CURRYING is the art of dressing cow hides, calves-skins, seal-skins, &c. prin cipally for shoes : and this is done either upon the flesh or the grain.
In dressing leather for shoes upon the flesh, the first operation is soaktnff the leather in water until it is thoroughly wet ; then the flesh side is shaved on a beam about seven or eight inches broad, with a knife of a peculiar construction, to a proper substance, according to the custom of the country and the uses to which it is to be applied. This is one of the most curious and laborious operations in the whole mystery of currying. The knife used for this purpose is of a rectan gular form, with two handles, one at each end, and a double edge. They are ma nufactured at Cirencester, and composed of iron and steel : the edge is given to them by rubbing them on a flat stone of a sharp gritty substance, till it comes to a kind of wire ; this wire is taken off by a fine stone, and the edge is then turned to a kind of groove wire by a piece of steel in form-of a bodkin, which steel is used to renew the edge in the operation.
After the leather is properly shaved, it is thrown into the water again, and scow ered upon a board or stone commonly ap propriated to that use. Scowering is per formed by rubbing the grain or hair side with a piece of pumice-stone, or with some other stone of a good grit, not un like in thickness and shape to the slate with which some houses are covered. These stones force out of the leather a white sort of substance, called the bloom, produced by the oak bark in tan ning. The hide or skin is then conveyed to the shade or drying place, where the oily substances are applied, termed stuff ing or dubbing. The oil used for this purpose is prepared by the oil leather dressers, by boiling sheep skins or doe skins in cod oil. This is put on both sides of the leather, but in greater and thicker quantity on the flesh than on the grain or hair side.
Thus we have pursued the currying of leather in its wet state, and through its first stage, commonly called getting out.
When it is thoroughly dry, an instru ment, with teeth on the under side, call ed a graining-board, is first applied to the flesh-side, which is called graining ; then to the grain-side, called bruising. The whole of this operation is intended to soften the leather to which it is appli ed. Whitening, or pairing, succeeds, which is performed with a fine edge to the knife already described, and used in taking off the grease from the flesh. It is then boarded up, or grained again, by applying the graining-board first to the grain, and then to the flesh.
It is now fit for waxing, which is per formed first by colouring. This is per
formed by rubbing with a brush, dipped in a composition of oil and lamp black, on the flesh till it be thoroughly black : it is then sized, called black sizing, with a brush or sponge, dried, tallowed with a woollen cloth, and slicked upon the flesh with a small smooth piece of glass ; sized again with a sponge ; and when dry, this sort of leather, called waxed, or black on the flesh, is curried.
Currying leather on the hair or grain side, called black on the grain, is the same in the first operation with that dress. ed on the flesh, till it is scowered. Then the first black is applied to it while wet ; which black is a solution of the sulphate of iron called copperas, in fair water, or in the water in which the skins as they come from the tanner have been soaked ; this is first put upon the grain after it has been rubbed with a stone ; then rubbed over with a brush dipped in stale urine ; slicked out with an iron slicker, in order to make the grain come out as fine as possible, and then stuffed in the manner already described among the first opera tions of currying ; and when dry it is sea soned, that is rubbed over with a brush dipped in copperas water on the grain till it is perfectly black ; then slicked with a stone of a good grit, to take out the wrin kles as much as possible : after this the grain is raised with a fine graining-board, by turning the skin or piece of leather in various directions, and, when a little dried, it is bruised, in order to soften it. When it is thoroughly dry it is whitened, bruised again, and grained in two or three different ways, and when oiled upon the grain with a mixture of oil and tallow it is finished.
Bull and cow hides are sometimes cur ried for the use of sadlers and collar makers ; but the principal operations are much the same as those we have already described. It should, however, be ob served, that only a small portion of flesh is taken off from hides designed for these purposes. Hides for the roofs of coaches, &c. are shaved nearly as thin as shoe hides, and blacked on the grain side.
The oil used in the first operation of stuffing, or dubbing, is called spent oil, and contains a portion of alkali. It has latterly been made up expressly for the curriers.. A fact worthy of remark is, that it is imbibed more'uniformly and ef fectually by wet than by dry leather ; and this no doubt arises from the gradual evaporation of the water, which gives place to the introduction of the oil by capillary attraction, whereas the air, if in terspersed in the pores, would resist it.