The only satisfactory blacks, so far, are produced by a long and tedious series of operations, depending on mordanting for, and dyeing with, logwood. As a rule, the professional black dyer—and really good ones are few and far between—allows at least five or six days for the process, the different steps of which he usually guards as a valuable secret, which indeed it is. The writer possesses one or two of these formulas, obtained, as special marks of favor, from first-class dyers, but has never had occasion to test them thoroughly, and therefore is unwilling to publish them here. Good dyeing chemists have tried again and again to shorten and simplify the process, and have had some success. But to this day no color has been found to replace logwood, and this black dyeing of feathers is perhaps the only dyeing problem that has not as yet been satisfactorily solved with the aid of modern dyestuffs.
Painting Feathers.—Some dyers, instead of dyeing feathers, paint them. They dip the cleansed and carefully dried feather, for a moment, into a bath of oil paint, thinned greatly with gasolene. The feather is then taken from the bath, dried by waving in the air, and, when thoroughly dry, finished by beating and, if necessary, with a light dry-starching.
The results, for colors, are fairly satisfactory but are not so permanent as the dyeing process. In an oil paint the solid coloring matter, or pigment, is ground up finely in boiled linseed oil, an oil which has the property of drying to a firm varnish when exposed to the air. This mixture is thinned with turpentine or gasolene to the desired consistency before using.
It is evident that, in coloring feathers, if enough oil is applied to fasten the pigment very firmly to the flues, there is danger at the same time of plastering the fine barbules so that they will never get back to their proper places, and the product will be hopelessly stringy. On the other hand, if the amount of oil is so small, thanks to the abundant thinning with gasolene, that there is no fear of its sticking the barbules together, there will hardly be enough oil left to firmly fasten the pigment to the flues, on drying, and the color is apt to rub, and to wear off quickly.
Paint, thinned with gasolene, has been applied to feathers occasionally by means of stencils, some of the so-called “barred” effects, looking like the feathers from a barred Plymouth Rock hen, being made in this way—the color, black paint or varnish, greatly thinned, being applied by means of an “air brush” or atomizer. Occasionally very large, wide, and handsome feathers have appeared decorated with flowers and other figures, in bright colors, applied in the same way with an air brush, sometimes with the help of stencils, but generally free-hand. These effects are often rather crude and inartistic, but there is no reason why, skilfully used, this method of decorating the backs of feathers might not produce interesting effects.
Chapter X
LEATHER AND LEATHER DYEING
So far as can be learned, in every part of the world, the first materials used by man for clothing and coverings were the skins of animals. In its natural condition, however, the hide stripped from a dead animal has certain properties which greatly interfere with such use. When dry it is stiff and hard; when moist it rapidly decomposes, and when exposed to hot water it swells and in time dissolves. These difficulties had to be overcome before skins and furs could be properly utilized. And, accordingly, in the history of every nation and race, one of the very earliest of all developing industries was the art of leather making; that is, of converting the hard and easily decomposed rawhide into a soft, pliable, and comparatively permanent substance, well suited for the use of man.
In most uncivilized nations this conversion was accomplished by rubbing and working some oily or greasy substance into the hide, until it was thoroughly soft and flexible. Thus, in our Indian tribes, the old squaws would turn the deer skins and the pelts of various fur-bearing animals into beautifully soft and strong leather, by rubbing and working into them the brains of the animals. The Esquimaux and other Northern tribes from time immemorial, too, have worked out this method with great perfection. Indeed without it they would have been unable to survive at all.
In other parts of the world it was discovered that rawhide could be made more durable by treatment with metallic salts, especially with alum, and then, by softening this product by rubbing in some oily material, a very fair leather could be produced. On the other hand, in warmer climates, as for instance among the Egyptians, the very earliest records show the use of vegetable extracts, containing the substances now known as tannins, for softening and preserving skins; and these races understood the art of dyeing, painting, gilding, and embossing the leather thus made, and used it for shoes, straps, aprons, and harness.
The Romans and Babylonians were famous for their leather industry, and the ancient Romans not only imported but manufactured it themselves, and used it freely. In the Middle Ages the greatest developments in the art were made by the Moors in Spain, whose leather, commonly called Cordovan leather, from the city which was the centre of the industry, has probably never been equalled for beauty and importance. This Cordovan leather, of which fine specimens are still to be found in museums and private collections, was made of sheepskin, tanned with bark. It was ornamented with silver foil, laid on a backing of size, and covered with a yellow varnish or lacquer, sometimes tinted with bitumen. This protected both the leather and design very perfectly from injury by air or moderate moisture, and, being done on a large scale with splendid designs, was used largely for handsome wall coverings, competing favorably with tapestries manufactured in France and elsewhere for the same purposes.