Volume 8, Issue 2, September 2014, Pages 883–890
Rolland Wemegah1
1 Industrial Art Department, Bolgatanga Polytechnic, P. O. Box 767, Bolgatanga, U/E Region, Ghana
Original language: English
Copyright © 2014 ISSR Journals. This is an open access article distributed under the Creative Commons Attribution License, which permits unrestricted use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original work is properly cited.
Leather tanning with vegetative materials is one of the artisanal preoccupations of some craftsmen in the Upper East Region of Ghana. The leathers produced are however, limited to only three colours; brown, white and black. Their usage in multi-coloured applications by leather crafters in the region is therefore very much restricted. Some of the artisans therefore import leathers from other leather producing communities outside Ghana to supplement the local ones. This stifles the growth of the industry and robs the region and the country of the much needed foreign exchange. This experimental research therefore explored the use of basic dyes, which are cheap and readily available in the area, to extend the colour range of the vegetable tanned leathers manufactured in the region. The research showed that even though the dyed leathers were quite fugitive when exposed to extreme sunlight; and were not dyed-through thoroughly, the affinity of the dyes to the grain and flesh sides of the leathers were admirable. The leathers also exhibited excellent colour brilliance, softness and flexibility. It was found out that the dyed leathers could be suitably used in crafting utilitarian articles such as hand bags, shoulder bags, belts, mobile phones cases, neck pouches, mats, slip-ons, puffs, attaches cases and wallets.
Author Keywords: Leather dyeing, Bolga leather, Basic dyes, vegetable tanned leather, dyeing with basic dyes.
Rolland Wemegah1
1 Industrial Art Department, Bolgatanga Polytechnic, P. O. Box 767, Bolgatanga, U/E Region, Ghana
Original language: English
Copyright © 2014 ISSR Journals. This is an open access article distributed under the Creative Commons Attribution License, which permits unrestricted use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original work is properly cited.
Abstract
Leather tanning with vegetative materials is one of the artisanal preoccupations of some craftsmen in the Upper East Region of Ghana. The leathers produced are however, limited to only three colours; brown, white and black. Their usage in multi-coloured applications by leather crafters in the region is therefore very much restricted. Some of the artisans therefore import leathers from other leather producing communities outside Ghana to supplement the local ones. This stifles the growth of the industry and robs the region and the country of the much needed foreign exchange. This experimental research therefore explored the use of basic dyes, which are cheap and readily available in the area, to extend the colour range of the vegetable tanned leathers manufactured in the region. The research showed that even though the dyed leathers were quite fugitive when exposed to extreme sunlight; and were not dyed-through thoroughly, the affinity of the dyes to the grain and flesh sides of the leathers were admirable. The leathers also exhibited excellent colour brilliance, softness and flexibility. It was found out that the dyed leathers could be suitably used in crafting utilitarian articles such as hand bags, shoulder bags, belts, mobile phones cases, neck pouches, mats, slip-ons, puffs, attaches cases and wallets.
Author Keywords: Leather dyeing, Bolga leather, Basic dyes, vegetable tanned leather, dyeing with basic dyes.
How to Cite this Article
Rolland Wemegah, “The Prospects of Using Basic Dyes to Extend the Colour Range of Vegetable Tanned Leathers from Bolgatanga,” International Journal of Innovation and Applied Studies, vol. 8, no. 2, pp. 883–890, September 2014.
