IMPROVEMENTS IN TANNING, AND IN APPARATUS EMPLOYED THEREIN."
Year: 1881

page_text: LETTERS PATENT to William Hinkes Cox, of Russell Street, Bermondsey, in
the County of Surrey, for an Invention of "IMPROVEMENTS IN TANNING,
AND IN APPARATUS EMPLOYED THEREIN."
PROVISIONAL SPECIFICATION left by the said William Hinkes Cox at the
Office of the Commissioners of Patents on the 21st July 1881.
WILLIAM HINKES Cox, of Russell Street, Bermondsey, in the County of Surrey.
"IMPROVEMENTS IN TANNING, AND IN APPARATUS EMPLOYED THEREIN."
This Invention has for its object improvements in tanning, and in apparatus
employed therein.
After preparing hides by liming or otherwise, and washing them clean, I place
them in a long pit in several piles, of about 100 in each pile, side by side. There
should be divisions between the piles, these can be moveable or fixed. They
should be arranged so that there may be a free flow of liquor in this entire long pit.
There should be several long pits like this one described. Detached and smaller
pits may be employed but less conveniently.
To carry each pile of hides I have a kind of skeleton platform, nearly the size
of the bottom of a division of pit, with shutter like wooden moveable ends to
assist in moving up and down the platform and pile of hides. The platform should
be large enough to take the hides, or skins, or butts, or sides quite flat.
I have some holes made near the outside of the shutter like ends, about from 1
to 2 inch in size and about from 12 to 18 inches apart from near the top towards
the bottom, and when I want to tilt up the pack on one side (as I do in the course
of my process) I lift the platform to the desired height, and then run poles through
the corresponding holes in the shutter like ends. The pole being long enough it
rests on the solid sides of the pit. The same fittings are useful to lift the tray and
contents to the surface whenever shifting over the hides is required.
I proceed to fill up each division of a long pit with a pile of hides, excepting the
last division, which at first is only full of liquor. Soon I tilt up each pile for a
short time, and then commence slowly lifting up the first pile towards the top
.מ
71

page_text: of the pit and gently draw or swim over each hide, or pair, or more hides together
into the division where no hides are, having arranged for a tray or platform to be
ready quite near the top of the pit to receive them. This tray or platform should
be slowly lowered down into the pit as it receives the hides thereon.
The hides can be floated over from one division to another without being lifted
out of the liquor. The tray or floor will be near the top of the pit to receive the
next pile of hides as they are drawn over the partition into another division. I
go on in this way until each pile has after being tilted up for draining been moved
to another division. Then one division at the far end would be left without hides
but full of liquor. The divisions should not be quite so high as the outsides of the
pits; so that hides may easily be drawn over into or floated to the next division
without being exposed to cold, or heat, or air, or light, each of which is injurious
to leather in process. This lifting, moving, and lightening hides in the liquor gives
them every facility to swell, plump, and thicken fully to their natural dimensions,
and to absorb and assimilate tannin, otherwise so difficult of attainment.
When
adviseable I put ground oak bark or other suitable material over or between the
hides, and an advantage of my system of handling the hides is that the bark or
material is not displaced in the process as it is at present,
Before drawing off liquor I tilt up each pile of hides to the desired height on one
side for draining. I draw off all the liquor to change it or refresh it with more tan
or extract, and when the liquor is away from leather, if too cold, I warm it in a
slightly elevated wooden tank to a genial heat. When the liquor is made in
good order I let it run back to these same hides, or I pass it away to other goods.
The tilting of packs in liquor encourages even gentle compression, and running off
liquor more quickly drains the hides and makes them amenable to receive the full
advantage of the liquor directly they have been lifted from their sunken state and
drawn over, so that hides and liquor become mixed up together. Immediately it
has become desirable to move the hides from their partially sunken or compressed
state into full and free saturation of liquor, I begin at division next to the empty
division and move the hides from one to another division, as before described, in
regular order, until each pile is returned to where it was previously, the moving
over into liquor having sufficiently saturated the hides with proper liquor.
I may here remark that from time immemorial it has been considered indis-
pensable that leather in process must be frequently worked up to the sides of the
pits to drain; this is expensive, and the splashing and mixing liquors is most
inconvenient and perplexing. I obviate this roundabout way by tilting the packs
up in the pits to drain. I often change the liquor by pumping, which is more
efficient than lifting by crooks and at a trifling cost.
At first I prefer using a weak liquor_made_of_some_bright light color tan, then
I prefer drawing over the hides or butts singly from pit to pit full of liquor, but
later on when a darker liquor is often used I prefer placing grain to grain and
drawing over in pairs; and I apply by sprinkling or injecting a bright mellow
milky liquor to the grain side, whilst darker and more astringent liquor may be in
the pit and have access to the flesh side. From weak liquor I advance gradually in
strength, not risking harshness in leather and injury to fibre and color by strong
liquor to either side.
I prefer long pits, as described, where there is a large business done, but other-
wise, and in a sinall business and an old tan yard, small but adjacent pits may be
used, so that a full supply of liquor be kept up by pumping, syphon, or otherwise,
and there be a receiver at hand to take spare liquor, and arrangements be made so
that the liquor may be available again.
I strain and prepare the liquors, and this I do most conveniently by using a
light pump with a very fine strainer thereon, so that a clear refined liquor can
be drawn from the same pit or from a reserved tank near, and be sprinkled or
forced to the grain (or flesh) side of the hides, notwithstanding the general pit
liquor is even opaque, thick, and foul; indeed any liquor in this way may be
applied.

page_text: It will be necessary to strengthen and refresh or change the liquor very often as
the hides will rapidly advance in tanning. The moving and draining by tilting up
the packs and straining the liquors and moving them tends to prevent fermentation
and coagulation. I can use any material containing tannin.
Many tans have some peculiar qualities, such as very sharp edges when ground;
some contain much grit, sand, or resinous matter, which without care, pit the grain
or settle and concrete and stain the grain; but by carefully refining, straining, and
preparing suitable liquors and carefully applying them, as described, I avoid these
trying disadvantages.
In practice it will be found a bright mellow liquor should be applied to grain,
but a less cared for liquor will do for the flesh side. A new liquor is good to
surround flesh, but an older liquor, through which some leather had passed and
softened it (and best if made of soft materials), should be used for sprinkling grain.
When I sprinkle one side I lift the top of pack a little out of the liquor and draw
over the top hide on to some boards, and sprinkle its companion hide and see it all
right and free from wrinkles and proper; then I replace the removed hide and
draw them together into the next division of the liquor pit, and so on until the
whole pack has been so treated.
My object is to keep hides amply supplied on either side with liquor most suited
to its color, quality, and other requirements, hence this arrangement of pits and
working, so that each hide can readily and quickly and inexpensively be moved
and brought under the constant and uniform influence of liquor.
I have explained how I act when hides are tanned whole and also about butts.
When butts are cut out of hides there are several long strips called bellies and
shoulders, which in general practice are tumbled into a small quantity of liquor in
a pit, and when requiring to be moved are fished up at crooks points repeatedly.
This entails very much labor, delay, wrinkles, &c., &c. To obviate and avoid this
very imperfect proceeding I subject them as nearly as possible to the same treat-
ment as hides or butts by drawing or floating them over in sets or layers, as
described, into high level liquor pits and tilting them up to drain. The long strips
are from 8 to 10 feet; for convenience I double these up in half flesh or grain
outside, I generally prefer grain outside. At the loose ends of each strip I tie
them with bits of string, making each strip into a loop about 5 feet long. Through
enough of these loops to cover the width of the pit I place a lath of wood or a strip
of canvas or matting or other material. So I draw over, as even as may be, a
layer of these loops flatly, ensuring a complete fresh saturation of the entire pack
in a few minutes at any time.
By carrying out my plan carefully and with judgment, applying a bright or highly
colored or thick or thin liquor to flesh or grain, as desired, I produce a leather of
nearly any color or solidity or mellowness, to wit, such leather as is highly
esteemed in America and high priced, known as union, and also army sole leather
which is of prescribed substance and quality.
The ease and rapidity of moving leather on this my plan enables two youths to
move or shift thousands in a day.

page_text: SPECIFICATION in pursuance of the conditions of the Letters Patent filed
by the said William Hinkes Cox in the Great Seal Patent Office on the
21st January 1882.
WILLIAM HINKES Cox, of Russell Street, Bermondsey, in the County of Surrey.
"IMPROVEMENTS IN TANNING, AND IN APPARATUS EMPLOYED THEREIN."
This Invention has for its object improvements in tanning, and in apparatus
employed therein.
After preparing hides by liming or otherwise and washing them clean, I place
them in a long pit in several piles, of about 100 in each pile, side by side. There
should be divisions between the piles, these can be moveable or fixed. They
should be arranged so that there may be a free flow of liquor in this entire long pit.
The partitions are lower than the sides of the pit, so that the liquor may stand
some distance over the tops of the partitions. There should be several long pits
like this one described. Detached and smaller pits may be employed, but less
conveniently.
To carry each pile of hides I have a kind of skeleton platform, nearly the size of
the bottom of a division of pit, with upright shutter like wooden moveable ends to
assist in moving up and down the platform and pile of hides. The platform should
be large enough to take the hides or skins, or butts, or sides quite flat. Hides may
however in some cases be doubled or once folded, as hereinafter stated.
I have some holes made near the outside of the shutter like ends, about from 1
to 2 inch in size, and about from 6 to 18 inches apart, from near the top towards the
bottom, and when I want to tilt up the pack on one side (as I do in the course of
my process) I lift the platform to the desired height, and then run poles through
the corresponding holes in the shutter like ends. The pole being long enough it
rests on the solid sides of the pit. The same fittings are useful to lift the tray and
contents to the surface whenever shifting over the hides is required. Where a
pole would be in the way of shifting I put in pegs instead.
At commencing I proceed to fill up each division of a long pit with a pile of
hides, excepting the last division, which at first is only full of liquor. Soon I tilt
up each pile for a short time, and then commence slowly lifting up the first pile
towards the top of the pit. I fix the platform by putting in pegs when the
uppermost hides are just beneath the surface of the liquor, which should be level
with top of the pit, and gently draw or swim over each bide or pair or more hides
together into the division where no hides are, having arranged for a tray or
platform to be ready quite near the top of the pit to receive them. This tray or
platform should be slowly lowered down into the pit as it receives the hides
thereon, the pegs being removed from time to time to admit of this.
The hides can be floated over from one division to another without being lifted
out of the liquor. I go on in this way until each pile has, after being tilted up for
draining, been moved to another division. Then one division at the far end would
be left without hides but full of liquor.
Sometimes I leave no vacant compartment in the pit; and in this case, when
moving is required, lift up the first pile of hides or leather over onto a low
moveable truck, where it waits a short time and drains; then I shift or swim over
the next pack into the just emptied division, and so on with each pack until the
end of the long pit of divisions; then I draw the truck with the pack of leather or
bides and deposit this leather in the far end empty division, making every division
full of liquor and hides or leather.
The divisions, as already stated, should not be quite so high as the outsides of
the pits, so that hides may easily be drawn over into or floated to the next division
without being exposed to cold or heat, or air or light, each of which is injurious to

page_text: When
leather in process. This lifting, moving, and lightening hides in the liquor gives
them every facility to swell plump and thicken fully to their natural dimensions,
and to absorb and assimilate tannin, otherwise so difficult of attainment.
advisable I put ground oak bark or other suitable material over or between the
hides, and an advantage of my system of handling the hides is that the bark or
material is not displaced in the process as it is at present.
From time to time it becomes necessary to draw off the liquor.
Before drawing off liquor I tilt up each pile of hides on. one side for draining by
raising one side of the platform on which the pile rests and securing it by a pole
or by pegs. I draw off all the liquor to change it or refresh it with more tan or
extract, and when the liquor is away from the leather, if too cold, I warm it in a
slightly elevated wooden tank to a genial heat. When the liquor made in
good order I let it run back to these same hides or I pass it away to other
goods.
The tilting of packs in liquor encourages even gentle compression, and
running off liquor quickly drains the hides and makes them amenable to receive
the full advantage of the liquor when the pit is refilled and directly they have
been lifted from their sunken state and drawn over, so that hides and liquor
become mixed up together. Immediately it has become desirable to move the
hides from their partially sunken or compressed state into full and free saturation
of liquor; I begin at division next to the empty division, and move the hides from
one to another division, as before described, in regular order until each pile is.
returned to where it was previously, the moving over into liquor having
sufficiently saturated the hides with proper liquor.
I may here remark that from time immemorial it has been considered indis-
pensable that leather in process must be frequently worked up to the sides of the
pits to drain; this is expensive, and the splashing and mixing liquors is most
inconvenient and perplexing. I obviate this roundabout way by tilting the packs
up in the pits to drain. I often change the liquor by pumping, which is more
efficient than lifting by crooks, and it is done at a trifling cost.
At first I prefer using a weak liquor made of some bright light color tan; then I
prefer drawing over the hides or butts singly from division to division of the pit
full of liquor, but later on when a darker liquor is often used, I prefer placing
grain to grain, and drawing over in pairs, and I apply by sprinkling or injecting a
bright mellow milkly liquor to the grain side, whilst darker and more astringent
liquor may be in the pit and have access to the flesh side. From weak liquor I
advance gradually in strength, not risking harshness in leather and injury to fibre
and color by strong liquor to either side.
I prefer long pits, as described, where there is a large business done, but other-
wise and in a small business and an old tan yard small but adjacent pits may be.
used, so that a full supply of liquor be kept up by pumping, syphon, or otherwise,
and there be a receiver at hand to take spare liquor, and arrangements be made
so that the liquor may be available again.
I strain and prepare the liquors, and this I do most conveniently by using a
light pump with a very fine strainer thereon, so that a clear refined liquor can be
drawn from the same pit or from a reserved tank near, and be sprinkled or forced
to the grain (or flesh) side of the hides, notwithstanding the general pit liquor is
even opaque, thick, and foul; indeed, any liquor in this way may be applied.
It will be necessary to strengthen and refresh or change the liquor very often,
as the hides will rapidly advance in tanning. The moving and draining by tilting
up the packs and straining the liquors and moving them tends to prevent fermen-
tation and coagulation. I can use any material containing tannin.
Many-tans have some peculiar qualities, such as very sharp edges when ground.
Some contain much grit, sand, or resinous matter, which without care, pit the grain
or settle and concrete and stain the grain; but by carefully refining, staining, and
preparing suitable liquors, and carefully applying them as described, I avoid these
trying disadvantages.

page_text: In practice it will be found a bright mellow liquor should be applied to grain,
but a less cared for liquor will do for the flesh side. A new liquor is good to
surround flesh, but an older liquor, through which some leather had passed and
softened it (and best if made of soft materials), should be used for sprinkling grain.
When I sprinkle one side I lift the top of pack a little out of the liquor, and draw
over the top hide on to some boards, and sprinkle its companion hide, and see it all
right and free from wrinkles and proper; then I replace the removed hide, and
draw them together into the next division of the liquor pit, and so on until the
whole pack has been so treated.
My object is to keep hides amply supplied on either side with liquor most suited
to its color, quality, and other requirements, hence this arrangement of pits and
working so that each hide can readily, and quickly, and inexpensively be moved
and brought under the constant and uniform influence of liquor.
Hides, probably 7 to 10 feet in either direction, are cumbersome to let down or
hook up in pits where only little liquor is hence; in America and Australia hides
are divided in half, these pieces being easier to move than the whole. In Europe
the demand is not so keen for sides as for butts, bends, backs, shoulders, and
bellies or crop whole hides. Leather buyers in various parts of Europe freely
secure some shapes and sorts, different localities eagerly competing for remaining
parts.
By my improved process I am able easily to lift or draw large hides about and
over into full liquor pits, this gives me privilege to the very eleventh hour for
decision of shape for final finish of goods, therefore I prefer tanning whole hides
generally.
I double hides straight down the back; I take a cord of gutta percha or other
material, and form a small ring or loop at end, and pass all but this ring through a
small slit at tail end of hide and on between the folded bide through a slit at head
end, this I form into a loop; these loops or rings form a ready hold fast for hands
of workmen, by which on using a small crook stick workmen can instantly
straighten the line and hide which otherwise would sag and draw or swin over
and smother it in pit full of liquor.
When necessary I lift hide a little out of liquor, and then turn or flap open one
side of hide and sprinkle with strained and suitable liquor, and return or shut up
sides together as before, and then draw hide into full pit of liquor, thoroughly
saturating each side with liquor most suitable to build up a good, bright, mellow,
firm, saleable fabric for home or export trade, and if preferred entirely of native
raw materials.
I have explained_how_I_act_when_hides_are_tanned whole, and also about butts.
When butts are cut out of hides there are several long strips called bellies and
shoulders, which in general practice are tumbled into a small quantity of liquor in
a pit, and when requiring to be moved are fished up at crooks points repeatedly;
this entails very much labor, delay, wrinkles, &c., &c. To obviate and avoid this
very imperfect proceeding I subject them as nearly as possible to the same treatment
as hides or butts by drawing or floating them over in sets or layers, as described, into
high level liquor pits, and tilting them up to drain. The long strips are from 8 to
10 feet; for convenience I double these up in half flesh or grain outside, I generally
prefer grain outside. At the loose ends of each strip I tie them with bits of string,
making each strip into a loop about 5 feet long. Through enough of these loops
to cover the width of the pit I place a lath of wood, or a strip of canvas, or matting
or other material, so I draw over, as even as may be, a layer of these loops flatly,
ensuring a complete fresh saturation of the entire pack in a few minutes at any
time.
By carrying out my plan carefully and with judgment, applying a bright or
highly colored or thick or thin liquor to flesh or grain as desired, produce a
leather of nearly any color, or solidity, or mellowness; to wit, such leather as is
highly esteemed in America, and high priced, known as union, and also army sole
leather which is of prescribed substance and quality.

page_text: The ease and rapidity of moving leather on this my plan enables two youths to
move or shift thousands in a day.
What I clain is,-
First. The improvement in the process of tanning, consisting in supporting the
piles of hides or other goods in the tan pit upon moveable platforms, raising the
said platform to bring the goods nearly to the surface of the liquor, and floating
the goods over from one pile to another, substantially as described.
Second. The improvement in the process of tanning, consisting in supporting the
piles of hides or other goods in the tan pit on moveable platforms, and from time
to time setting such platforms within the pit in inclined positions to drain and
favor the compression of the goods, substantially as described.
Third. The improvement in the process of tanning, consisting in sprinkling the
goods with liquor, placing them face to face, and accumulating them in a pile in a
pit charged with other liquor, substantially as described.
[
Fourth. The improvement in the process of tanning the long strips called
bellies" and "shoulders," consisting in doubling and accumulating them in sets
upon a wooden lath, or otherwise piling them in the tan pit on moveable platforms
and floating them over in the tan liquor from one pile to another, substantially as
described.
Fifth. The improved apparatus, consisting of the long pits and the moveable
platforms, substantially as described.
In witness whereof, I, the said William Hinkes Cox, have hereunto set my
hand and seal, this Twentieth day of January, in the year of our Lord
One thousand eight hundred and eighty two.
WILLIAM HINKES COX,
(L.S.)