Coloring or Dyeing Skins and Furs.
Furs are dyed by dealers, to suit some fashion, to conceal defects or to pass off inferior furs for better ones.
The best way is to brush the dye over the fur with a good sponge, brushing with the hair. As a matter of course, you can only dye them of a darker color than they are, and retain the handsome lustrous look peculiar to fur. They may be bleached, but the process leaves the fur looking like coarse flax or even hemp.
Blue.—Sulphate of indigo, (soluble indigo, sold by all druggists,) is the readiest and best to get a blue with. Furs are never dyed blue for sale, for that would be spoiling a white fur, but sheep-skins are. The skin should be dipped several times in a bath of hot alum water, allowed to drain, and then dipped into a solution of sulphate of indigo and water, with a few drops of sulphuric acid added, this gives a pale blue. Aniline blue is very fine, and dyeing with it is very simple. A solution of the color in water is made, a hot solution, and the skin put in all at once, (if a part of the skin is put in first that part will be darkest, so quick is the absorption of these colors). Fancy sheep-skin mats are colored blue, red, green, and yellow, and have a ready sale when they are new.
Black.—The best black is obtained by first dyeing the skin a blue. Then boil one-quarter pound gall nuts, powdered, and one and one-quarter ounces of logwood, in three gallons of water. If the flesh side is to be blue, while the fur or wool is another, this decoction must be sponged on.
Get the wool or hair thoroughly impregnated with this and then add one-quarter pound copperas to the dye and go over the fur or wool many times with the sponge. The process above given will answer without previous blueing, but the black is not so brilliant. Another “home-made” dye which will answer for dyeing clothes a black, as well as sheep-skins, is this: Just make a bath of eight ounces of bichromate of potash, six ounces alum, four ounces fustic; boil in water enough to cover five pounds of yarn, cloth or a single sheep-skin. Make another bath of four pounds of logwood, four ounces each bar wood and fustic, or eight ounces fustic; same amount of boiling water as last. Stir the goods well around in the first bath, keeping the water hot for an hour; then work it in the second bath the same length of time. Take them and wring them; then, adding one-quarter pound of copperas to the last bath, put the goods in again and give them a good stirring. This is a good black dye for wool goods or furs, but not for silks or cottons.
Red.—Furs of course are never dyed red, at least in this country. Sheep-skins might be dyed with madder or cochineal, but in the former case, the skin would of necessity be boiled with the dye, as that is necessary in using madder. Cochineal would be expensive and require much working, while as brilliant reds and purples may be got from the aniline colors, dissolved in moderately warm water, the skum taken off, and skin dipped. These colors are the cheapest, too, as they go very far. But always have the wool as free from grease as possible by working in weak hot lye or hot soapsuds.
Yellow.—Can be got on sheep-skins with black oak bark, (quercitron bark) old fustic, annotta, and Persian (also called French) berries. The skin should be previously dipped into a hot bath of alum, cream of tartar or spirit of tin, about two ounces to the gallon. About one-half pound of annotta, or a pound of the other articles, are enough for a single skin. If you wish to use fustic, be particular to ask for old fustic, as what is known in the trade as young fustic, is a different article and gives a different color. There is also now an aniline yellow which works like the other colors.
Green.—Dye first blue as explained above, then pass through a yellow dye, until you get the shade required. An alum bath, cream of tartar, or spirits of tin, as above, must be used before the blue is given.
Preservation of Furs.—While in use furs should be occasionally combed. When not wanted, dry them first, then let them cool, and mix among them bitter apples from the druggists, in small muslin bags, sewing them in several folds of linen, carefully turned in at the edges and kept from damp. Camphor or pepper used in the same manner, will have a similar effect. Well cleaned furs are much less liable to be attacked by moths, than those affording rich repasts of dried flesh, though no furs are absolutely safe without great watchfulness. Wrapping well in good brown paper and keeping in a tight paper box, are all helps to the preservation of furs. Sunshine and fresh air kill the fur and wool moth grub. Therefore taking out the furs occasionally and airing, sunning and beating them is necessary.
To Tan Muskrat Skins With the Fur On.—First for soaking, to 10 gallons of cold soft water add 8 parts of wheat bran, 1/2 pint of old soap, 1 ounce of borax; by adding 2 ounces of sulphuric acid, the soaking may be done in one-half the time. If the hides have not been salted, add a pint of salt. Green hides should not be soaked more than 8 or 10 hours. Dry ones should soak till very soft.
For tan liquor, to ten gallons warm soft water add 1/2 bushel bran; stir well and let stand in a warm room till it ferments. Then add slowly 2 1/2 pounds sulphuric acid; stir all the while. Muskrat hides should remain in about 4 hours. Then take out and rub with a fleshing knife—an old chopping knife with the edge taken off will do. Then work it over a beam until entirely dry.