FULLING, the art or act of cleansing, scouring,
and pressing cloths, stuffs, and stockings, to render them stronger, closer, and firmer: called also milling. Pliny, (lib. vii. cap. 56.) assures, that one Nicias, the son of Hermias, was the first inventor of the art of fulling: and it appears by an inscription, quoted by Sir G. Wheeler, in his travels thro' Greece, that this same Nicias was a governor in Greece in the time of the Romans.
The fulling of cloths and other stuffs is performed by a kind of water-mill, thence called a fulling or scouring mill.
These mills, excepting in what relates to the millstones and hopper, are much the same with corn-mills. And there are even some which serve indifferently for either use; corn being ground, and cloths fullled, by the motion of the same wheel. Whence, in some places, particularly in France, the fullers are called millers; as grinding corn, and milling stuffs, at the same time.
The principal parts of the fulling-mill are, The wheel, with its trundle; which gives motion to the tree, or spindle, whose teeth communicate it to the pestles, or stampers, which are hereby raised and made to fall alternately according as its teeth catch on or quit a kind of latch in the middle of each pestle. The pestles and troughs are of wood; each trough having at least two, sometimes three pestles, at the discretion of the master, or according to the force of the stream of water. In these troughs are laid the cloths, stuffs, &c. intended to be fullled: then, letting the current of water fall on the wheel, the pestles are successively let fall thereon, and by their weight and velocity stamp and press the stuffs very strongly, which by this means become thickened and condensed. In the course of the operation, they sometimes make use of urine, sometimes of fuller's earth, and sometimes of soap. To prepare the stuffs to receive the first impressions of the pestle, they are usually laid in urine; then in fuller's earth, and water; and lastly in soap, dissolved in hot water. Soap alone would do very well; but this is expensive: though fuller's earth, in the way of our dressing, is scarce inferior thereto; but then it must be well cleared of all stones and grittinesses, which are apt to make holes in the stuff. As to urine, it is certainly prejudicial, and ought to be entirely discarded; not so much on account of its ill smell, as of its sharpness and saltiness, which qualities are apt to render the stuffs dry and harsh.
The true method of fulling with soap is delivered by Mons. Colinet, in an authentic memoir on that subject, supported by experiments made by order of the marquis de Lonvois, then superintendent of the arts and manufactories of France; the substance of which we shall here subjoin.
Method of FULLING cloths and woollen stuffs with Soap.—A coloured cloth, of about 45 ells, is to be laid in the usual manner, in the trough of a fulling-mill; without first soaking it in water, as is commonly practised in many places. To full this trough of cloth, 15 pounds of soap are required; one half of which is to be melted in two pails of river or spring water, made as hot as the hand can well bear it. This solution is to be poured by little and little upon the cloth, in proportion as it is laid in the trough: and thus it is to be fullled for at least two hours; after which, it is to be taken out and stretched. This done, the cloth is immediately
diately returned into the same trough, without any new soap; and there filled two hours more. Then taking it out, they wring it well, to express all the grease and filth. After the second fulling, the remainder of the soap is dissolved as in the former, and cast four different times on the cloth; remembering to take out the cloth every two hours, to stretch it, and undo the plaits and wrinkles it has acquired in the trough. When they perceive it sufficiently full, and brought to the quality and thickness required, they scour it for good in hot water, keeping it in the trough till it be quite clean. As to white cloths; in regard these full more easily and in less time than coloured ones, a third part of the soap may be spared.
FULLING of Stockings, Caps, &c. should be performed somewhat differently; viz. either with the feet or the hands; or a kind of rack, or wooden machine, either armed with teeth of the same matter, or else horses or bullocks teeth. The ingredients made use of herein, are urine, green soap, white soap, and fuller's earth. But the urine also is reckoned prejudicial here. Woven stockings, &c. should be full with soap alone: for those that are knit, earth may be used with the soap. Indeed, it is frequent to full these kinds of works with the mill, after the usual manner of cloth, &c. But that is too coarse and violent a manner; and apt to damage the work, unless it be very strong.