Tanners program and use tannery drums. They perform the work according to the work instructions, verify the physical and chemical characteristics of the hide, skin, or leather and of the liquid floats, e.g. Ph, temperature, chemicals concentration, during the process. They use the drum for washing the hide or skin, removing the hair (not in the case of hides and skins tanned with the hair or wool on), bating, tanning, retanning, dyeing and milling.

Tasks

Tasks include -
(a) Sorting and grading pelts, hides and skins according to colour, shading, size and density;
(b) Scraping particles of flesh, fat or protective tissue from skins or pelts to clean and soften them;
(c) Removing hair from skin or hides soaked in lime water;
(d) Preparing hides by curing them with salt;
(e) Removing long, coarse hair from pelts and trimming underlying hair to even length;
(f) Tanning and dressing pelts to improve lustre and beauty or restore natural appearance of pelts;
(g) Preparing bark and myrobalan liquor for treating hides or skins;
(h) Treating hides and skins in tanning solution to convert them into leather;
(i) Tinting or dyeing furs to enhance natural shades of fur;
(j) Removing wrinkles and setting grains on wet hide or skin;
(k) Dressing and applying dyes and stains to leather;
(l) Stretching and smoothing dressed pelts;
(m) Seasoning leather by applying chemical solution or oil evenly on surface by hand brush and allowing it to dry in open air.