During the development of our leather edge paint, the first topic we worked on was how to save time during the leather edge painting without affect the quality. We have the following features to work on:
- Reduce the time for the leather edge physical preparation;
- Reduce the the number of application;
- Reduce the dry time;
It was the first point on which we started to work. Until now, usually leather crafter were spending a lot of time in the physical preparation of the leather, giving it the desired rounded shape, and closing the leather surface with several process.
As on of the most important characteristic requested was the rounded shape of the leather edge, we started working on the surface tension of our paint, increasing it until we were totally satisfied. In fact our edge paint build itself the rounded aspect, and as much coat you apply, much more rounding you get on the leather edge aspect.
The second way to save time during the leather edge physical preparation was to limit the number of process before the paint application. In this case we work on the adhesion features of our edge paints, increasing it until you don't need any special preparation to the leather edge. You can simply apply the paints just after you cut the leather, at least you can lightly sand the surface to remove some dirty or some small leather-hair.
Usually when you are finishing the leather edge you need such a lot number of coat to get your desired quality. To solve this problem we work on the dry part of our paint. Is the dry part of the paint the one that remain on the leather edge once it completely dry. In the old paint the dry part was almost at 20% of the paint, in our products the dry part is between the 40% up to the 60% of the paint (depend on the product you choose). This allow us to reduce the number of application of 50% to get the same final quality, saving you much time then you expect.
Dry time depend on how fast the volatile part is dispersed into the atmosphere. As you probably know solvent are much more quick in dry then water, but on the other hand they are the main cause of pollution and health hazard. On this topic we choose the sustainability instead of time-saving. Old paint has usually a variable solvent percentage between 12%-18%. We reduce the presence of solvent inside our leather edge paints from 9% (in the MAXEDGE line) down to the 0.8% (in the MAXMATT line), because we take care of our planet and our customers health.