Abstract

Uniaxial strain of varying magnitude was applied to skins of male and female blue fox (Alopex lagopus) and male scan black mink (Mustela vison) in the conservation process. Effects of the strain along the line of the backbone on physical characteristics, i.e. elongation at break, breaking load, breaking energy and tensile strength were investigated for a number of selected leather samples by using a previously reported special sampling set system. According to the results obtained in this work the mechanical strain has a considerable effect on the physical characteristics of fox leather. The effect is not so clear in the case of strained mink leather. On the basis of the results obtained in this work it is concluded that fox and mink leather can be strained with a load of 400 N. Even in this case the breaking load remains a high enough value to meet the lower acceptable value for breaking load. Straining with a load of 400 N along the line of the backbone only to some extent homogenizes the tensile and elongation behavior of the leather with respect to the transverse direction.