2024 Quarterly Catalog Q2

SPLITTING SERVICES

Hello, Jacob here! I am the production overseer here at SLC and have been working for the company a little over 6 years now. Our production consists of a whole lot of strap cutting, shape cutting, pre-cuts, some sewing products, and leather splitting. In this letter, I’m going to give you guys a little bit of insight into the splitting we do here, and the ma chines we use. When I first started, as far as split ter machines go, we had the big ol’ Turner, and a couple of small Camogas that really couldn’t split anything wider than 12”. Since then, we have replaced those small Camogas with much larger Camogas, and the Turner has been replaced with a Mosconi leather splitting machine. With all the changes in machinery and splitting services we offer; we have started a department dedicated to operat ing and maintaining our splitters. These splitters are extremely vital to our daily operation, usually at least one of these machines will be running whenever you walk into our shop. We can split just about anything here, from whole sides being cut into straps, to wallet pockets we use to make our interiors, and everything in be tween. Nothing is safe from being split around here. I think Kevin and Rusty take some joy in giving us new projects and odd ball leathers to really test our splitting skills. To get started, I’m going to tell you guys a bit about the Camoga splitters we have here. Camoga is a company from Italy that deals al most exclusively in making leather splitters. These are the machines that we operate most through out the day. We bought these

machines brand new a few years back, and I would claim these to be one of the best investments we have made for the shop! These machines are very user-friendly compared to other splitters we have had, so learning how to operate one doesn’t take all that long. Learning how to properly maintain one though requires a lot of effort, attention to detail, and training. These machines are a bit more sensitive and precise compared to the large splitters we use for the whole sides. They are our go to splitters when splitting softer leathers, or trying to go to anything under 3 oz. When we get requests for leather to be split under 2 oz., it usually becomes a two-person job. We must change the top pressure plate, adjust the bottom roller pressure, and have one operator on either side of the machine, making sure the leath er doesn’t bundle up and shred. Typically, when the piece of leath er isn’t as wide, it becomes easier and gives us a more accurate split. We can expect a 1 oz variance in weight when splitting wider pieces, and half an ounce variance on pieces 12” wide and under. The 820 can split anything under 28” in width, and the 1020 can split anything under 38” in width. The Mosconi is the most recent splitting machine we’ve acquired and has become the replacement for our old friend the Turner. The main reason we decided to pur chase this Mosconi, is because of how much easier it is to acquire new parts when we need them. These are the same brand ma chines that Hermann Oak has in their tannery, and they were nice enough to send down a couple of their operators to help us get the

machine running, and even train some of our team. The Mosconi is where we split bigger cuts of leather, like sides, double butts, cullatas, and some double shoul ders. This machine isn’t as precise as our Camoga’s, so it’s not very good at taking things below 2 oz, and it doesn’t seem to do well when trying to only split off 3 or less ounces. This machine works best with heavyweight leathers, especially veg tan. I hope this letter was able to give everyone some knowledge into how we split leather over here! If you have questions about the splitting services we offer, please contact us via email or phone call! Thank you!

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