Imma take a picture of the motor next to my hand tomorrow, lol it’s an idea. It’s a 25hp motor, these mills hold about 2k lbs of leather and another 5K lbs of water when a full load is running.
Interestingly, to some, there’s not really anyone left in the world who makes these old wooden leather mills. There used to be a guy in, Milwaukee who’s retired, there’s an old gentleman in, Italy who is still building them but also, in his final years of work. We have an old Polish gentleman who can rebuild them but, he retires at the end of the year.
The modern molded polypropylene mills just don’t deliver the same quality finish as these wooden mills. These have wooden clubs secured inside them that beat the leather allow the water/dye/oil/wax/ect…to really penetrate into the hides. The modern mills are plastic injection molded and instead of clubs, use shelfs/paddles and they have way to much surface area. So, as the mill rotates the leather ends up falling in stacks onto the paddles/shelves and stick to one another and you don’t get the same penetration and finish quality at the end of a run…interestingly, we do specifically use hand made wooden paddle mills in our pickling process.
Paddle mill vs color mill
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