break
1. The parting of adjacent sections of a book due
to failure of the sewing. See also: START . 2. A crack in
the gold or foil BLOCKING or tooling
of a book. 3. In papermaking, a complete
separation of the web of paper, either on or off
the machine. 4. In leather manufacture, the minute
wrinkles formed when the grain surface of leather
is bent so that its grain side is sharply concave.
If the wrinkles formed are very fine. and there
are many of them to the linear inch, the leather
is said to have a fine break, whereas if they are
large and there are relatively few to the linear
inch, the leather is said to have a coarse break.
A very important aspect of the "break" in leather
is that when the leather is flexed to cause the
break to appear, it should disappear once the
leather is again flattened. Since a fine break is
considered to be one of the more important
characteristics of leather, tanners attempt to
obtain as fine a break as possible. In order to
achieve this, it is necessary to prevent excessive
cohesion of the fibers in the grain surface of the
leather, which is one of the major purposes of FATLIQUORING leather.
Break is influenced to a great extent by the
amount of oil in the grain layer and increases in
fineness with an increase of oil.
The butt area of a skin usually has a finer break
than the belly; tighter skins have finer breaks
than looser ones, and a leather like calfskin will
have a much finer break than cowhide.
Improper methods of finishing may cause an
otherwise fine break to become coarse, but the
kind of tannage has little effect on break. (102 , 248 , 363 )
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