faster uptake and better exhaustion resulting in shorter processing times, typically a four-hour retannage, and which in turn lead to higher productivity.