Heusch says Excalibur blades can lower risk of fire in tanneries
19/12/2014
“Dry shaving can be a very hazardous tanning process,” Heusch said on making the announcement in mid-December. “Compared to wet blue or wet white, shavings from dry leather can easily catch fire. Thin, dry leather shavings are sucked in by the exhaust system together with oxygen form the air. This mixture is easily inflammable. Sometimes just one spark is enough to start a blaze that has the potential to burn down a complete tannery.”
Adding chemical flame retardant to the tanning process is something that can work well, the German company said, but offers little help to vegetable-tanned leather producers and others aiming to reduce their use of chemicals.
And even though dry shaving tanners invest heavily in fire-prevention systems and have strict measures in place to avoid open fire or sparks in the vicinity of the shaving machine, Heusch insists there is one potential source of sparks that they cannot easily eliminate: the grinding process in the shaving machine when sharpening the blades.
Sharpening shaving blades can create “a huge amount of sparks”, Heusch said, and, because of their high carbon content, can easily re-ignite when sucked into the exhaust system. “Sparks created by resin-based grinding wheels pose a constant threat to the safety of operators and are a hard-to-control risk for tanneries,” it added.
Because Excalibur blades are manufactured from extremely hard stainless steel, they require different grinding compounds from traditional blades and the manufacturer recommends ceramic grinding wheels. This combination creates “no or very few sparks when properly used”, it said.
Heusch accepts that operators often expect to see sparks if blade-sharpening is going well, but insisted in its December statement that a “gentle touch” of a ceramic grinding wheel is enough to sharpen Excalibur blades.
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