423 
LEATHER. 
hat, and other, boxes, waiters and tea-trays, ink-ftands 
and ink-pots, fnuff and tobacco boxes, and other things, 
fuch as mouldings, cornices, cielings, and other orna¬ 
ments for rooms, is the lame as above defcribed for making 
the covering for coaches, and for binding of books, ex¬ 
cept that, when the leather-cuttings are reduced to a pulp, 
as before defcribed, the water mult be drained from them, 
and then mix with the pulp a ftrong lize; this will form 
a kind of pafie, or foft dough, which, from its foftnefs 
and yielding quality, may be moulded into any form. 
The procefs for manufacturing the leather-cuttings, See. 
for making brown paper, is to put to them a fourth part 
or more of junk, or hemp, with a little fine clay, which 
will give it fmoothnefs and ftrength ; thefe materials are 
to be put together into the engine, and beat till reduced 
to a proper pulp. The mode of working is the fame as 
commonly praCeiled for making brown paper. The pro¬ 
cefs for manufacturing the cuttings into whited-brown 
paper, is the lame as that for making the brown paper, 
except that, inftead of junk, or hemp, the fame quan¬ 
tity of the courfeft rags mult be fubftituted, leaving out 
the clay. The procefs for manufacturing paper for draw¬ 
ing, and printing of copper-plates, is to add to the cut¬ 
tings, {havings, and parings, of common leather, in¬ 
cluding whit-leather, three-fourths or more of line rags. 
Thefe mult be put into the engine, and beat to a fine 
pulp ; and, to make it fufficiently tough and firm, ufe 
j’uch quantity of fize as is neceflary for that purpofe; the 
fize may be mixed with the pulp in the engine, or after 
the paper is made, in the ufual way. The method of 
making it is the fame as commonly praCtifed for making 
paper. 
A patent has alfo been obtained (1800) for converting 
old (kins of parchment or vellum into leather. Take the 
fkins, and wafli them well and often in water for twenty- 
four hours; then remove them for the fame time into a 
bath compofed of a pound and a half of white vitriol, a 
pound of cream of tartar, and an ounce of fal ammoniac, 
difl'olved in twenty gallons of water. Next add to the li¬ 
quor ten pounds of vitriolic acid, one pound of nitric 
acid, and one pint of fpirit of fait, which makes an acid 
bath, in which the fkins are to be fteeped for a fhort time. 
This will get off the lime that had been before employed 
for the parchment. The fkins are then to be waflied to 
rinfe out all the acid, and the water wrung out as com¬ 
pletely as pofiible, without tearing the fkin. It is then 
to be immerfed and well foaked in a tanning liquor, com¬ 
pofed of twenty pounds of oak-bark, feven-pounds of 
fliumach, five of elm-bark, three of faffafras, and the fame 
quantity of lignum-vitae fhavings, mixed with twenty- 
gallons of water, and previoufly warmed for twelve hours, 
and cooled down to a new-milk warmth before immerfion 
of the fkins. Thefe are then to be tanned in the common 
way with oak-bark, or oak and fhumach, wafhed and dried. 
To make the leather water-proof, it muft be firft foaked 
for five or fix days in linfeed or nut oil; and, after this has 
been wrung out, the fkin is to be repeatedly fmeared with 
a compofition, made by melting together feven pounds of 
nut or linfeed oil, with one pound of each of the follow¬ 
ing ingredients; namely, red led, litharge, fugar of lead, 
white vitriol, bees’-wax, rofin, and pitch. The objeCt in 
the above procefs is, firft to reduce the fkin to its original 
Itate, by foftening its texture, diflolving out the time, 
See. next to give it a body by means of a ftrong tanning; 
and laftly, to make it water-proof, by means of various 
ingredients that refill moifture. 
We know not whether the method of converting cut¬ 
tings and fhavings into leather again, detailed in the pre¬ 
ceding page, be much in ufe; but we cannot refrain from 
noticing a very ingenious invention, (which obtained a 
premium of twenty guineas from the Society of Arts in 
May 1806,) for JplittingJhcep-Jkins, by Mr. Benjamin Stott, 
of Bermondfey. His letter to the committee of the So¬ 
ciety is in the following words: “Gentlemen, I have in¬ 
vented an engine for the purpofe of fpiitting fheep fkins.. 
that is, of making two good fkins out of one. The for¬ 
mer and common mode of drefting fkins is to {have one 
fide off, referving the {havings for giue-pieces ; whereas 
by my method thefe (havings are all taken off in one 
piece, forming a good fkin of leather; and thus, indepen¬ 
dently of the advantage arifing to the proprietor, an ad¬ 
ditional revenue will be caufed to the nation, in propor¬ 
tion to the increafe of leather made.” The annexed en¬ 
graving reprel'ents the machine. Fig. 1. A, the barrel of 
caft iron, (having wooden ends,) round which barrel the 
fkin is wrapped, and kept dole -by means of pins run 
through the edges into the wood, a? at e e, fig. 2. B, fig. 1, 
an iron running in a groove along the barrel, catching in 
a hole at C, and fattened down at the other end by a hook 
fixed in the end of the barrel, the bar having points in it, 
(as fliown at B, fig. 3.) under which the edges of the fkin 
are faftened, as feen at D, fig. 2. FF, fig. 1 and 2, bars 
fixed acrofs each end of the ftrong wooden frame GGGG, 
over which the barrel is fupported on friction-rollers, as 
at hh, fig. 2, which run on a flip of brafs, moveable un¬ 
der the ferews ii, to adjuft the barrel to the knife. KK, 
fig. 1 and 2, a ftrong bar of caft iron, to which the knife 
is l'crewed, moving lengthwife on friction-rollers between 
the pieces of wood LLLL, on the frame G, as at K, 
fig. 4. The pieces of wood LLLL are each moveable 
under two ferews, by which they are adjufted to fteady 
the motion of the knife-bar. mm, fig. 1 and 2, is a roller 
at the back of the knife, to which it is kept clofe by a 
weight N, at each-end, acting over pulleys, as at O, fig. 2, 
fulpended from the Aider p, between which the roller is 
placed. By drawing the (pare fkin over this roller, as it 
is cut off", it keeps both fides of the fkin equally up to the 
knife, and makes it cut more uniform. Q.Q, fig. 1, is a 
lever afting on a pin r, and moving another lever SS, by 
means of a pin and a notch t, which afts on another pin at 
u ; and, by means of the two pins at w, it moves the knife 
lengthwife to and fro; as fait as the (kin is cut, the bar¬ 
rel is drawn round by the weight X. Y is a guide to the 
lever, from which end it is worked. 
The lateft improvement that we are acquainted with in 
leather-cutting is from the ingenuity of Mr. Aubrey, of 
Fort Place, Bermondley, who has invented two inltru- 
ments for equalifing the width and thicknefs of leather 
(traps, which will be found of the greatelt utility to fad- 
lers, harnefs and collar-makers, leather-cutters, &c. Hav¬ 
ing communicated his difeovery to the Society of Arts, 
and produced feveral certificates of its utilty, he received 
from the f'oeiety, in May 1810, a reward of thirty gui¬ 
neas. 
Figs. 5, 6, and 7, are a plan, feftion, and end-view, of 
the inftrument for cutting leather Jlraps to an equal thicknefs. 
A is the knife, fixed to the frame by two ferews aa, which 
pafs through holes intthe end of the knife, and have two 
nuts upon each of them, between which is faftened the 
knife, and by means of thefe the knife can be raifed or 
lowered, and fixed at any point, by fctewing the nuts 
towards each other; b, fig. 7, is the lower, and c the up¬ 
per, one, which fallens the knife upon the other; the 
lerews a a are faftened to the frame by two plates and 
four ferews at dddd, which fit into oblong holes in the 
plates, and can be loofened to put the knife nearer to or 
further from a roller B, between which, and another rol¬ 
ler D, fig. 6, (concealed in the wooden frame,) the lea- 
ther-ftrap pailes ; the bearing ee for the pivots of the up¬ 
per roller are ferews, and received into tubes E, E, figs. 5, 
6, and 7, which are alfo ferevved internally, fo that, by 
turning thefe tubes round, the roller is brought nearer to 
or further from the roller D, to fuit frraps of different 
thicknejfes; the tubes are alfo drawn down by helical 
fprings, (concealed in the wood,) which keep the upper 
roller down with a moderate prefl'ure, but at the lame 
time allow it to rife up if a thick part of the ftfap comes 
under it. FF are two handles fixed to the mahogany 
block, which is the frame for the whole. G is a rod or 
wire bent at right-angles a.t each end,.and driven into the 
block. 
