IMPROVEMENTS IN DYEING AND TANNING, AND IN PREPARING FOR DYEING AND PRINTING
Year: 1864

page_text: LETTERS TE
ولا
London, Patent Agent, for the Invention of "IMPROVEMENTS IN DYEING
AND TANNING, AND IN PREPARING FOR DYEING AND PRINTING."-A com-
munication from abroad by Flavie Victorine Augustine Autier, of 33,
Boulevart Saint Martin, Paris, France.
Sealed the 17th March 1865, and dated the 23rd September 1864.
PROVISIONAL SPECIFICATION left by the said Michael Henry at the
Office of the Commissioners of Patents, with his Petition, on the 23rd
September 1864.
I, MICHAEL HENRY, of 84, Fleet Street, in the City of London, Patent
Agent, do hereby declare the nature of the said Invention for "IMPROVEMENTS
IN DYEING AND TANNING, AND IN PREPARING FOR DYEING AND PRINTING," communi-
cated to me from abroad by Flavie Victorine Augustine Autier, of 33, Boule-
vart Saint Martin, Paris, France, to be as follows:-
This Invention relates partly to fixing tannins used with dye stuffs or
The
coloring matters and with mordants. The liquors may be hot or cold.
main improvements comprise the use of general mordants, mordanting and
dyeing in one bath, using the wood of oak and the tannin of such wood in
dyeing, tanning, and preparing for dyeing; also dyeing wool and other fabrics
cold without cream of tartar; dyeing by oak and oak tannin (tannin of the
wood of oak), employing oak and other tannins instead of sumach to prevent
the coppery tint of logwood and for other purposes, combining oak and logwood
for dyeing black, using oak instead of sumach for fancy colours; using flowers
and fruits of alder instead of dyer's weed; using nut-tree leaves; using oak
Price Sd.1

page_text: for producing novel tints; and employing the wood of oak and tannin of the
wood of oak for tanning. Mordants, especially for dyeing woollen goods black,
may be composed of nitric and hydrochloric acid, to which may be added
powdered sulphate of iron or sulphates or other salts of zinc, copper, alumina,
tin, chromium, lead, or other agents (to saturation or not); acetates, chlorides,
or nitrates of iron or other salts may be used as mordants generally. The
mordants may first be placed in a cold liquor, which is afterwards heated; the
mordant left in the bath-is-neutralized by a solution of powdered carbonate
of lime or otherwise, a decoction of alder fruit or flowers, sumach, or oak bark
or other coloring or tanning matters are added after working the goods about,
also logwood, or other. dye stuff, and the process finished as usual. Dyeing
and mordanting may be performed in one bath, or the materials may be removed
from the mordant bath, washed, and finished as usual. Fast logwood
blacks may be obtained by using sulphate of iron after the dye bath or other-
wise. When alder or gall nut is used, the operation should be concluded with
brown sulphate or pyrolignite of iron. A little carbonate of lime may be
employed with the logwood. Woollen goods may be dyed cold thus, after
cleansing with salts of soda or poiassa or other salts they are treated with
chloride in solution, preferring chloride of lime as used in bleaching cottons
dyed in light colors. A light cold bleach adapts goods for receiving colour;
foreign matters mixed with wool may be dyed by general mordants added to
the acid bath which follows the chlorine bath, but best added when the goods
are taken out of the chloride liquor. Wool may be mordanted without being
washed, the mordants not being introduced into the acid bath. Dyc stuffs,
chlorine, or other agents may be forced into the goods by rollers or otherwise.
Chloride solutions may be used for preparing woollen or other goods for being
dyed and printed, whereby cream of tartar may be dispensed with. Silk, hair,
bristles, and feathers may be prepared for dyeing or printing by metallic,
alkaline, or other chlorides or hydrochlorides, especially after the chlorine
liquor. To remove the coppery tint which logwood communicates, and to
bring out the blue-black tint below, goods before being finished should be
treated with a decoction of one of the mordants of oak or other of the numerous
known tannins except sumach, but preferring old red odorous mountain oak,
and especially the part next the soil. It may be used in the operation of
giving the preparatory blue or half black dye, or for being mixed with log-
wood or other dye stuffs afterwards. Sulphate of zinc, pure or mixed with
sulphate of iron or copper, may be used with logwood to get a rich black.
Oak or the tannin of the wood of oak or other tannins other than sumach
may be used in solution; the goods should be worked about and allowed to

page_text: rest after being taken from the bath, then washed and passed through cold
sulphate of iron. The gall bath may be repeated. The last liquor used may
be brownish sulphate of iron with or without a little pyrolignite of iron; or
the galling may be concluded with logwood by ordinary processes, and
brownish sulphate of iron with or without ordinary sulphate of iron and
copper, "finishing" with oak in solution. For dyeing cotton velvets and
other goods brownish sulphate of iron, mixed or not with ordinary sulphate of
iron, may be used after the velvet is half dyed by tannin or logwood; in one
case brownish sulphate and in the other ordinary sulphate of iron may be
used; for "finishing" logwood and brown sulphate of iron are used, with or
without sulphate of copper, green and brown sulphates of iron, combined or
separately, may be employed. The wood of oak or the tannin thereof may
be used instead of sumach for dyeing velvet and other fabrics, and various
fancy and other shades may be thereby obtained according to the mordant
used. Alder fruits and flowers may be used with chesnut and nut-tree leaves
as a substitute for dyer's weed. Alder fruits and flowers, oak and other
matters containing tannin may be used with salts of iron for tanning. The
wood of oak in a state of powder or sawdust or of shreds may be employed
instead of oak bark, though a little bark may be added. The same oak is
recommended as 'for dyeing, preferring the wood next the bark."
SPECIFICATION
in pursuance of the conditions of the Letters Patent, filed
by the said Michael Henry in the Great Seal Patent Office on the 23rd
March 1865.
TO ALL TO WHOM THESE PRESENTS SHALL COME, I, MICHAEL
HENRY, of 84, Fleet Street, in the City of London, Patent Agent, send
greeting.
WHEREAS Her most Excellent Majesty Queen Victoria, by Her Letters
Patent, bearing date the Twenty-third day of September, in the year of our Lord
One thousand eight hundred and sixty-four, in the twenty-eighth year of Her
reign, did. for Herself, Her heirs and successors, give and grant unto me, the
said Michael Henry, Her special licence that I, the said Michael Henry,
my executors, administrators, and assigns, or such others as I, the said Michael
Henry, my 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 DYEING AND

page_text: TANNING, AND IN PREPARING POR DYEING AND PRINTING," communicated to me
from abroad by Flavie Victorine Augustine Autier, of 33, Boulevart Saint
Martin, Paris, France, upon the condition (amongst others) that I, the said
Michael Henry, my executors or administrators, by an instrument in writing
under my, 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 performed, and cause the same to be filed in
the Great Seal Patent Office within six calendar months next and imme-
diately after the date of the said Letters Patent.
NOW KNOW YE, that I, the said Michael Henry, do hereby declare the
nature of the said Invention, and in what manner the same is to be performed,
to be particularly described and ascertained in and by the following statement,
thereof, that is to say:-
This Invention relates partly to fixing tannins used with dye stuffs or
coloring matters, and with mordants. The liquors may be hot or cold. The
main improvements comprise the use of general mordants; mordanting and
dyeing in one bath, using wood of oak, or the tannin of such wood in dyeing.
tanning, and preparing for dyeing; dyeing wool and other fabrics cold, without
cream of tartar; employing oak and other tannins instead of sumach to
avoid the coppery tint of logwood, and for other purposes; combining oak
and logwood in dyeing black; using oak instead of sumach for fancy colors;
using flowers and fruits of alder instead of dyer's weed; using nut-tree leaves;
using oak (wood) tannin for producing novel tints, and employing tannin of
the wood of oak for tanning.
I
The expression "general mordant" used in this Specification signifies a
mordant which is fixed at the same time on all the fibrous or textile matters
contained in a fabric or material.
Preparation of mordants.-Wools and Woollen goods or fabrics may be
dyed in all shades by means of the mordants about to be described, whatever
the nature, quantity, or quality of the extraneous matters incorporated inten-
tionally or otherwise with the wool. The following formula for a mordant for
black and its varieties will serve as an example or type for mordants for other
colors.
Nitric acid at 36° Beaume
Hydrochloric acid at 21°
22
-
11 lbs.
11 lbs.
a little
Mix these together, and then add 44 lbs. powdered sulphate of iron,
at a time, so that the mordant may be finished in two hours; the mordant
may be rendered more acid and will be better preserved in the liquor if only
about 33 lbs. of the sulphate to be used. The shade or color may be varied by

page_text: adding to the sulphate of iron one or two lbs. of one of the following salts;
sulphate of zinc, sulphate of copper, sulphate or other salts of alumina,
sulphates or other salts of tin, chromium, or lead, or other salts ordinarily
employed for producing any particular color, selecting the salt or agent
according to the color required, and employing it if desired to saturation.
For example, sulphate of iron would be used for blue and blue blacks, double
sulphate of alumina or potassa for violet and grey; sulphate of tin for violet,
garnet, and scarlet; sulphate of lead for blue; sulphate of zinc for dark
violet and chestnut. Acetates, chlorides, nitrates, or other salts of iron or of
the above named matters, called by the Inventor energetic mordants, may be
used as general mordants.
Mordanting and dyeing wool by a warm process.-A dyeing liquor or bath
is prepared, say, for example, for black of a specific gravity of 1/10 to 30 of a
degree of the areometer at most, and while the liquor is cold the goods are
worked about in it for about ten minutes. It is then heated up to about 122°
Fahrenheit in ten minutes, it is kept at this temperature for twenty minutes,
but not longer. If the operation be properly conducted the liquor will keep
clear. When the goods are taken from the liquor the mordant which remains
in it is neutralized preferably by adding to every 44 gallons of water a solution
of 4 oz. of powdered carbonate of lime, left to settle for about five minutes.
Next is added a solution of about 1 to 2 lbs. of alder fruits, sumach, gall nut,
oak bark, or other coloring or tanniferous matter of a nature not inconsistent
with the agent used for producing the required color. The goods are worked
about for about ten minutes, and then ordinary quantities of solution of log-
wood or other .coloring agent are introduced to finish the operation as usual.
The dyeing may thus be performed in a single bath, and completed in less
than two hours, or if preferred the goods may be removed from the mordant
bath, and washed and finished by the usual processes. Blacks produced by
logwood may be rendered fast colours by subjecting them after the dye liquors
to a third bath composed of sulphate of iron, selecting that which will yield
the deepest black; this sulphate of iron may even be added to the coloring
liquor after the goods have been treated therein. When the dye stuff used is
alder, gall nut, gall, or other tannins, the operation is always to be finished off
with iron, using for the purpose a brownish sulphate or pyrolignite of iron in a
proportion of about 2 lbs. 3 oz. to 44 gallons water. The mordant bath may
be cold, but in that case its specific gravity should be about 30, and the goods
kept in it for an hour. The action of the logwood may be accelerated and
improved by adding to every 220 gallons of the liquor (i.c. logwood solution

page_text: of 1 lb. 1 oz. logwood in 9 quarts water) a solution in a somewhat subsided
state of 1 lb. 1 oz. of powdered carbonate of lime.
Mordanting and dyeing wool by a cold process.-Woollen yarn, thread, and
fabrics whether mixed or not with other fibrous or textile substances may be
wholly dyed by cold liquors; thus the grease is first removed from the materials
by alkaline salts as usual, they are then subjected to a chloride solution,
preferring chloride of lime used in the same manner and proportions as when
dyeing cotton goods in light colors. This light cold bleaching applied to
woollen goods adapts them for taking dye stuffs: Extraneous -fibrous matters.
combined with wool are dyed by adding general mordants to the acid bath,
used after the chlorine bath either at the middle or end of the process, or
preferably when the goods are taken out of the chloride bath; wool may e
placed in the mordant bath without being previously washed. If highly con-
centrated dye stuffs are used, the extraneous matters will be dyed without
putting the mordant into the acid bath; dye stuffs are forced into the fabric by
rollers or other means, which should also be used for forcing chloride and
other liquors into the fabric. Chloride solutions may also be used for
preparing woollen fabrics for being printed, the same preparation being
adopted. When chloride solutions are used for preparing wool for being dyed
cold, the cream of tartar usually employed may be dispensed with. Silk,
bristles, hair and feathers, and wool, and various threads, yarns, and fabrics,
may be treated by a cold process, to prepare them for being dyed and printed
by a cold process by a metallic, alkaline, or other chloride or hydrochloride, as,
for example, chloride or hydrochloride of iron will allow of mordanting being
dispensed with. Chlorides or hydrochlorides are more energetic when used
after the chlorine liquor. These preparing or mordanting agents are used in
the same proportions as in ordinary dyeing. Coloring matters obtained by a
cold process are preferable to those produced by a warm process.
The best operation for dyeing woollen and silk yarns and fabrics by a cold
process is the following:-After the goods have been in the chloride liquor for
half an hour, and worked or handled therein two or three times, they are taken
out, and the moisture is expressed by a roller; then (after washing them or
not) they are placed-in-a-concentrated dye liquor, in which they are kept
about half an hour, and worked about in it twice or thrice, and pressed, and
they are then washed or not. They are then (during the same day) placed
in a third liquor, consisting of a metallic salt, which developes the color
produced by the coloring matter or dye stuff, and they are kept in this liquo
till the required shade appears.
:

page_text: For light colors, such as grey, violet, pink, garnet, brown, and blue, the
third liquor is not used.
Dyeing cotton yarns and fabrics, especially cotton velvets.--In dyeing yarn,
thread, cotton, velvets, and other cotton fabrics black, the process may be
commenced and finished by dye stuffs and well-known processes; but in order
to remove or preclude the coppery shade which logwood imparts, and to
bring out the blue-black tint, which lies beneath and is produced by the
coloring principle of the logwood, they are finished in a decoction of from
4 to 8 lbs. of one of the mordants of the numerous tannins, excepting summach
the agent preferred is wood of oak, and especially the wood of very old red.
odorous mountain oak taken from near the soil. A third or fourth part of
gall nut may be mixed with it to improve the liquor, though wood of. oak
alone is sufficient. The same process may be employed for giving the first
or preparatory black dye (pieter) to the material when in piece or in yarn; or
it may be mixed with logwood or other tannin in the liquors used subsequent
to this first or preparatory process (pietage). Sulphate of zinc, pure or
combined with sulphate of iron or copper, will also impart a rich black with
logwood.
I may mention that all degrees of areometer herein-after or herein-before
mentioned are degrees Beaume.
Sumach sometimes turns to an unpleasant greenish tint, and when its
tannin is fixed on yarns and fabrics it resumes its previous color even after the
goods have been dyed black. This fact, which does not appear to be generally
known, accounts for the green hue which black goods finished by sumach
sometimes assume after a little time, and which shows after the velvet iś
dressed or gummed by highly heated rollers. This does not take place when
instead of sumach the wood of oak or oak tannin or other known tannin is
used in a proportion of 4 to 8 lbs. per 438 gallons of water; and, on the
contrary, the black becomes darker, and improves by the dressing process and
by time. When threads and fabrics are to be dyed with tannin alone, and
especially with the wood of oak (which gives an agreeable blue-black shade),
the specific gravity of the dye liquor should be from 1 to 10 of a degree of the
areometer, and should be used cold or lukewarm for from two to ten hours or
longer the goods are then removed from the liquor after having been worked
about every hour, and are left at rest for some hours before being washed
carefully, and they are then soaked in a cold liquor of about 1° Beaume of
some sulphate of iron which yields a good deal of black, that is to say, very
brown (not a greenish) sulphate.
desired shade of black is obtained.
The goods are worked about until the
If the tint is not dark enough, the goods

page_text: are returned into the tannin liquor after having been well washed, and are
kept in such liquor for about an hour. Lastly, they are subjected to a liquor
of brownish sulphate of iron, to which a little pyrolignite may be added to
render the shade darker. If it be desired to keep the goods in the tannin
liquid for an hour only, they should be finished off by logwood according to
ordinary processes, and by very brown sulphate of iron, with or without
common sulphate of iron and sulphate of copper, according to the shade of
black desired, but they are always finished in a solution of wood of oak, the
action of which is above described. When sumach is used, and it happens to
be a little too strong or the goods are kept in it a little too long, the goods
lose their color, whereas when wood of oak is used a better blue-black is
obtained.
Dyeing of cotton velvet being important, I next describe the various
operations. First, the velvet may be dyed by coloring matters and by the usual
processes, with or without brownish sulphate of iron mixed or not with ordinary
sulphate, or else the velvets may receive a preparatory or preliminary black
dye (pietage) by tannin or logwood; in the former case only brownish sulphate
of iron is used, and in the latter ordinary sulphate, if desired; but for finishing
them, logwood and brownish sulphate of iron, with or without sulphate of
copper, according to the shade of black to be obtained, is always used; or green
and brown sulphates of iron may be combined in any proportions, or either of
them may be used. As soon as the velvet is finished the dyeing is complete.
The tannin liquor, like sumach, has no purpose other than to prepare the
goods. Oak wood is employed instead of sumach for finishing velvets or for
any other purpose for which sumach is used in dyeing; it is cheaper and
stronger than sumach. Any fancy color may be produced by the wood of oak
according to the mordant employed; such mordants are enumerated in the
early part of the Specification, and with any of these oak will combine. For
dyeing goods of brown or other colors alder flowers or fruits may be used
instead of dyer's weed; so also may nut-tree leaves, which indeed act as
auxiliaries to or substitutes for cachou.
Fixing tannin on skins and hides.-The astringent portions of alder fruits
-and-flowers, oak, and other matters-containing tannin will not only dye black
when fixed with salts of iron on threads and fabrics, but they also produce
leather when applied to skins and hides, such leather being dyed when in
contact with the gelatinous portions of skins and hides, that is to say, wood of
oak in a state of powder, sawdust, or shreds may be used instead of and in
the same manner as oak bark. The oak preferred for the purpose should be
old, and the same as that preferred for dyeing. To prevent leather from being

page_text: too stiff or liable to crack, and to give it a good grain, about a quarter or third
parts in quantity of oak bark, or about as much as would cover the skin in the
tan pit, may be added.
The most important features of this Specification consist,―
First, in the use of general mordants.
Second, in mordanting and dyeing all goods in a single bath or liquor,
especially in dyeing wool cold without cream of tartar.
Third, in preparing and dyeing yarns, materials, fabrics, and goods by wood
of oak by the processes described.
Fourth, in employing tannins, and especially tannin of wood of oak instead
of sumach, for preventing logwood from giving a coppery tint to threads and
yarns.
1.
Fifth, in combining the wood of oak with logwood for dyeing black.
Sixth, in using wood of oak instead of sumach for fancy and other colors.
Seventh, in using alder flowers and fruits instead of dyer's weed as
described.
Eighth, in using nut-tree leaves, as described.
Ninth, in using the wood of oak for obtaining new colours.
Tenth, in using tannin of the wood of oak for tanning or producing
leather.
Eleventh, in preparing goods and materials for printing as described.
Having now described the nature of the said Invention, and in what
manner the same may be performed, I declare that I claim the improve-
ments in dyeing and tannin, and in preparing for dyeing and. printing, herein-
before described.
In witness whereof, 1, the said Michael Henry, have hereunto set my
hand and seal, this Twenty-third day of March, One thousand eight
hundred and sixty-five.
Witness,
S. E. A. NEWSOME,
Patent Office,
84, Fleet Street.
M. HENRY. (L.S.)