[Illustration: DYERS AT WORK.]
The trade of the Dyer may be placed amongst the most ancient of the arts,
and the tools that are used in it are so few that they need scarcely any
description, since almost all the apparatus required are the various
coppers, vats, and other vessels used for boiling the fabrics to be dyed,
and immersing them completely in the liquors which have been prepared
from the dye stuffs, the proper use of which is the principal secret
in the business. With regard to the scouring or cleaning of fabrics,
whether made into garments or not, the operation consists in applying
detergents, or substances like soap and turpentine, for removing grease
and dirt, or other liquids which have a detergent property but will not
injure the colours; the use of these, with a _sponge_ and a _hard brush_,
is nearly all that is required; the garment sent to be cleaned being
stretched on a _frame_ and dried, either in the dyer’s _drying room_,
or in some open situation, where they are least likely to be soiled or
spotted.
[Illustration: Drying Room. Sponge. Hard Brush.]
The art of dyeing was practised to a very great extent by the ancient
Egyptians, Phœnicians, Greeks, and Romans; and the island of Tyre was,
in very early times, celebrated for a purple dye which was, perhaps from
its costliness, used for colouring the robes of kings and emperors, from
which practice purple became the imperial colour.
[Illustration: Garment Frame.]
The art of modern dyeing very greatly consists in the proper use of what
are called mordants, that is, substances which, although they do not
of themselves produce colour, so act upon the dyes as to cause them to
give an intenser hue to the fabric, and also serve to make the colour
permanent. The modern dyers have obtained several dye drugs unknown to
the ancients, such as cochineal, quercitron, Brazil and logwood, arnotts,
and indigo, which was only known to the Romans as a paint; but the vast
superiority of our dyes must be principally ascribed to the employment of
alum and solution of tin mixed with other substances as mordants, which
give depth, durability, and lustre to the colours. Another improvement in
dyeing is the application of metallic compounds, such as Prussian blue,
chrome yellow, and manganese brown, to textile or woven fabrics.
Our readers will see from what has been said of mordants how what are
called fast colours are obtained, fast colours meaning colours which
will not be affected even by the liquor of the dye bath. Another very
necessary subject of information in relation to dyeing is the fact that
different substances, such as silk and wool, will not be equally affected
by the dye in which they are placed, since the particles contained in the
composition of these substances have different degrees of what is called
affinity, that is, they combine in a greater or less degree with the
component matter of the dye stuff.
[Illustration: Vats and Copper Pan. Wringing Machine.]
We have already said something of the preparation of cotton. The
operations to which silk and wool are subjected before being dyed are
intended to separate superfluous substances from the animal fibre, and
to make that fibre more easily unite with the colouring particles.
Silk is scoured by means of being boiled in water and soap, whereby
the animal varnish is removed from the surface; if intended to be very
white, it is bleached by humid sulphurous acid. Wool is first washed in
running water to separate its coarse impurities, and is then freed from
the greasy animal matter secreted from the skin of the sheep by means of
ammoniacal liquor, soap and water, or a solution of soda. It is finally
bleached by the fumes of burning sulphur, or by aqueous sulphuric acid.
[Illustration: Dipping Copper, Winch, Punching, &c.]
What are called tinctorial colours, as distinguished from mordants, are
either simple or compound. The simple are black, brown or dun, blue,
yellow, and red; the compounds are grey, purple, green, orange, and
others.
Gall nuts, pyrolignite of iron, logwood, copperas, and verdigris, are the
chief materials for producing black. Walnuts, sumach, madder, cochineal,
cudbear, acetate of iron, catechu, Brazil wood, arnotts, are all employed
in producing brown. Indigo, Prussian blue, and woad for blue. Fustic,
Persian berries, quercitron, turmeric, and weld for yellow. Cudbear,
Brazil wood, cochineal, kermes, lac, logwood, madder, safflower, for red;
and various compounds for purple, green, orange, &c.
[Illustration: Carboy for Spirits. Syphon. Puncheon. Pole for Stirring.]
The dye materials imported from foreign countries are principally
cochineal, fustic, gum arabic, gum senegal, gum animi, gum copal, gum
tragacanth, indigo, lac dye, shellac, logwood, madder, smalts, valonia,
yellow berries, and zaffre. The tools shown in the engravings explain
themselves, and, as has been already said, principally consist of the
various coppers and vats, the _syphons_ or tubes by which liquor will
flow from one vessel to another, and the _puncheons_, for stirring and
thoroughly immersing the articles in the dye stuff.
[Illustration: Rail. Thermometer and Measure. Measure.]