AN IMPROVED PROCESS FOR REMOVING THE 66 HAIR OR WOOL FROM THE SKINS OR HIDES OF ANIMALS, AND ALSO FOR CLEANSING, SOFTENING, SWELLING, AND PREPARING THE SAME FOR SUBSEQUENT TREATMENT IN THE PRODUCTION OF LEATHER
Year: 1883

page_text: LETTERS PATENT to John Palmer, of Blackfriars Road, in the County of
Surrey, for an Invention of AN IMPROVED PROCESS FOR REMOVING THE
66
HAIR OR WOOL FROM THE SKINS OR HIDES OF ANIMALS, AND ALSO FOR
CLEANSING, SOFTENING, SWELLING, AND PREPARING THE SAME FOR SUBSEQUENT
TREATMENT IN THE PRODUCTION OF LEATHER"
PROVISIONAL SPECIFICATION left by the said John Palmer at the Office
of the Commissioners of Patents on the 1st May 1883.
JOHN PALMER, of Blackfriars Road, in the County of Surrey, "AN IMPROVED
PROCESS FOR REMOVING THE HAIR OR WOOL FROM THE SKINS OR HIDES OF
ANIMALS, AND ALSO FOR CLEANSING, SOFTENING, SWELLING, AND PREPARING THE
SAME FOR SUBSEQUENT TREATMENT IN THE PRODUCTION OF LEATHER
13
My Invention relates to an improved process for treating hides or skins so as to
greatly facilitate the removal of the hair or wool therefrom, and also for cleansing,
softening, and causing the hides or skins to swell, so that they will be more perfectly
prepared for the operation of tanning or "tawing."
It consists essentially in subjecting the hides or skins alternately to the action
of water and to that of the atmosphere.
It will be first necessary to subject the hides or skins to a preliminary cleaning
so as to free them from all flesh or other impurities, and this may be effected in
any suitable manner, and by any known means..
After the bides or skins have been so cleaned they are then subjected alternately
to the action of water and to that of the atmosphere. This may be effected in any
convenient manner, a suitable method of doing so consisting in placing the skins
or bides in an open wheel or cage, which is caused to revolve with its lower portion
immersed in a tank or other suitable receptacle containing water, whereby the
hides or skins will be alternately plunged into or immersed in and acted upon by
the water, and then as they are raised out of the water by the continued revolution

page_text: of the open wheel or cage, the air will act upon them. The open wheel or cage is
caused to continue to revolve and so expose the hides or skins it contains alternately
to the action of water and air, until the hair or wool is found to be ready to be
removed in any suitable manner. After the hair or wool has been removed from
the skins or hides, they are again placed in the open wheel or cage, and the
operation continued until a dark colouring. matter can be made to exude from
them by "Scudding," when they will then be found thoroughly cleansed, softened,
Bwelled, and prepared for the subsequent tanning or tawing by any suitable
process.
In cases where it is not found practical to employ a revolving open wheel or
cage, as described, the hides or skins may be treated upon an ordinary tanner's
beam or block, being alternately immersed in water, and then manipulated upon
the beam in the usual manner, so that the action will be practically the same as in
the former case, when employing the revolving open wheel or cage, that is to say,
the hides or skins will be alternately subjected to the action of water and air.
The hair or wool having been removed from the hides or skins, the operation is
continued as before until the dark colouring matter can be made to exude from the
hides or skins by "scudding."
The process above described will so act upon the skins or hides as to thoroughly
free them from hair or wool, and cleanse, soften and swell them in a much shorter
time than by any other known process, and that without the use of any chemicals
whatever, while they will at the same time be much more perfectly prepared for
the subsequent action of tanning or tawing by any known method, and which will
also take a considerably shorter time to effect than when acting upon hides which
have been prepared in the usual manner.

page_text: I
SPECIFICATION in pursuance of the conditions of the Letters Patent filed
by the said John Palmer in the Great Seal Patent Office on the 27th October
1883.
JOHN PALMER of Blackfriars Road in the county of Surrey
"AN IMPROVED
PROCESS FOR REMOVING THE HAIR OR WOOL FROM THE SKINS OR HIDES OF
ANIMALS, AND ALSO FOR CLEANSING, SOFTENING, SWELLING AND PREPARING THE
SAME FOR SUBSEQUENT TREATMENT IN THE PRODUCTION OF LEATHER
"
My invention relates to an improved process for treating hides or skins so as to
greatly facilitate the removal of the hair or wool therefrom, and also for cleansing,
softening, and causing them hides or skins to swell, so that they will be more
perfectly prepared for the operation of tanning or "tawing."
It consists essentially in subjecting the hides or skins alternately to the action of
water and to that of the open air.
It will be necessary first to subject the hides or skins to a preliminary cleansing
so as to free them from all flesh or other impurities; and this may be effected in
any suitable manner and by any known means.
The hides or skins being well soaked, they are then submitted to the action of
the open air for about three days, the duration of such exposure depending upon
the temperature of the atmosphere, but in no case must it be long enough to
generate ammonia, as that would indicate incipient decomposition, and therefore
destruction of gelatine. The bides are then returned to the water for about three
days, after which they are again exposed to the air, and so on, alternating the
immersion and exposure for about a fortnight from the commencement in the case
of wet salted hides, when they will be found to unhair or unwool readily, but in
the case of the harder and dryer descriptions of hides the process will require to be
continued, say, from a week to 10 days longer. After the hides are unhaired the
alternate soaking and exposure to the air is again repeated, once or twice, until, on
"scudding," the hides are found to discharge a dark fluid, which I term "supressed
perspiration" As an indication of the time when the hides have arrived at the
stage when this fluid can be removed, it will be found that they give off a very
disagreeable effluvium (like that which arises from an overdriven beast) and
different from the ammoniacal smell usually given off by hides under treatment.
After the complete removal of the said dark fluid, the hides will be found to be
fresh, pure, soft and sweet smelling, and they will swell in the water and in the
aubsequent liquors to a better and higher degree than hides treated by the ordinary
more expensive processes. Such swelling of the hides will also indicate the perfect
removal of the said dark fluid. The atmospheric temperature which I find best
suited for carrying out my said process is about 65° Fahr:. If the temperature be
higher, less time will be required, and if lower, more time.
The hides prepared as above described can be tanned in a considerably shorter
time than when prepared by the known processes, and they will be found to have
gained from 100 to 112 per cent in weight instead of only from 65 to 70 percent,
as is the case under the ordinary processes of preparing them for tanning. As a
preparatory treatment, the skins or hides may be placed in an open drum or cage,
which is caused to revolve slowly with its lower portion immersed in a receptacle
containing water, so that the hides are alternately immersed in the water and then
ubjected to the action of the air, but this arrangement need not necessarily be
employed, and where it can not be conveniently adapted the hides may be at once
teeped in tanks for a lengthened time and then exposed to the air as described.
I am aware that hides have been treated by what is known as the "cool sweat"

page_text: process, in which the hides are steeped once in water and are then suspended in a
closed vault in which a moist atmosphere is maintained at a low temperature,
namely from 44° to 56° Fahr: until they will unhair, and I do not claim such
process. This process is only applicable to certain classes of hides,." Market" or
City Slaughter" hides and "East India Kips" not being capable of treatment
thereby, and even salted hides are not advantageously treated by it, on account of
the salt, whereas, with my process, all descriptions of hides can be successfully
treated, the salt of salted hides being decomposed by the action of the nitrogen of
the atmospheric air. Also, the "cool sweat" does not swell the hides, and these
consequently require a subsequent expensive treatment with lime and acid to effect
the swelling, which by my process is entirely avoided, a more perfect swelling
being produced by the alternate action of the water and air at a considerably
higher temperature than that employed in the "cool sweat" process, and by the
removal of the dark fluid as described.
Having thus described the nature of my invention and in what manner the same
is to be performed, I claim :
:
First Treating hides and skins for the removal of the hair and wool therefrom
by repeatedly immersing them in water and exposing them in the open air until
the hair or wool will separate therefrom substantially as herein described.
Second-Treating hides preparatory to tanning by repeatedly immersing them
in water and exposing them in the open air, until by the application of pressure, a
dark fluid is removed therefrom, substantially as herein described
In Witness whereof I the said John Palmer have hereunto set my hand and
seal this twenty fourth day of October in the year of our Lord one thousand
eight hundred and eighty-three.