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CALICO-PRINTING. 



CALICO-PRINTING. 



sis 



too great a length of cloth should never be winched over one reel, for 

 it would be left too long in the bath, and might get spotted or stained. 

 The modern automatic coppers are of an oblong shape, semi-cylindrical 

 at bottom ; and the revolving axis which runs along their top is 

 mounted with eight or ten reels, each of which winches only a few 

 pieces tacked together into an endless web. 



3. Clearing the madder-ground. Reds and pinks are brightened by 

 being winched for half an hour through a soap-bath, at 150 Fahr., 

 containing three-quarters of a pound per piece. They are then washed 

 in clear water. At other tunes they are passed for a quarter of an 

 hour through a bath containing a little of the solution of nitromuriate 

 of tin ; and are then soaped and rinsed, and laid out upon the grass ; 

 or cleared, as in France for fine colours, with a weak solution of chlo- 

 ride of soda. 



4. Grounding with topical dyes. The grounding colours, or topical 

 dyes, employed after the maddering, are chiefly blues; one, called 

 pencil blue, may) be thus made. To 2 quarts of water heated to 

 145 Fahr. put 8 oz. of indigo, 8 oz. of orpiment, each in powder, 

 and 8 oz. of quicklime. Heat the mixture up to the boiling point ; 

 withdraw the vessel from the fire, and when its contents are luke- 

 warm, add 6 oz. of subcarbonate of soda (dry) ; stir the whole ingre- 

 dients well together, and let them settle for twenty-four hours. 

 The clear liquor being decanted off, is to be thickened with one 

 pound of gum for each two quarts of it in measure. This colour 

 was formerly introduced by the pencil, and hence the name usually 

 given to it ; it is now applied by one of the rollers of the calico-printing 

 press. Twenty-four hours after receiving this impression, the cloth 

 must be rinsed in running water. Another pencil-blue may be made 

 as follows : Take 2 quarts of caustic soda-lye, sp. grav. I'ltjO, heated 

 to 145" Fahr., add 12 oz. of hydrate of protoxide of tin, and 8 oz. 

 of ground indigo ; heat the mixture till it boils, removing or applying 

 the heat twice or thrice. Lastly, let it cool, and thicken with 3 Ibs. 

 of raw sugar. The application of this colour requires very nice 

 management. Dry fine sand i sometimes dusted over the piece 

 as soon as it is printed, to prevent the colour from running. If 

 these blues be not skilfully and rapidly introduced, the tints are 

 liable to differ in different parts of the cloth. An excellent blue 

 for printing with the cylinder is thus made : 1 4 quarts of caustic-lye 

 are mixed with 34 Ibs. of indigo and 5 Ibs. of hydrate of protoxide 

 of tin. Boil the mixture for ten minutes ; take it off the fire ; add 

 3 Ibs. of Venice tur|*>ntine, and then thicken with 11 Ibs. of pulverised 

 gum. Print on this colour; let it dry for two days; wash in the 

 dash-wheel ; and pass the goods through a soap-bath, containing a 

 little soda to brighten the blue, and take off its grey tint. The 

 turpentine serves to obstruct the contact of air in the pot with the 

 deoxidised indigo, which would spoil it as a dye before application. 

 To produce a topical Prussian blue dye, the following directions are 

 given : Diffuse through 2 quarts of water 8 oz. of starch ; boil, and 

 pour into a pipkin. Take 2 oz. of Prussian blue, grind it up with 

 3 oz. of muriatic acid, and after twenty-four hours dilute with 2 oz. 

 of water. Mix this preparation with the above starch-paste while 

 it is warm. When the mixture is cold, add to it 4 oz. of oxymuriate 

 of tin, and pass the whole through a sieve. Goods grounded with 

 this colour must be passed merely through the rinsing trough. Al- 

 though blue is the principal, it is not the only grounding topical dye. 

 Topical yellows are prepared from Persian berries, quercitron, and bi- 

 chromate of potash ; orange from the sub-chromate of lead ; green 

 from nitrate of lead, bi-chromate of potash, Prussian blue, and nitrate 

 of zinc. 



For bark-yellows, the same mordant is used as for madder-reds. The 

 piece, when slightly dunged, is winched in the quercitron-bath, heated 

 gradually up to from 130 to 140 Fahr. during about an hour. A 

 gold colour is given in the following way : Dissolve 5 Ibs. of sul- 

 phate of iron, and H Ib. of acetate of lead, in a gallon of water; mix 

 well, and after the precipitated sulphate of lead has subsided properly, 

 decant the clear liquor, thicken it with gum, and apply the paste 

 by the block or cylinder to the cloth ; expose to the air for eight or 

 ten day ; and then winch it through a solution of potash thickened 

 a little with lime. Whenever the black oxide of iron first precipi- 

 tated upon the cloth begins to turn red, the piece must be removed 

 into a rinsing cistern and well washed. Yellows are however now 

 given very generally with chrome. For this purpose the following 

 Iption will serve: Thicken 2 quarts of water with 6 oz. of 

 starch, pour the paste into a pipkin and add to it immediately 4 oz. 

 of acetate of lead, and 4 oz. of nitrate of lead, both in powder; 

 mix the ingredients well, and leave the mixture to settle and cool, 

 rolouring it with a few drops of solution of chromate of potash. 

 Print on this paste with the cylinder or the block, and pass the goods 

 through a roller dyeing-bath containing bi-chromate of potash dissolved 

 in the proportion of 2 oz. per piece ; having first charged the cistern 

 with a solution containing half a pound in solution. Then pass them 

 first between the rinsing-rollers, and finally through a very dilute 

 muriatic acid to clear up the ground. 



Green printing with chrome may be performed as follows : Mix 

 2 quarts of caustic soda-lye at 1'160 sp. gr. with 3 oz. of ground 

 indigo and 10 oz of hydrated protoxide of tin. Heat the mixture to 

 the boiling point, withdraw it from the fire, and when lukewarm 

 odd, by slow degrees, a solution of 1 Ib. of acetate of lead in half 



a pound of acetic acid of sp. grav. 1'OSO. When the effervescence 

 ceases, thicken it with 20 oz. of gum and 20 oz. of roasted starch. 

 Pass the mixture through a very fine sieve. After this paste is 

 applied by the cylinder or block, the goods must be passed through 

 milk of lime for ten minutes; then plunged for an hour in run- 

 ning water, and well rinsed. They must next be passed through 

 a solution of bi-chromate of potash, then rinsed, and finally passed 

 through weak acetic acid to clear the grounds. They may now 

 be dried and prepared for the market. This colour requires for 

 its perfection, that the goods be not passed through the bath in 

 too dry a state, because the colour would be apt to scale off. Before 

 passing them through the padding machine therefore, they should be 

 hung up for an hour in a humid atmosphere. 



Madder purple is obtained by the application of the acetate of iron 

 mordant allowed to act upon the goods hung up in the air for six or 

 eight days ; and after dunging, and passing them through the madder- 

 bath, then branning and clearing. 



Cochineal pink is communicated by applying the aluminous mordant, 

 with the precautions above prescribed, and raising the colour in a 

 bath containing about an ounce of cochineal for every piece of cloth. 

 Cochineal has a feeble affinity for cotton, and neither needs nor admits 

 any other process for clearing the ground except simple washing in 

 water. 



Manganese brown is thus produced : A solution of sulphate or 

 muriate of manganese, properly thickened, being printed on, the 

 calico is to be dried, and passed through a powerful caustic lye ; from 

 which it must drop into a solution of chloride of lime. The manga- 

 nese is thereby raised to a higher state of oxidisement, in which it 

 exercises a pretty strong affinity for cotton. In France a little tartaric 

 acid is added to the solution of muriate of manganese before thickening 

 it with gum, of which one pound and a-quarter are used for 2 quarts 

 of the liquid, at a sp. gr. of 1'075. 



Catechu brown, called cannelite by the French, is managed as 

 follows : In one gallon of water boil 1 Ib. of powdered catechu till 

 the liquor is reduced to half its bulk ; pass it through a very fine 

 sieve : dissolve in the filtered liquor 4 oz. of verdigris, and let the 

 solution cool. Thicken with 5 oz. of starch, and while still tepid 

 dissolve in it 5 oz. of powdered sal ammoniac. Print this dye on the 

 goods, and after a few days pass through the rinsing apparatus. 



Second style. We now pass to the second style of calico-printing, the 

 Ronyeanl style of the French ; in which the whole surface of the cloth 

 receives a uniform tint from one colouring matter; after which, 

 figures of other colours are produced by chemical discharges and 

 re-actions. The chemical action of the discharges must here be under- 

 stood. Some of them are simple ; some mordanted. 



The elegant style of simple and mordanted discharges of Turkey 

 red cloth was invented many years ago by MM. Kcechlin, of Mxihl- 

 hausen, and introduced into this country by Mr. Thomson, of 

 Primrose, near Clitheroe. An excellent white discharge paste is made 

 by the following prescription : Dissolve in 2 quarts of water three- 

 quarters of a pound of oxalic acid and 1^ Ib. of tartaric acid, and 

 add to the solution 2 quarts of lime juice concentrated to sp. gr. 

 1-230. Thicken with 6 Ibs. of pipe-clay and 3 Ibs. of gum. This 

 is to be applied with the block or the cylinder-machine. The 

 piece, after being dried, is passed through a bath containing a solu- 

 tion of chloride of lime. A cistern of wood, frequently lined either 

 with zinc or lead, about five feet square and six feet deep, is 

 furnished with a square wooden frame-work, bearing a series of, 

 parallel rollers in two ranges from top to bottom; which frame 

 may be let down into the cistern, and lifted out at pleasure by 

 the help of a pulley and counterpoised cord. The cistern is to be filled 

 with a solution of chloride of lime, having a specific gravity of 1 '040, 

 and a proper decolouring force by the indigo test. Before entering the 

 goods, the bath should be stirred up a little. The calico-pieces, 

 stitched together lengthwise, are now by means of a guiding-cord led 

 serpent-like over the respective rollers in horizontal planes, and are 

 drawn through by a pair of squeezing-rollers at the opposite side to 

 that where they entered. The cloth should be exposed to the action 

 of the chloride liquor during a space of three minutes, by the equable 

 motion of the drawing-rollers ; and on its escape from them should be 

 allowed to fall into a cistern of water, or be passed through the rinsing 

 apparatus. Common madder reds and pinks are discharged in another 

 way. The goods are passed through the acetate of alumina liquor in 

 the trough of the padding-machine, called foulard by the French, 

 whereby they are prepared for the madder-bath. They are dried, aud 

 then impressed with the discharge paste by means of the engraved 

 block or cylinder. This paste consists of concentrated lime-juice 

 properly thickened with pipe-clay and gum. Sometimes a little tar- 

 taric acid is added, or even bi-sulphate of potash, [for the sake of 

 economy. This mordant is also sometimes applied before passing the 

 cloth through the padding-machine ; a practice supposed to produce 

 the clearest whites, as the mordant in this case is never suffered to 

 attach itself to the places intended to be white. If cloth so treated be 

 subjected to dyeing in the madder-copper, its ground will come out 

 red ; if in the madder and logwood-copper, it will come out reddish 

 brown ; if in the cochineal, it will come out a beautiful pink ; and in 

 the logwood alone, a chocolate ; with logwood and galls, black. If, 

 after applying the above discharge paste by the block or cylinder, the 



