Walnut peels (Juglans regia), when ripe, contain a dark brown dye stuff, which communicates a permanent colour to wool. The older the infusion or decoction of the peels, the better dye does it make. The stuff is dyed in the lukewarm bath, and needs no mordant, though it becomes brighter with alum. Or this dye may be combined with the madder or fustic bath, to give varieties of shade. For dyeing silk, this bath should be hardly lukewarm, for fear of causing inequality of colour.
The peelings of horse-chesnuts may be used for the same purpose. With muriate of tin they give a bronze colour, and with acetate of lead a reddish brown.
Catechu gives cotton a permanent brown dye, as also a bronze, and mordoré, when its solution in hot water is combined with acetate or sulphate of copper, or when the stuff is previously mordanted with the acetates of copper and alumina mixed, sometimes with a little iron liquor, rinsed, dried, and dyed up, the bath being at a boiling heat.
Ferrocyanate of copper gives a yellow brown or a bronze to cotton and silk.
The brown colour called carmelite by the French is produced by one pound of catechu to four ounces of verdigris, with five ounces of muriate of ammonia.—The bronze (solitaire) is given by passing the stuff through a solution of muriate or sulphate of manganese, with a little tartaric acid, drying, passing through a potash lye at 4° Baumé, brightening and fixing with solution of chloride of lime.
BRUSHES. (Brosses, Fr.; Bürsten, Germ.) Mr. T. Mason obtained a patent in October, 1830, for an improvement in the manufacture of this article. It consists in a firmer mode of fixing the knots or small bundles of hair into the stock or the handle of the brush. This is done by forming grooves in the stocks of the brushes, for the purpose of receiving the ends of the knots of hair, instead of the holes drilled into the wood, as in brushes of the common constructions. These grooves are to be formed like a dovetail, or wider at the bottom than the top; and when the ends of the knots of hair have been dipped into cement, they are to be placed in the grooves and compressed into an oval form, by which the ends of the hair will be pressed outwards into the recess or wider part of the dovetailed groove, or the grooves may be formed with threads or teeth on the sides, instead of being dovetailed; and the cement and hairs being pressed into the teeth or threads, will cause them to adhere firmly to the stock or handle of the brush.
A metal ferrule may be placed on the outside of the stock of the brush, if necessary, and secured by pins or rivets, or in any other convenient manner, which ferrule may also form one side of the outer groove. [Fig. 182.] is a plan view of the stock of a round brush; [fig. 183.] is a section of the same; a a are the dovetailed grooves, which are turned out of the wood; b is the metal ferrule; c c are knots or small bundles of hair, to form the brush. After a number of the knots of hair are prepared, the ends are to be dipped into proper cement, and then placed into the grooves, when their ends are to be squeezed by a pair of plyers, or other means, which will compress them into the oval shape, as shown in [fig. 184.], and cause the ends of the hairs to extend outward under the dovetailed part of the recess.
The knots of hair are to be successively placed in the grooves, and forced up by a tool against the last knot put in, and so on, until the grooves are filled; [fig. 184.] is a section taken through a brush with teeth or threads of a screw formed upon the sides of the groove; into these teeth or threads the cement and hairs will be forced by the compression, by which means they will be held firmly in the stock of the brush.