Miniature leather measuring machine and tannery warehouse
Model of leather measuring machine and tannery warehouse working environment
This miniature representing the leather measuring machine and tannery warehouse could also be defined as a diorama. The project was to highlight the context in which this machinery usually works. The leather measuring machine has a series of photocells which, when the leather passes on the conveyor belt, measure the leather in square meters or in UK feet. In tanning jargon it is called a calculator, as before the transition to the metric system it was used to measure hides in UK feet because the post-war tanneries worked with the Americans and this measurement system was consequently used. The model is functional even if it does not measure the leather, but only for demonstration purposes.
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Project
This miniature, which in reality would be a diorama, reproduces the working environment of a tanning warehouse where at the end of the processing cycle the hides are measured, boxed and shipped to the customer. The workbench is used to choose the leather as first, second and third choice and to cut out small imperfections due to processing. The project represents a classic warehouse, and the measuring machine represented is deliberately an old flattening machine. Nowadays new concept folding machines are used, but in the tanning industry when we talk about leather measuring machines this model is the one that comes to mind, for this reason I preferred to represent this vintage model.
Materials
For this model of leather measuring machine I used expanded PVC sheets, aluminum sheets from which I made the shelves, leather, nylon threads and other materials such as brass, iron and wood. The greatest difficulty was in making the conveyor belt slide with the wires not intertwining during motion. In this regard I have fully replicated the same system that is used in the real model. The miniature is automated with the movement of the carpet, the lamps that measure the surface of the skin, the computer monitor attached to the machinery and the neon lights that are above the workbenches. The project took approximately 20 working days.
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