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 introductory epitome of the leading facts in chemistry, as connected with the art of dyeing

by Thomas Packer

The Calico-Printers' mordant or base of alum for yellow and red goods, either for printing or dyeing; and on compound colours.

Take one gallon of soft and pure water, of a heat of 150°, three pounds of common alum, one pound and a half of sugar (acetate) of lead; mix these together, and let them stand for two or three days, so that they may incorporate, often stirring them during that interval; then add two ounces of pearl-ash, and the same quantity of clean powdered chalk or whiting. After a time the clear liquor, now become an acetate of alum, must be drawn off. When used, it is thickened either with paste, flour, or gum arabic, or senegal; four pounds of either of the gums to each gallon of liquor[5]. A block or a press similar to a copper-plate press for paper, but much larger, and having the copper plates in proportion, is employed to spread the acetate of alum from a utensil called a sieve, which is, however, not porous, while a boy or girl called a Teerer, works it smooth; when smooth on the sieve, the printer applies his block, and charges it with the acetate of alum; the block thus charged, is correctly put on the cotton cloth, which is laid upon a blanket spread upon a table; it is then struck with a mallet once or twice, by which, or by the pressure of the rolling-press, if copper-plate, the acetate of alum is driven into the pores of the cloth. The cloth thus prepared, is hung up in a hot stove, and dried by a high degree of heat. The goods are now ready, if for red, for the madder; and if for yellow, for the weld copper. Sometimes, however, lately, the colour is previously prepared, and applied at once in more instances than are prudent. To the above mordant, M'Kernan adds three ounces of sulphate of copper, omitting the potash; and he adds, "When the colour is wanting on the scarlet cast, omit the sulphate of copper."

Wool readily takes the alum at a boiling heat; common alum is in many instances proper for wool; and in others, where it might be improper, it is corrected by the use of argol or cream of tartar.

Yellow and red produce orange; red and blue, purple; but upon cotton, a scarlet, purple, or crimson cannot be produced in any way equal to those colours in wool or silk. Yellow and blue form the green.

On Bleaching Linen, Cotton, &c.

We cannot enter with much minuteness into this part of the subject, more especially as the art of bleaching is usually a separate one from that of dyeing. Yet as in fact the arts of dyeing and of bleaching depend in a great degree on the same principles, some notice of bleaching, in a treatise on dyeing, seems absolutely necessary.

Linen, cotton, and other cloths, were for ages deprived of their colour, in other words, bleached, rendered white, by a tedious process. Thus, the article to be bleached being boiled in a solution of pot-ash, was washed, and then spread on the grass in a field, watered occasionally, and, thus exposed to the atmosphere for two or three months, became white. This method is, however, in part, if not now entirely, dispensed with. M. Berthollet, an ingenious French chemist, to whose valuable work on dyeing we have before alluded, employed what was then called oxygenated muriatic acid, now chlorine, to perform in a few days what before took months to accomplish. His method was as follows. To six pints of powdered oxide of manganese he added sixteen of muriate of soda, (common salt) and twelve of concentrated sulphuric acid diluted with an equal quantity of water. These were placed in a leaden retort and distilled: the product was oxygenated muriatic acid, or chlorine, which being conducted to a vessel containing the material to be dyed, produced the same effects as the former tedious process, and bleached as much, in two or three days, as was before done in two or three months. This process has been since much further improved by the use of a combination of chlorine with lime, called chloride, or oxymuriate of lime. This article is at present used in almost all the bleaching grounds in the United Kingdom. It appears, therefore, that upon the use of the agent, chlorine, does the expedition and whiteness of modern bleaching principally depend. Yet it ought, nevertheless, to be stated, that although, in the hands of scientific and judicious persons, chlorine is one of the most powerful agents in bleaching that ever was discovered, still, in the hands of bungling and avaricious persons, it may contribute greatly to the destruction of the cloth; and therefore, even now, a demand is occasionally heard for the old method of bleaching.

These processes constitute the art of the bleacher; the dyer has seldom any thing to do with them except in piece-goods or rough cambric, which he has sometimes to dye black as they come from the bleacher's in a state which they call once boucked; and sometimes he has them just as they come from the weaver; in which case, if for black, they need not be bleached white, but should be boiled in pot-ash, to take out the grease, &c.