Principles and Practice of Fur Dressing and Fur DyeingAustin, William E.
Science
Principles and Practice of Fur Dressing and Fur Dyeing
Austin, William E.
Fur -- Dressing and dyeing
The discovery of America introduced into Europe many new dye substances,
chiefly wood extracts such as logwood and Brazilwood, but it was not until
the nineteenth century that these materials found their way into the
dye formulas of the fur dyer. Most of the processes used in the dyeing
of furs were adaptations of methods employed in silk dyeing, the silk
fibre being considered as most nearly approaching fur-hair in nature and
characteristics. By devious and circuitous paths the formulas of the silk
dyers reached the fur people, and so, in the middle of the nineteenth
century, dye mixtures containing the various dyewoods as well as the
tannin-containing substances were in general use for the dyeing of furs.
The following is a typical recipe of that time for the production of black
on furs like wolf, skunk, raccoon, etc.:
Roasted gall-nuts 1000 parts
Sumach 200 „
Iron mordant 200 „
Copper vitriol 100 „
Litharge 80 „
Alum 60 „
Salammoniac 50 „
Crystallized verdigris 40 „
French logwood extract 30 „
Rain water 7000 „
The mixture was boiled up, and after cooling was ready for application by
the brush method, the skins being first killed by a killing mixture also
applied by the brush. The dye substances in this case are the gall-nuts,
sumach and the logwood extract, with the iron mordant, copper vitriol, and
alum as mordants. For brown shades a similar formula was used containing
Pernambuco wood extract, logwood extract, quercitron bark, gall-nuts and
dragonblood, together with iron, copper and alum mordants.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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