CURRYING, the method of preparing leather with
oil, tallow, &c. The chief business is to soften cow
and calve-skins, which make the upper leather and
quarters of shoes, covering of saddles, coaches, and other
things which must keep out water. 1. These skins,
after coming from the tanner's yard, having many
fleshy fibres on them, the currier soaks them some
time in common water. 2. He takes them out, and
stretches them on a very even wooden horse; then
with a paring knife he scrapes off all the superfluous
flesh, and puts them in to soak again. 3. He puts
them wet on a hurdle, and tramples them with his
heels till they begin to grow soft and pliant. 4. He
soaks thereon train-oil, which by its unctuous quality
is the best liquor for this purpose. 5. He spreads them
on large tables, and fastens them at the ends. There,
with the help of an instrument called a pummel, which
is a thick piece of wood, the under side of which is
full of furrows crossing each other, he folds, squares,
and moves them forwards and backwards several times,
under the teeth of this instrument, which breaks their
too great stiffness. This is what is properly called
currying. The order and number of these operations
is varied by different curriers, but the material part
is always the same. 6. After the skins are curried, there
may be occasion to colour them. The colours are
black, white, red, yellow, green, &c.: the other col-
ours are given by the skinners, who differ from cur-
riers in this, that they apply their colours on the flesh
side; the curriers on the hair side. In order to whiten
skins, they are rubbed with lumps of chalk or white
lead, and afterwards with pumice-stone. 7. When a
skin is to be made black, after having oiled and dried
it, he passes over it a puff dipt in water impregnated
with iron; and after his first wetting, he gives it ano-
ther in water prepared with soot, vinegar, and gum-
arabic. These different dyes gradually turn the skin
black, and the operations are repeated till it be of a
shining black. The grain and wrinkles, which contri-
bute to the suppleness of calves and cows leather, are
made by the reiterated folds given to the skin in every
direction, and by the care taken to scrape off all hard
parts on the colour side.