US704082A - Varnish for making enamel and patent leathers. - Google Patents

Description

NrTED STATES PATENT QFFICE HARRY C. MOKAY, OF ESSINGTON, PENNSYLVANIA, ASSIGNOR, BY MESNE ASSIGNMENTS, TO AMERICAN PATENT KID COMPANY, A CORPORATION OF NEW' JERSEY.

VARNISH FOR MAKING ENAMEL AND PATENT LEATHERS.

SPECIFICATION formingpart of Letters Patent No. 704,082,.dated July 8, 1902.

Application filed December 29,1900. Serial No. 41,4=61. (No specimens.)

To (0% 2127710722, it may concern:

Be it known thatI, HARRY C. MCKAY,a citizen of the United States, residing at Essington, Delaware county, Pennsylvania, have invented a certain new and useful Varnish for Making Enamel and Patent Leathers,0fwhich the following is a full, clear, and exact description.

My invention relates to a preparatory varnish to be applied to the surface of a tanned or properly-prepared skin to enable it to receive and hold any usual finishing varnish commonly applied to form the exterior or enamel surface of enamel and patent leathers. Heretofore patent and enamel leathers made of calfskins were usually if not entirely enameled on the flesh side of the skin; but other skins, such as sheep and kid skins, were so enameled on either side, sometimes, but not always, preceded by a roughening or buffing of the grain-surface when the enamel was ap plied to the grain side of the skin; but on either kind of skins and no matter how prepared after tanning the enamel heretofore employed formed a stiff surface, more or less lacking in pliability,liable to crack, and otherwise open to many well-known objections, and this was due largely to the fact that the enamel varnish was, in effect, nothing but a thick adhering paste wholly incapable of homogeneous union with the fiber of the skin, though less open to that objection when applied to the flesh side than when applied to the grain side of the skin. In the making of enamel and patent leathers it has always been and still is deemed necessary to apply at least two, and more frequently three or four, coats of the enamel varnish, sometimes rubbing or roughening with pumice-stone the surface of each coat preceding the last to give it a more adhesive surface.

I have discovered that if the first varnish applied to the tanned skin be a compound composed of a drying oil, specifically boiled linseed-oil, and a vehicle of high penetrative and adherent power on such substance as skin-tissue, specifically a pyroxylin solution thinned with amyl acetate that is to say, a thin varnish of high penetrating properties, in which the ingredients employed are of such a character that the varnish will thoroughly penetrate the grain-surface of the skin and tenaciousl y adhere to the fibers thereofthe ordinary finishing enamels commonly used in making patent and enamel leathers may be employed to producea finished leather in which there willbe asubstantial homogeneity in the union of enamel and skin substance to an equal extent, whether the enameling be done upon the flesh side or upon the grain side without any buffing or roughening of the surface, the employment of my preparatory varnish, applied as hereinafter described, resulting in an absence of the usual stiffness commonly inherent in finished patent and enamel leathers with almost complete absence of the common tendency to crack on the surface and possessing an elasticity and pliability almost equal to common glazed kid and other light-weight leathers.

My preparatory varnish is a true mordant in the sense thatwhen'applied it is instantly taken up and absorbed by the grain side of the skin, penetrating through the external surface thereof and permeating and adhering to the entire fibrous structure of the grain side,forming on such fibrous structure a penetrable film or foundation surface to which the external varnish unites or at least attaches itself with remarkable tenacity, practically uniting therewith.

I will now proceed to describe my new preparatory varnish, its essential ingredients,the best mode of compounding the same, and the best mode of applying it to the skin-surface.

One (1) quart of linseed -oil, to which a thickening and drying matter, such as onehalf ounce of raw umber, is added, is boiled to the consistency of fresh mucilage or thick molasses. I thin or reduce this oil by adding, according to the temperature of the weather, about an equal bulk of amyl acetate or sufficient to give the solution a consistency of 31 Baum. I next prepare separately two (2) gallons in bulk of a solution composed of, say, sixteen (16) {ounces of guncotton, dissolved in about two (2) gallons of amyl acetate, and that mixture gives the bulk stated when of the consistency of fresh mucilage'or molasses. Those two solutions are then mixed IOU a goat, kid, or sheep skin is used, and its absorption by or biting effect on the grain-surface of the tanned skin without any roughening or buffing of the latter is almost instantaneous, with the result of forming a homogeneous union therewith having the properties as described, it being understood also that after the preparatory varnish is thus applied, the skin being stretched upon a frame, it is then put into a drying oven or kiln for several hours, or as long as necessary to thoroughly dry it, the heat of the oven being maintained at about 110 Fahrenheit. Enamel and patent leather is then made therefrom by applying any of the known enamel-varnishes commonly employed as a surface enamel and by the usual drying methods and means.

Having thus described my invention, what I claim as new, and desire to secure by Letters Patent, is

1. A preparatory varnish for the purpose described, composed essentially of boiled linseed-oil admixed with a solution of guncotton in amyl acetate.

2. A mordanting varnish for the purpose described, composed essentially of boiled lin-' seed-oil admixed with a solution of guncotton in amyl acetate, and a coloring-matter dissolved in methyl alcohol. v

In testimony whereof I have hereunto affixed my signature this 26th day of Decemher, A. D. 1900. I

v HARRY C. MoKAY. WVitnesses:

ANDREW V. (Rooms, 11. T. FENTON.