26.2.15

The Dyer's Guide. Chapter IV. On Scouring and Dyeing Wool. To dye wool black.

The Dyer's Guide
Being a Compendium of the Art of Dyeing
Linen, Cotton, Silk, Wool, Muslin, Dresses, Furniture, &c. &c.

With The Method of
Scouring Wool, Bleaching Cotton, &c.
And
Directions for Ungumming Silk, And For Whitening And Sulphuring Silk And Wool.
And Also
An Inttroductory Epitome of The Leading Facts in Chemistry, As Connected With The Art of Dyeing.

By Thomas Packer,
Dyer and Practical Chemist.

"Cet arte est un des plus utiles et des plus merveilleux qu'on connoisse."
- Chaptal.

"There is no art which depends so much on chemistry as dyeing."
- Garnett.

Second Edition,
Corrected and Materially Improved.

London:
Printed for Sherwood, Gilbert, And Piper,
Paternoster-Row.
1830.

* It is necessary that the student should not confound the terms; primitive colours here with the prismatic or primary colours, for the discovery of which we are indebted to Sir Isaac Newton. See the Introductory Chapter.Black includes a prodigious number of shades, beginning from the lightest grey or pearl colour to the most intense shade of black. On account of these shades it is classed by dyers among their chief or primitive colours*; for the greater number of browns, of whatsoever shade they be, are finished in the same dye as would dye white wool a grey more or less dark. This operation is called browning. The best superfine black should have a full ground of mazarine blue previously to being finished black.

A great quantity of cloth and other articles have, however, no indigo ground, but a ground of logwood, or of logwood and alder-bark, or of logwood and old fustic, or of logwood, alder-bark, and old fustic, all boiled together, and sometimes they are boiled in a decoction of oak saw-dust.

Indigo for the ground is the richest drug, in carbon, that is or can be used; logwood is next to it: too much logwood, however, whether indigo be used with it or not, gives the black a foxy hue; alder-bark and old fustic modify this effect, and are used in small quantities for this purpose, because the dye from these, as well as that from oak saw-dust, will produce a soot or dead black.

A jet black is required full and rich, therefore old fustic and oak saw-dust are only used to modify the richness of the ground as it regards the blue, whether of indigo or of logwood; for logwood especially, without these, if overcome with sumach and sulphate of iron only, would be foxy, purplish, or have a reddish cast.

So many different grounds being used for blacks, and every dyer thinking his own the best, is the occasion of such a great variety of hues, even of black, being found in the market. It is, therefore, thought unnecessary to describe the various methods of dyeing black which are pursued by different dyers, and which would be, in fact, impossible. But the author has done what is of much greater importance to the student, who, after a little practice, let him have a pattern of black to dye, will know how to do it, let who may have dyed it.

Even a blue-ground is, according to some, dyed afterwards in a decoction of logwood and galls, or logwood and sumach, and two pounds of verdigris for a hundred pounds of cloth. Thus, ten pounds of logwood and ten of galls, are to form the decoction, and are boiled previously for twelve hours. One third of it with the verdigris is used first, and then the cloth, after boiling in it for two hours, is aired; it is then passed through one third more of the decoction of logwood and galls, having previously had eight pounds of sulphate of iron dissolved in it, and the scum arising from the solution taken off. The goods are to be worked in this one hour at a boiling heat, then aired again by turning them about on a stone floor. The remainder of the dedoction of logwood and galls is then added, with fifteen or twenty pounds of sumach; boil it some time, and then add five pounds of sulphate of iron; scum it, and let the liquor cool down, then put the goods in, and work them at a boiling heat an hour or two, taking them out once or twice, at least, in the time, to air and cool; they are then to be well washed, and passed through a decoction of weld liquor, to soften the black, which will be very fine. This process is chiefly from HcUot; but the quantity of sulphate of iron is more by three pounds than he directs.

When the cloth is blue, it is usually boiled two hours in a decoction of galls, then washed and aired, when sulphate of iron and logwood are added to the liquor, and the goods worked in it for two hours, and then washed.

The above have been the processes in practice for a century past in France, where the galls were not so dear as they now are in England: sumach is here, therefore, now most commonly used as a substitute for galls.

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