AN IMPROVED MANUFACTURE OF IMPERMEABLE
Year: 1878

page_text: PROVISIONAL SPECIFICATION left by William Robert Lake at the Office of
the Commissioners of Patents on the 12th December 1878. A communication
from abroad by Frédéric Jayet, of Nimes (Gard), France, Mechanician.
WILLIAM ROBERT LAKE, of the Firm of Haseltine, Lake, & Co., Patent Agents,
Southampton Buildings, London. "AN IMPROVED MANUFACTURE OF IMPERMEABLE
[A communication from abroad by Frédéric Jayet, of Nimes (Gard),
LEATHER."
France, Mechanician.]
This Invention relates to an improved manufacture of impermeable leather and
comprises a process for utilizing waste pieces, scraps, scrapings, and parings of
leather, hides, and skins, such pieces, scraps, and the like being commonly called
parings (bourriers) by which process the latter are so amalgamated as to form
leather similar to new leather, and having moreover the quality of impermeability.
In carrying the said Invention into practice I amalgamate or aggregate the said
scraps or parings by means of powerful pressure, after having agglomerated them
with albuminous matters contained in the blood of bullocks, calves, or sheep, and to
which has been added a certain quantity of lime.
The said scraps or parings are generally in a greasy condition which would
prevent their being caused to adhere together by the blood, and it is therefore
necessary to commence by removing this grease. For this purpose I plunge the
scraps or parings into a weak solution of sulphuric acid composed of say about one
litre of acid to fifty litres of water. After having left the said scraps or parings
immersed in this solution for three hours I remove and wash them in water.
I then dry them either in the open air or by means of a drying stove after having
expelled the excess of water by pressure or by means of a hydro-extractor if
necessary. The scraps or parings having been thus deprived of the layer of greasy
matter I proceed to agglomerate them, employing blood as the agglutinant as
hereinbefore mentioned, preferring for this purpose fresh bullocks' blood. The blood
is enclosed within a tub, or vat, or other suitable vessel, and one kilogramme of
lime is added for every hundred kilogrammes of blood; I employ for this purpose
lime which has been slaked or hydrated, and afterwards sifted to a sufficiently fine

page_text: powder. Into this bath of blood with lime I throw sufficient of the pieces, scraps,
or parings of leather or skin to form a gelatinous substance or magma, which is
worked or stirred with a stirrer by hand, or a pug-mill may be used. The albumen
in the blood coagulates in presence of the scraps and parings and penetrates into
their pores, and the pores being thus filled the leather is rendered impermeable, and
moreover the blood and lime form a glue or compound which firmly unites the
pieces together.
The paste or magma produced as above described is sufficiently plastic to be
moulded, and therefore the articles which it is desired to form thereof can be
produced in a direct manner whatever may be the form or shape required.
I am thus enabled to mould heels for boots and shoes in one single picce; also
inner soles or welts and inside heel pieces. The operation for producing such
articles is effected in moulds of cast iron provided with a moveable counterpart for
exerting a powerful pressure upon the mass to be moulded.