II 



CAUCO PKINTINO. 



CALICO-PRINTING. 



tie 



to obtain a like oonsisteno*. much toon gam U required than starch, 

 and thu* the former not only dilute* the mordant too much, but by 

 letting it dry Ux> quickly prevent* ita fanning in intimate coinliiuation 

 with the (tuff Henoe the tinta are thin and scratchy. The substance* 

 usually employed for thinking are the following : flour sUrch, flour, 

 ruasted sUroh. gum Seoefal, gum tngaoanth. aalep, pipe-clay mixed 

 with gum fisnryl, sulphate of lead and gum, nigar, treacle, glue. 

 It is found desirable, after thickening with gum, nut to add any 

 mrtallin *ait* in a liquid state, tuch a* nitrate of iron, solutions of tin, 

 copper, robaceUU of lead, Ac.; for they have the property of coagu- 

 lating gum. The thickening material should, in fact, be skilfully 

 adapted to each particular colour. 



In the colour-house there ought to be ready prepared a variety of 

 dye-decoction*, concentrated to a proper degree either by (team 

 boiler*, or by liquid baths of regulated temperature. When evaporated 

 o*v a naked fire their tint U too often degenerated. The following 

 prescription may serve as an example : Take 5 Ibs. of Brazil wood or 

 pnach wood, boil it for an hour in 10 quart* of water, and strain ; boil 

 the residuum in the same quantity of water for half an hour, and 

 again strain ; finally boil it a third time, and mix the whole Htrained 

 liquors together. Evaporate the whole till it is reduced to 10 quarts. 

 Add a* much red mordant (acetate of alumina or nitromuriate of tin) 

 to the liquor as will brighten its tint to the desired degree, and thicken 

 it with British gum. The older the decoction, the more beautiful will 

 the colour be. The decoctions usually kept ready are those of log- 

 wood, Brazil wood, peach wood, Persian berries, quercitron, galla, fustic, 

 archill, cochineal, ammoniaoal cochineal, and catechu. 



The printing shops ought to be kept always at a pretty high tem- 

 perature, from 65 to 75* Fahrenheit; with an atmosphere rather 

 humid than dry. It is often observed that goods printed the same 

 day and with the same mordant exhibit inequalities in their tints; 

 being sometimes strong and well brought out in one part, flat and 

 meagre in another. The latter portion has been printed in too dry an 

 atmosphere, an accident more liable to hapi>en with cylinder goods 

 than others on account of the small quantity of colouring matter 

 which they receive. The nearer the mordant is to a neutral state, the 

 leas likely is this inconvenience to ensue. In the padding process, as 

 it is called, where the cloth is uniformly imbued with the mordant, 

 the stove-room, where a great many pieces are dried at the same time, 

 ought to have a free issue for the watery and acetic acid exhalations. 

 The goods ought likewise to be properly extended before they are 

 dried ; for without this precaution the acetic acid would accumulate in 

 the folds, and prevent the base of the mordant from combining with 

 the fibres of the cloth ; the consequence would bo white spots in 

 all such places, which would render the print unsaleable. Wh. n a 

 strongly acid mordant ban been employed, too much pains cannot be 

 bestowed in facilitating its escape from the hot flue through which 

 the goods are drawn in the drying ; for the acetic fumes are capable 

 of affecting the surface to such a degree as to cause a white down to 

 appear upon the cloth after it U dyed. Fans will be found very useful 

 in such us sin to blow away the acidulous vapours. 



After these general remarks we proceed to describe the processes of 

 each of the five style* of printing above enumerated ; and as the whole 

 operation furnishes one of the most striking and beautiful examples 

 of the application of chemical science to the manufacturing art*, we 

 shall endeavour to convey some idea of the chemical constitution of 

 the substance* employed, and of the relation which they bear to the 

 fibres of the textile material. 



Pint ilylr. Chintz or fast-colours. Much of the printing done in 

 this way is called the madder style. The following topical colours 

 belong to this head : 1. Itlnrk. It comuate of 2 quart* of iron liquor, 

 p. grav. 1-040, thickened with 41 oz. of starch and 44 of flour ; the 

 starch being first rubbed up with a little of the liquor, then mixed 

 with the flour. The old liquor being added, the mixture must be 

 boiled over a brisk fire to form the paste, care being token meanwhile 

 to stir, so as to prevent it* being burned by sticking to the bottom. 

 The colour is to be poured into an earthen pot, over half an >in<-<> 

 of olive oil, and the two are to be thoroughly incorporated. 2. Red, 

 Take 2 quart* of red liquor, at sp. grav. 1*033, 8 at, of starch, ami 

 ting.; with a little Brazil wood. Boil for five or six minutes, and 

 pour into a pipkin, stirring all the while. Different shades of red 

 are obtained by preparing mordants of different strengths from the 

 above, thickened either with raw or roasted starch. 8. Jftirk Puce. 

 Take 1 quart f red liquor, and 1 quart of iron liquor; mix and 

 thicken like black, No. 1. By varying the proportions of the two 

 liquors any brown tint may be obtained. When British gum is 

 employed to thicken reds, 1| Ib. of it are required for every two 

 quart* of the liquor ; in which case no other tingeing substance 

 U needed. 4. inlett. Take 2 quart* of iron liquor of sj>. grav. 

 V007, thicken with starch, and tinge with a little logwood. These 

 funr mordants, for four colours, are sometime* applied at once; 

 but where brilliant red* and rose-colours are wanted, the dark colours 

 must be inserted separately, after the bright ones are raised, by 

 a subsequent prooew called grounding (filling up the ground of the 

 figure*) in thi* country, and rat/mrr* (re-entering additional colours) in 



The cotton good*, after having been printed with one or other of 

 UMM mordant*, eithrr by the Mock or the cylinder method, must be 



hung uii in a warm chamber for thirty-six hours at least before having 

 their colours brought up in the dye-house. 



The dyeing may be divided into four operations. 1. The dunging ; 

 2. the maddering ; 3. clearing the madder-ground* ; 4. grounding with 

 topical dyes. 



1. The dunging u undoubtedly one of the most important though 

 mysterious processes in calico-printing ; and too much pains cannot be 

 bestowed upon it, since it determine* in a great measure the success of 

 the madder-dye*. Its objects are to effect the complete combination 

 of the subeafte with the cloth, and to separate the acetic acid M hi. h 

 had not been dissipated in the stove-room ; to dissolve and separate 

 from the cloth a portion of the substances used for the thickening, 

 and to wash away at the same time the mordants mechanically retained 

 by the paste ; and lastly, to prevent the unoombined part* of the 

 mordant*, as well as the acetic acid, with which the bath becomes 

 eventually charged, from re-acting upon the part of the mordant com- 

 bined with the cloth, or from attaching iteelf to the white ground. 

 Cow-dung, the kind employed, affords to chemical analysis the fol- 

 lowing constituents : an animaliaed fibrous substance, to the amount 

 of ten per cent.; albumen; animal mucus; a substance resembling 

 bile ; several salts, of which the principal are muriate of soda and of 

 ammonia, acetate of ammonia, and phosphate of lime ; benzoin, or 

 musk, which gives it a peculiar flavour. Among all these ingredients 

 the fibrous matter plays the principal part in the dunging of prints, 

 from its great affinity for the alumina and the oxide of iron ; it seize* 

 them the moment they are diffused in the bath, and thereby prevents 

 their being deposited upon the parts of the cloth which should 

 white. The chalk occasionally added to the dung bath serves to 

 neutralise the acids as they are evolved from the mordants ; a little 

 carbonate of soda is used in preference by some printers. For delicate 

 pinks, pale yellows, and cochineal lilacs, a bran-bath amnvers better 

 than one of dung. The dung-bath cistern is usually made of an 

 oblong rectangular form, three or four feet wide, four or five feet deep, 

 and twelve or fifteen feet long. Cast iron ia usually employed for the 

 cisterns in this country, and wood on the continent. It has one range 

 of rollers level with the surface of the liquor, and another range near 

 the bottom, over and under which rollers the expanded cloth is slowly 

 passed in a serpentine course, so as to ensure the thorough oj>eration 

 of the liquid upon it. The rollers revolve by mechanical power, the 

 extreme one being double, and placed above the cistern like a cah n.|< r 

 to draw the cloth (which U in webs Htitched together) continuously 

 through the baths by means of a cord tied to its end. One pail of 

 dung U diffused through fifty or sixty pails of water. The bath must 

 be replenished with dung from time to time, as it get* exhausted by 

 the passage of the mordanted goods. The temperature of the bath 

 should be maintained at about 150 Fahr. by means of a steam-pipe 

 entering at the bottom. The duration of dunging is different for 

 different goods, from fifteen to twenty minutea being the average tinn>, 

 which is regulated by the speed of the discharging calender rollers. 

 Too high a temperature and too much dung are injurious to delicate 

 colours, such as the pinks and the yellows; but colours thickened 

 with Htorch require a higher temperature than those thickened with 

 gum. The piece should never bo allowed to stop for a moment in it* 

 progress through the bath ; for the |rt in contact with the surface of 

 the water would run, and cause a line mark across the cloth. 



The goods must bo washed in the dash-wheel, or run through a 

 rinsing trough, and then winched through a fresh dung-cistern (com- 

 monly called a dung-copper) at a lower degree of heat than the former, 

 ami then washed again. 



_'. Next comes the maddering process. Madder always contains a 

 free acid, which is more abundant in some species of the root than in 

 others ; that grown in calcareous soils often contains so much chalk as 

 to be sufficient for neutralising the acid in the bath. The other species 

 requires the addition of a little chalk or carbonate of soda ; but care 

 must be taken not to add an excess, for that would degrade the colour. 

 Madder is the only dye-stuff which can saturate mordants HO <-<>m 

 pletely an to permit the goods to be subjected to other dyeing-baths, 

 such as yellows, olives, Ac., without losing its brilliancy by these fresh 

 operations. Black, red, and chocolate are dyed with madder and 

 sumach, but purple with madder alone. Different quantities -of 

 madder are used, according to circumstance*, from 1 ll>. to !IJ Ibs. 

 per piece of twenty-one yards ; the sumach being one-eighth of the 

 madder. The goods are entered into the automatic-reel Kith v. ],, >i 

 the copper is cool, the heat being brought up by slow degrees by 

 means of internal steam-pipes, or an external fire, during the course of 

 two or three hours, till ebullition begin* The boiling is continued 

 sometimes for a quarter of an hour. The goods are all the time kept 

 in a state of constant motion, down through the liquid K-ith on one 

 side, up through the air and incumbent steam, and down into the bath 

 through the other aide, there being an open frame of wooden spars 

 between them and the two side* of the copper. They are then washed 

 :m.l l.j!od in bran and water for ten or fifteen minutes ; indeed if they 

 have much white they must be brannod a second time or even a thiiil 

 time, to clear the ground, and must be washed between each Imnmim: 

 operation. The whitening is completed by spreading the goods upon 

 the grass for a few days, or by passing them over a self-acting wim-h- 

 reel, through a weak solution of chloride of lime. For strong reds a 

 second maddering is sometimes given. In all these dyeing operation" 



