Bergi gives tannery horses wings
23/02/2018
With the ever-growing demand for automation in leather manufacture in mind, machinery manufacturer Bergi has now developed Pegasus. The clue is in the name: Pegasus adds wings to the wooden horse.
It works as a table that tanners can place as an add-on component to a standard staker. The table is divided into two halves with a big enough gap between its leaves to accommodate the horse. With the horse at the centre, it’s the tables leaves that give it wings.
As the hides come off the staker, these wings slowly retract, draping the hide onto the horse. The machine adjusts its height automatically and then spreads its wings again above the horse to reform the table in time to receive the next hide.
While all of this happens automatically, chief executive, Mauro Bergozza, explains that while it won’t be necessary to have operatives lift the hides from the staker and place them on the horse by hand, it will still be necessary to have one person smooth each hide out as it goes onto the pile.
With as many as 80 hides draping over one horse when it’s at full capacity it’s essential to prevent creases from forming. “If 20 hides go on top of it, you will never get that crease out,” Mr Bergozza said at Tanning Tech. He said customers had already begun ordering Pegasus, adding: “Europe is coming back and production here is going up. This is driving great interest in automation.”
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