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- Subject is exactly "Salz Tannery"
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Vegetable tanned - or tanoak - leather was hung until ready for shipping. Vegetable leather dried naturally over a period of days. Salz Tannery switched to a chrome process about 1961. The chrome process made a softer tannage, more suitable for…
Vegetable leather, drying slowing in the tack rooms high above the tanyards at the A.K. Salz Company.
The tanoak used to dye leather was stored in drying sheds across Highway 9 from the main Salz Tannery complex. Modern forklifts replaced horse and wagon in the 1960s. The drying process took about six months. The building in this photo was used to…
Tanoak bark was stacked for drying. Originally harvested locally, tanoak provided the chief ingredient in tanning California Saddle Leather (TM), a Salz specialty. As local supplies dwindled, Salz purchased it from suppliers throughout California.…
Tan pits could be dangerous so employees often worked in pairs while removing vegetable tanned hides from them. Jeremy Lezin remembers that as a kid "Salz sales manager Howard Halper fell into the pits while conducting a tour." The term…
Stripping tanoak from trees was a labor intensive process. Salz Tannery purchased tanoak bark from suppliers who found a good supply along the Mendocino coast. The man in the photograph worked for a supplier.
Stan Blackburn, a 32-year Salz Tannery employee, hauls hides through the plant. Blackburn's stepson, surfer Jay Moriarity, died in a diving accident. Shmuel Thaler/ Sentinel photos.
A stack of sides on a "horse." Horses were used at Salz to move sides of leather into measuring until the company closed in 2001.
The spray machines at Salz Tannery needed to be constantly adjusted. Depending on the finish required, the spray booths deposited waxes, lacquers, oils, dyes, pigments and protein solutions on the leather. Before this, the leather was dried. After…
This photograph was taken in 1954 when hides were still hand-scudded. After hair and flesh were removed chemically and mechanically, scudding removed fine hair roots to produce leather of even grain and depth. [Artistically, it is interesting to…