IMPROVEMENTS IN THE TREATMENT OF HIDES AND SKINS; IN TANNING, AND OTHERWISE UTILIZING ALL PORTIONS OR PIECES THEREOF; AND IN THE TREATMENT OF GOODS ALREADY TANNED " PROVISIONAL SPECIFICATION
Year: 1870

page_text: LETTERS PATENT to Henry Richardson Fanshawe, of the Patent
Office, No. 14, Finsbury Place, in the County of Middlesex,
Chemist, and William Henry Smith, of No. 12, St. Ann's Gardens,
Haverstock Hill, in the same County, Artist, for the Invention of
"IMPROVEMENTS IN THE TREATMENT OF HIDES AND SKINS; IN TANNING, AND
OTHERWISE UTILIZING ALL PORTIONS OR PIECES THEREOF; AND IN THE
TREATMENT OF GOODS ALREADY TANNED "
PROVISIONAL SPECIFICATION left by the said Henry Richardson
Fanshawe and William Henry Smith at the Office of the Com-
missioners of Patents, with their Petition, on the 24th March 1870.
We, HENRY RICHARDSON FANSHAWE, of the Patent Office, No. 14,
Finsbury Place, in the County of Middlesex, Chemist, and WILLIAM
HENRY SMITH, of No. 12, St. Ann's Gardens, Haverstock Hill, in
the same County, Artist, do hereby declare the nature of the said
Invention for "IMPROVEMENTS IN THE TREATMENT OF HIDES AND SKINS; IN

page_text: TANNING, AND OTHERWISE UTILIZING ALL PORTIONS OR PIECES THEREOF; AND IN
THE TREATMENT OF GOODS ALREADY TANNED," to be as follows:-
The object of this Invention is the rendering hides and skins and
certain fashioned portions or forms of hides and skins non-absorbent to
water; indurating the fibre and general texture of the same, thereby
rendering loose textured goods more durable in wear than at present;
also the imparting to hides and skins already tanned, and pieces and
portion thereof, lighter and better colour and finish, more particularly
in goods imported, such as mimosa, hemlock, and others of the darker
class of tannages.
I. We take hides or skins or "hide roundings" of sufficient thickness
for the production of boot or shoe soles, clumps, or other articles that
may be required, and we cut, stamp, or otherwise fashion the same to
the form desired. We then immerse the fashioned pieces thus obtained
in weak bark oozes at, say, three degrees of strength on barkometer,
keeping them in motion in order to colour evenly the grain and flesh
surfaces. The pieces are also kept from contact with the atmosphere,
and this we effect, by preference, in a machine described in the
Specification of Letters Patent granted to Henry Richardson Fanshawe,
on the Tenth day of June, in the year of our Lord One thousand eight
hundred and forty-one, and illustrated by Figures 1, 2, and 3 in the
Drawings accompanying that Specification. After the pieces aro
"struck" perfectly even in colour additional strength must be given to
the colouring liquors by the addition of terra japonica or other tanning
material in the state usually employed, and the process continued,
strengthening by degrees. When thoroughly tanned the pieces must be
removed, drained, and then placed in a sumac bath to brighten their
colour. They are next removed and dried in racks or "shedded."
When it is thought necessary to improve the colour on account of its
darkness we proceed in the following manner :-We take of phosphate
of soda one part; of chloride of lime one part. We dissolve first the
phosphate and then the chloride in twelve parts of water at a tempera-
ture of eighty degrees of Fahrenheit. The leather is then either
immersed in the solution or the flesh side is coated with the solution
by means of a brush or sponge and allowed to remain for one hour or
thereabouts, according to the nature of the leather under treatment.
In some cases we make a saturated solution of chrome alum and acetate

page_text: of lead, to which we add a sufficient quantity of kaolin or Cornish clay,
to give the solution a stiff body, and proceed to treat the leather as just
now described herein for the purpose of improving the colour. The
leather under treatment is finished by well washing in cold water.
After being thus treated, or when such treatment is not considered
necessary, after the pieces that have been tanned are sufficiently dry
they are placed in an exhaust tank or vat, when the air having been
exhausted, we allow to enter, by means of a pipe and supply tank
provided for the purpose, to every hundred pounds a mixture in or about
the following proportions, namely:-Ten pounds in weight double clear
size, five pounds of kaolin or Cornish clay, three pounds of finely
divided yellow ochre; all these materials being thoroughly and in-
timately mixed or blended in as much water as will cover the leather
under treatment at eighty degrees of Fahrenheit. The same degree of
heat is kept up, and the vacuum maintained for about thirty minutes.
The leather is then removed and any extraneous matter adhering to the
surfaces having been cleansed therefrom, it is placed in a solution of
chrome alum and acetate of or pyroligniate of lead. After this the
leather pieces are submitted to air drying and are passed between wood,
brass, or copper rollers in order to complete their solidity. The cuttings,
that is to say, the pieces remaining after stamping or cutting out the
forms desired are available for the manufacture of size or glue, or any
other purpose for which hide cuttings are now or may be utilized, and
it will be obvious that a great quantity of useful cuttings is obtained
by this plan of tanning the various pieces in the forms or shapes desired,
that would by the usual method have become tanned and comparatively
worthless, while the fashioned or shaped pieces exposed to the process
hercin-before described arc from their size more quickly treated and
rendered marketable than if the process were applied to the whole hide
or skin.
We treat also hide or hide substance shaped to any desired
form with alum and salt as for preparing white leather, and after
thorough air drying by submitting such hide or hide substance to the
saturation of the size mixture herein-before described, and subsequent
treatment as to the waterproofing and indurating the same, the colouring
being accomplished by bark or other tanning material in the usual way.
In order thoroughly to saturate the leather, where it is particularly hard
in texture, or where the fluid intended for saturation is thick and viscid,
as in the size and clay mixture, more than mere exhaustion of the air
from the tank or vat is sometimes required. It is then necessary to

page_text: force the fluid into the substance of the leather either by pressure of
column or by pumps.
II. Instead of taking and tanning hides, skins, or portions or pieces
thereof and proceeding to tan the same in the manner bereinbefore (I.)
described we take loose textured leathers of the heavy class, either hides,
or skins, or portions or pieces thereof, fashioned or unfashioned, and
submit them to the action of the exhaust apparatus, and by this means
cause them to imbibe, if very light in colour, the size mixture as
described in that part of this Specification marked I., namely, the size
clay and ochre mixture, and subsequently immerse them in the solution
of chrome alum and acetate of or pyroliguiate of lead. In all cases,
whether previously tanned or tanned in the manner herein-before
described, we treat all leather intended for boot or shoe soles, clumps,
uppers, harness, and all such like purposes in which imperviousness is
required, by placing it quite dry in the exhaust vessel and saturating it
with a bituminous compound of coal tar pitch, previously well
"sweated," dissolved in common coal tar spirit. To this we add of
india-rubber, first, well masticated, twelve per centum, and of gutta
percha well washed and cleansed six per centum on the weight of the
bitumen employed. In all cases where the colour of the leather is an
object and a good colour has to be maintained and in cases where
imported leathers, such as those of the mimosa and hemlock tannages,
have been treated with the view of improving their colour with the
phosphate of soda and chloride of lime solution, as herein-before described,
we employ instead of the bituminous mixture a solution of shellac, by
preference liver lac in or about the following proportions :-Of lac, twelve
pounds; water, eight gallons; and of liquor ammonia at the strength of
8.80 two pounds, the ammonia being in excess, and while in use kept at
the temperature of ninety-eight degrees Fahrenheit. This mode of
treatment may be repeated, if necessary, two or three times until the
object is attained.
As an after process we also employ paraffine oil in which has been
digested in a warm bath coal tar pitch purified in the usual way or
"sweated," and we sometimes combine the same class of bitumen
blended or intimately mixed with five times its weight of solid paraffin,
and in this latter case no other flexible matter, the union of the two
forming a mixture sufficiently flexible to indurate and render the goods
impervious.

page_text: We lay a
few days to
When such
III. In some cases we take a hide or portion thereof which has been
tanned in the usual way, but we take it in the half dry state or state
usually termed "sammed," and coat the same with a brush or hand
flannel evenly over on each surface with cod or whale oil.
given number of such pieces or hides so treated away for a
give the oil time to become absorbed into the substance.
absorption has taken place the coating with oil must be repeated, and
after a few days, and complete absorbtion has taken place, we pay over in
the same manner cod or whale oil which has been previously treated by
the action of bisulphuret of carbon and ter-chloride of sulphur in the
proportions of thirty-two parts of the former to one part of the latter.
When the latter application of sulphurized oil has become set and firm
the leather must be slowly dried in the way known to tanners as to the
proper supply of air, and when quite dry oiled and treated as for other
hides. Hides prepared as for white leather treated in the above manner
are peculiarly suited for mill bands, band laces, and such like goods,
retaining greater strength than those tanned in the usual manner.
Leather thus prepared will be greatly improved if after the oiling it is
immersed in or coated with a solution of ox gall.
IV. For the waterproofing and induration of skins which are required
to have a coloured surface, we take memel or other calf, sheep, goat,
and other suitable skins which have been tanned in sumac or in any
other way suitable to leave them as light in colour as possible, and when
dry we coat over the grain side very evenly with a compound of white
wax dissolved in turpentine spirit; this is done in a warm room until
the coating has become absorbed. An application is now made precisely
in the same manner with a composition of white or bleached shellac, by
preference, orange lac, to which lac cither liquor ammonia or borate of
soda in water has been added as a solvent; a very thin coating is applied.
We take stearine blended with white wax, and coloured to the requisite
shade by employing the oxide colours such as those used in colouring
india-rubber goods when such goods are prepared with sulphur, the
colours remaining unchanged or unaffected thereby. The skins so treated
are thoroughly waterproof, and indurated, and at the same time retain
their flexibility, and are therefore suitable for out-door use, and for
cushions, travelling bags, and such like purposes. To any of the three
compounds or mixtures just herein-before referred to we add in some cases
a solution of india-rubber or white gutta percha. After the preparation

page_text: of the leather to render it impervious we submit the same to warm
pressure either by heated rollers, callenders, or flat plates. The goods
intended for boot soles, clumps, and other set forms, we press or block
into the form we intend it to retain. The inner surfaces (flesh side) we
coat with a brush when perfectly dry and hard with a solution of india-
rubber and lac blended by a masticator in the proportions of one hundred
parts of rubber and fifteen parts ground lac dissolved in one of the
usual solvents; or of rubber one hundred parts and of gutta percha
twenty parts dissolved as before stated. We propose to use for this
purpose any of the flexible gums which are insoluble in water.
leather prepared with the sulphurized oil we pass between copper rollers,
either in the form intended for cutting into mill bands, or in the intended
size or width of the band, after which a preparation of sulphurized white
oil, castor oil being preferred, is paid over the grain side or on both
sides.
The
Butts and soles or portions of butts or hides can be indurated and
rendered impervious without exhaustion of air, although in some cases
the exhausting process would be necessary. Heat slowly and carefully
applied is all that is required in butts and such like leathers when the
bituminous compound alluded to alone is employed.
Where solvents are employed to carry indurating matters by the
exhauster or otherwise the greater portion may be recovered by leading
apours of the same to a condenser.
.
SPECIFICATION in pursuance of the conditions of the Letters Patent,
filed by the said Henry Richardson Fanshawe and William Henry
Smith in the Great Seal Patent Office on the 24th September 1870.
TO ALL TO WHOM THESE PRESENTS SHALL COME, wc, HENRY
RICHARDSON FANSHAWE, of the Patent Office, No. 14, Finsbury Place,
in the County of Middlesex, Chemist, and WILLIAM HENRY SMITH, of
No. 12, St. Ann's Gardens, Haverstock Hill, in the same County, Artist,
send greeting.
WHEREAS Her most Excellent Majesty Queen Victoria, by Her
Letters Patent, bearing date the Twenty-fourth day of March, in the year
of our Lord One thousand eight hundred and seventy, in the thirty-

page_text: third year of Her reign, did, for Ierself, Her heirs and successors, give
and grant unto us, the said Henry Richardson Fanshawe and William
Henry Smith, Her special licence that we, the said Henry Richardson
Fanshawe and William Henry Smith, our executors, administrators,
and assigns, or such others as we, the said Henry Richardson Fanshawe
and William Henry Smith, our executors, administrators, and assigns,
should at any time agree with, and no others, from time to time and
at all times thereafter during the term therein expressed, should and
lawfully might, make, use, exercise, and vend, within the United
Kingdom of Great Britain and Ireland, the Channel Islands, and Isle
of Man, an Invention for "IMPROVEMENTS IN THE TREATMENT OF HIDES AND
SKINS; IN TANNING AND OTHERWISE UTILIZING ALL PORTIONS OR PIECES THEREOF;
IN THE TREATMENT OF GOODS ALREADY TANNED," upon the condition
(amongst others) that we, the said Henry Richardson Fanshawe and
William Henry Smith, our executors or adininistrators, by an instru-
ment in writing under our, or one of our, or their, or one of their
hands and seals, should particularly describe and ascertain the nature
of the said Invention, and in what manner the same was to be per-
formed, and cause the same to be filed in the Great Seal Patent
Office within six calendar months next and immediately after the date
of the said Letters Patent.
AND
NOW KNOW YE, that we, the said Henry Richardson Fanshawo
and William Henry Smith, do hereby declare the nature of our said
Invention, and in what manuer the same is to be performed, to
be particularly described and ascertained in and by the following
statement
The object of this Invention is the rendering of hides and skins and
certain fashioned pieces or forms of hides and skins non-absorbent to
water, indurating the fibre and general texture of the same, thereby
rendering loose textured goods more durable in wear than at present,
also the imparting to hides and skins already tanned and pieces, and
portions thereof, lighter and better colour and finish, more particularly
in goods imported, such as mimosa, licmlock, and others of the darker
class of tannages.
I. We take hides or skins or hide roundings of sufficient thickness
for the production of boot or shoe soles, clumps, or other article that may
be required, and we cut, stamp, or otherwise fashion the same to the form

page_text: desired. We then immerse the fashioned pieces thus obtained in weak
bark oozes at, say, three degrees of strength on barkometer, keeping
them in motion in order to colour evenly the grain and flesh surfaces.
The pieces are also kept from contact with the atmosphere, and this we
effect by preference in a machine described in the Specification of Letters
Patent granted to Henry Richardson Fanshawe on the Tenth day of June
in the year of our Lord One thousand eight hundred and forty-one, and
illustrated by Figures 1, 2, and 3 in the Drawings accompanying that
Specification. After the pieces are "struck" perfectly even in colour,
additional strength must be given to the colouring liquors by the
addition of terra japonica or other tanning material in the state usually
employed, and the process continued strengthening by degrees. When
thoroughly tanned the pieces must be removed, drained, and then placed
in a sumac bath to brighten their colour. They are next removed and
dried in racks or shedded. After the pieces that have been tanned are
sufficiently dry they are placed in an exhaust tank or vat, when the air
having been exhausted we allow to enter by means of a pipe and supply
tank provided for the purpose to every hundred pounds a mixture in or
about the following proportions, namely, ten pounds in weight of doublo
clear size, five pounds of Cornish clay, three pounds of finely divided
yellow ochre, all these materials being thoroughly and intimately mixed
or blended in as much water as will cover the leather under treatment
at eighty degrees of Fahrenheit. The same degree of heat is kept up and
the vacuum maintained for about thirty minutes. The leather is then
removed and any extraneous matter adhering to the surfaces is cleansed
therefrom. After this the leather pieces are submitted to air drying and
are passed between wood, brass, or copper rollers, in order to completo
their solidity. The cuttings, that is to say, the pieces remaining after
cutting or stamping out the forms desired, are available for the manu-
facture of size or glue or any other purpose for which hide cuttings are
now or may be utilized, and it will be obvious that a great quantity of
useful cuttings is obtained by this plan of tanning, the various pieces,
in the forms or shapes desired, that would by the usual method have
become tanned and comparatively worthless, while the fashioned or
shaped pieces exposed to the process herein-before described are from
their size more quickly treated and rendered marketable than if the
process were applied to the whole hide or skin. We treat also hide or
hide substance shaped to any desired form with alum and salt as for

page_text: preparing white leather, and after thorough air drying by submitting
such hide or hide substance to the saturation of the size mixture herein-
before described and subsequent treatment as to the waterproofing and
indurating the same, the colouring being accomplished by bark or other
tanning material in the usual way. In order thoroughly to saturate the
leather where it is particularly hard in texture, or where the fluid
intended for saturation is thick and viscid, as in the size and clay mixture,
more than mere exhaustion of the air from the tank or vat is sometimes
required. It is then necessary to force the fluid into the substance of
the leather either by pressure of column or by pumps.
II. Instead of taking and tanning hides, skins, or portions, or pieces
thereof, and proceeding to tan the same in the manner herein-before (I.)
described, we take loose textured leathers of the heavy class, either
hides, or skins, or portions or pieces thereof fashioned or unfashioned,
and submit them to the action of the exhaust apparatus, and by this
means cause them to imbibe if very light in colour the size mixture as
described in that part of this Specification marked I., namely, the size,
clay, and ochre mixture, and subsequently immerse them in the solu-
tion of chrome alum and acetate of or pyroligniate of lead.
In all cases,
whether previously tanned or tanned in the manner herein-before de-
scribed, we treat all leather intended for boot or shoe soles, clumps,
uppers, harness, and all such like purposes, in which imperviousness is
required by placing it quite dry in the exhaust vessel, and saturating
it with a bituminous compound of coal tar pitch, previously well
"sweated" dissolved in common coal tar spirit. To this we add of
india-rubber, first well masticated, twelve per centum, and of gutta percha
well washed and cleansed six per centum on the weight of the bitumen
employed. In all cases where the colour of the leather is an object, and
a good colour has to be maintained, we employ instead of the bitu-
minous mixture a solution of shell lac, by preference liver lac, in or
about the following proportions:-Of lac twelve pounds, water cight
gallons, and of liquor ammonia at the strength of 8-80 two pounds, the
ammonia being in excess, and while in use are kept at the temperature of
ninety-eight degrees Fahrenheit. This mode of treatment may be repeated
if necessary two or three times until the object is attained; as an after
process we also employ paraffin oil in which in which has been digested in
a warm bath coal tar pitch purified in the usual way or sweated," and
we sometimes combine the same class of bitumen blended or intimately

page_text: mixed with five times its weight of solid parafin, and in this latter
case no other flexible matter, the union of the two forming a mixture
sufficiently flexible to indurate and render the goods impervious.
We
When
III. In some cases we take a hide or portion thereof which has been
tanned in the usual way, but we take it in the half dry state or state
usually termed "sammed," and coat the same with a brush or hand
flannel evenly over on each surface with cod or whale oil.
lay a given number of such pieces or hides so treated away for a few
days to give the oil time to become absorbed into the substance.
such absorption has taken place the coating with oil must be repeated,
and after a few days and complete absorption has taken place we pay
over in the same manner cod or whale oil, which has been previously
treated by the action of bi-sulphuret of carbon and ter-chloride of
sulphur in the proportion of thirty-two parts of the former to one part
of the latter. When the latter application of sulphurized oil has
become set and firm, the leather must be slowly dried in the way known
to tanners as to the proper supply of air, and when quite dry oiled
and treated as for other hides. Hides prepared as for white leather
treated in the above manner are peculiarly suited for mill bands, band
laces, and such like goods, retaining greater strength than those tanned
in the usual manner. Leather thus prepared will be greatly improved
if after the oiling it is immersed in or coated with a solution of ox gall.
For belting, strips of the width intended for the strap are cut from the
coloured and as yet untanned hide. A number of these strips, by
preference those of or about the same width, are treated together, and
their surfaces are paid over by means of a fine wire brush liberally
with the sulphurized oil herein-before described. The strips are treated
by preference in the state known as "sammed." Belt and strap laces
are for strength and uniformity preferred when cut in the green state.
The hide employed for this purpose must be carefully fleshed and be as
even as possible in substance without reducing the strength of fibre.
A range is strained over a roller of wood, by preference deal, and
cut through by a straight knife fixed in a gauge, so that to each lacc
may be given the width of its substance or thickness so as thereby to
produce a square or nearly square lace.
IV. For the waterproofing and induration of skins which are required
to have a coloured surface we take memel or other calf sheen
coat

page_text: and other suitable skins which have been tanned in sumac or in any
other way suitable to leave them as light in colour as possible. The
skin is first scoured in the manner now done by leather dressers, and
then strained and tacked upon the usual straining board. When quite
dry the skin is placed in a stove room licated to about eighty degrees
Fahrenheit, and is next coated over very evenly on the grain side with
a compound of white wax dissolved in turpentine. After absorption of
the solvent a coating is next applied precisely in the same manner of a
composition of white or bleached shell lac, by preference, orange lac, to
which has been added as a solvent either liquor ammonia or borate of
soda in water. When quite dry another coating is applied of a colouring
composition. Stearine blended with white wax is taken, and when the
skin is required to be black it is mixed with vegetable black and indigo;
when coloured it is preferred to use such colours as are not affected by
sulphur, namely, the metallic oxide colours used in making india-rubber
goods. In each or any of the above coatings or compositions the
black or colouring can be introduced, and a small proportion of caout-
chouc, or, for greater firmness, gutta percha, may be introduced, the
caoutchouc or gutta percha to be blended with the solvent of the
materials forming the coating composition. In most cases where either
of these clastic or flexible gums are used it is preferred to employ as a
finishing coating a compound of bisulphide of carbon and ter-chloride
sulphur, thirty or forty parts of the former to one part of the latter.
This coating is applied with a fine soft sponge. The skins so treated
are thoroughly waterproof and indurated, and at the same time retain
their flexibility, and are therefore suitable for out-door use, and for
cushions, travelling bags, and such like purposes. After the preparation
of the leather to render it impervious we submit the same to warm
pressure, either by heated rollers, callenders, or flat plates. The goods
intended for boot soles, clumps, and other similar articles we press or
block into the form we intend them to retain. The inner surfaces (flesh
side) we coat with a brush when perfectly dry and hard with a solution
of india-rubber and lac blended by a masticator in the proportions of one
hundred parts of rubber and fifteen parts ground lac dissolved in one of
the usual solvents; or of rubber one hundred parts and of gutta percha
twenty parts dissolved as before stated. We propose to use for this
purpose any of the flexible gums which arc insoluble in water.
leather prepared with the sulphurized oil we pass between copper rollers
The

page_text: either in the form intended for cutting into mill bands, or in the intended
size or width of the band, after which a preparation of sulphurized white
oil, castor oil being preferred, is paid over the grain side or on both
sides.
Butts and soles or portions of butts or hides can be indurated and
rendered impervious without exhaustion of air, although in some cases
the exhausting process would be necessary. Heat slowly and carefully
applied is all that is required in butts and such like leathers where the
bituminous compound alluded to alone is employed.
Where solvents are employed to carry indurating matters by the
exhauster or otherwise the greater portion may be recovered by leading
the vapours of the same to a condenser.
Having now particularly described and ascertained the nature of our
said Invention, and the manner in which the same is to be performed,
we wish it to be distinctly understood that what we claim is,―
Firstly. The cutting or stamping the hides, skins, or hide roundings,
into certain forms or shapes, and the tanning and otherwise treating such
fashioned pieces instead of the whole hides or skins.
Secondly. The treatment of leather with the mixture of size, Cornish
.clay, and yellow ochre, in the manner and for the purpose herein in
that part of this Specification marked I. described.
Thirdly. The rendering of leather waterproof and the indurating the
same by means of the various mixtures, compounds, or solutions, and its
treatment therewith, all as described and stated in that part of this
Specification marked II.
Fourthly. The treatment of hides or portions thereof in the half dry
state, firstly with cod or whale oil, and afterwards with cod, whale, castor,
or other oil having sulphur in combination in the manner described in
that part of this Specification marked III.
Fifthly. The treatment of some skins, such as calf, sheep, and goat a
skins with white wax in turpentine, and afterwards with a composition
of bleached shell lac and liquor ammonia or borate of soda, and a mixture
of stearinc with white wax, and what are known as the metallic oxide

page_text: colours or colours not affected by sulphur in the manner described in
that part of this Specification marked IV.
In witness whereof, I, the said Henry Richardson Fanshawe, on
behalf of myself and the said William Henry Smith, have here-
unto set my hand and seal, this Seventh day of September, in
the year of our Lord One thousand eight hundred and seventy.
HENRY RICHARDSON FANSHAWE. (L.S.)