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Mike Redwood - Leatherworking terms Category: Agriculture and Industry > Leather industry Date & country: 18/12/2007, UK Words: 101

Wet White
Hides and skins with the hair or wool removed and preserved after a light aluminium tannage. More stable than pickle. Increasingly used as an intermediate stage for transporting and selling hides and skins.

Wet Blue
Chrome tanned leather. Chrome tanning creates a blue colour in the leather and there is a natural safe resting stage just after tanning when the leather is both wet and blue. A significant stage in which leather is traded semi-processed worldwide.

Vellum
Vellum is practically the same thing as parchment but is made of calfskin. The word is derived from the Latin vitulus, a calf, whence our word veal. Drum leather is a specialised form variety of vellum, made nowadays in diminished quantities for the purpose indicated by its name. . (11)

Vacuum Drying
A method of drying leather taking advantage of the fact that moisture evaporates more quickly under vacuum. The wet leather is laid out on a wet steel plate (often slicked, a form of hand setting out) and the vacuum head brought down. After retanning and fatliquoring the leather can be dried to either 30% and then hang dried or in some circumstances fully dried direct. Drying only takes two to five minutes. A newer use of vacuum drying involves using a rubber base instead of stainless steel. While the leather is under vacuum this rubber base expands outwards, stretching the leather out from its centre. I have seen a page of newspaper pulled into jigsaw-sized pieces by this machine. It is not so good for taking out large amounts of moisture but good for the drying after conditioning and staking of soft leathers. Avoid using it just for area gain.

Toggling
A modernised method of tacking to dry leather, using toggles to hold the leather instead of nails. Originally the toggles were fixed into holes in a perforated metal plate which was put in an oven. More modern machines find and clip the leather mechanically.

Tawing
The old English term applied to the process of making leather with alum to distinguish it from tanning in a strict sense, the latter term having been originally confined to leather making with vegetable tanning agents. The English word has now become nearly obsolete, but in French the distinction between tannage and megissage is still strictly drawn. (11)

Tacking
A process of stretching leather at certain stages in the manufacture by tacking it on a frame or board. the method seems crude and slow, but is very effective for counteracting the shrinkage which follows certain operations, without applying excessive strains on particular portions of a piece.

Sweating
A process for loosening the hair or wool on a hide or skin by hanging the pieces near together in a close atmosphere, thus encouraging bacterial action. It has now become comparatively rare, being confined to out of the way places or primitive industries, and to a few special trades like that centering about Mazamet in France. (11)

Swamp, The
An area near the Manhattan side of Brooklyn bridge just south of the current City Hall set aside for tanning in 1664. Remained for 275 years. (4)

Suspenders
One series of vats or pits used in tanning heavy leathers, the hides being hung so as to be exposed as freely as possible to the action of the liquor. The suspender pits usually contain the weakest liquor, and the hides are treated in them before passing to the handlers and layers. (11)

Suede
The finish produced by running the surface of leather on an emery wheel, with the result of ruffling up the fibres and giving it a 'nappy' appearance. The grain of leather may be suede finished (called nubuck) but the process is more appropriate to flesh or split surfaces. The name was applied (originally in France) to a glove leather of Swedish origin and only later to the finish that characterised the material. (11)

Strop Leather
The leather from which razor strops are made. The best grades are tanned from the shells of horse hides. (11)

Stocks
A wooden device previously used in oil tannages especially for chamois. Two wooden hammers pound the oil into the leather prior to hanging in a hot room for the oil to oxidise. The hammers are driven by an eccentric wheel. This process is now done in drums where temperature and humidity can be carefully controlled.

Splits
The lower flesh side section of a hide (normally) or a skin after it has been split. Normally made into a suede split.

Staking
Mechanical softening of leather. Done by hand by pulling skins over a moon shaped knife, but mostly by machines of which tow types are common. The old 'grab' staker with crocodile jaws which come together at a point where the operator offers the hide or skin and pulls the leather away from him while he restrains it carefully and the vibrating through feed machine invented in Czechoslovakia in the sixties. The former is more precise, but is also more labour intensive and skilled, while if not used carefully will lead to tearing and loss of area.

Slat
Vegetable tanned sheepskin produced from a skin whose wool has been removed by the sweating process. Mazamet in France is a famous source of slats.

Skivers
The grain of the wool sheepskin when it has been split in order to prepare a suede leather for manufacture into chamois leather. Normally tanned with vegetable materials for use as in shoe lining, bookbinding or leathergoods.

Skirting leather
A specialised cattlehide leather used for the skirts or hanging portions of saddles that come between the legs of the rider and a horse's flanks. (11)

Side Leather
Large hides are cut in half down the backbone to make them easier to handle in the tannery. Each piece is called a side. Most shoe leather made from cattle hides is produced as side leather, while most upholstery leather produced from hides is processed as whole hides. Increasingly the cutting of hides into sides is done after tanning, at the wet blue stage.

Shagreen
From Turkish 'saghri' and means the croup of a beast. Originally made in Persia from hides of asses, horses and camel, probably untanned. Seeds of a species of Chenopodium were trampled into the skin when it was moist and shaken out when it dried, thus leaving granular indentations. The material was then stained. In the 17th cent and later, shagreen was made either of finely granulated shark skin or of the skin of a ray fish, whose pearl like papillae were ground flat, leaving a lovely pattern. (3)

Setting out
This mechanical process is used at various stages in the finishing of leather to counteract the shrinking and stiffening resulting form the processes that have gone before. (11) Most common after retanning, fatliquoring and dyeing. Normally done by machine using a knifed cylinder with blunted blades. Some modern machines combine sammying and setting and some incorporate a heated roller to help set the grain in a smooth tight configuration. Striking out is a similar process for heavy, vegetable tanned leather.

Scudding
One of the preliminary processes preparatory to tanning. After bating or drenching the excess fermenting materials, together with dirt, fatty matter, hair follicles, short hairs, and glandular tissue, are worked out of the hide or skin. (11) Mostly done by hand using a blunt two-handed knife over a curved beam. Can be done by machine.

Scud
A film or deposit of waste matter appearing on the surface of leather in process after certain operations, esp. bating. (11)

Santa Croce..
...... Igualada, Vic, Alcanena, Solofra, Lyon, Arzignano, Guadalajara, Kano, Northampton, Ambur, Ranipet, Vaniyambada, Millau, Kano, Graulhet, Mazamet, Gloversville Some of the places in the world which are centres for the leather industry.

Samm, sammying
The mechanical extraction of moisture from leather after a processing stage. Most normally done on wet blue after chrome tanning, using a machine which carries the leather through felts.

Russia Leather
Originally and properly calfskin shoe leather, dressed with birch oil and distinguished by its odour rather than its appearance. (11)

Russia Leather
Leather characterised by its odour. 'Anglo Russians' are skins treated with birch tar oil to imitate the smell of Russia leather. (1) 'The Russians have manufactured for a long time a variety of red leather called Juncten. This leather has an agreeable and characteristic odor, does not mould even in damp places, and is not attacked by insects. (10)

Rolling
One of the final operations in the manufacture of sole leather, by which it is given a smooth surface and even thickness. (11)

Roans
Sumac tanned sheepskins. (1)

Rockers
A device for the continuous agitation of hides when suspended in pits or vats in order to hasten the operation of the liquors. (11)

Retanning
A process subsequent to the main tannage when the character of the leather is adjusted by the addition of further alternate types of tanning material. Thus synthetic or vegetable tans may be added to a chrome leather to adjust certain characteristics.

Puering
The use of dog dung to clean the leather prior to tanning. Now called bating (which see). This became subject of correspondence in the New Scientist in 2002, with Tony Covington of the BSLT making the most interesting submission. ' I am more familiar with the spelling 'puer' Dog dung contains pancreatic enzymes which were used in solution to attack the non-collagenous proteins in skins or hides. This was a purifying rather than a curing step, to clean the material prior to tanning. It also means that biotechnology has been used in the leather industry for at least 5000 years. Treating skins with dog dung was always called puering, and the use of infusions of bird guano was called 'mastering'. Happily, the dung treatment is now obsolete, and nowadays the same general process is called 'bating', and typically involves manufactured bacterial or pancreatic enzymes. The process that it's part of is one of humanity's oldest technologies.' Tony Covington British School of Leather Technology, Northampton, UK New Scientist vol 175 issue 2358 - 31 August 2002, page 27

Pickling
A preliminary process for preparing hides and skins for tanning, largely by adjusting the pH with acid and controlling the swelling with salt. It is also use as stable way of holding material, after unhairing, for transport between plants and countries and for trading.

Picker Leather
The picker is the mechanism on either side of a power loom that throws the sharp pointed shuttle and receives it again as it is thrown back. For arming this mechanism, long experience has found nothing equal to a special, very tough leather, usually rawhide - either cattle or buffalo. Such picker leather is made extensively in the North of England and in parts of the USA, partly from native cattle hides and partly from imported buffalo hides. (11)

Pergamum
Town near Izmir (Smyrna) in Asia Minor. Parchment (from Latin 'carta Pergamena') supposedly first made there in 3rd cent BC. (3) When the King of Pergamus was building a great library in rivalry with the library of the King of Egypt in Alexandria, the latter placed an embargo on the exportation of papyrus from Egypt to hamper competition. The King of Pergamus thereupon perfected the manufacture of parchment for the making of books. (11) A more comprehensive discussion of this is given by the Koninklijke Bibliotheek. (22) Since it is very interesting I quote from their website: Parchment was used chiefly for writing, first on a scroll - as is still the case in Israel - and from the second century BC onwards in book form. To make a book, the rectangular cut sheets might be folded one or more times. The skins of sheep and goats from the areas round the Mediterranean were rarely more than 50 cm long by 40 cm wide. In northern regions we find larger skins and also calfskins being used to make books. The term pergamena is first used in the Edict of Diocletian (301 AD); until that time the term membrana had been used. It is generally accepted that the use of a new term indicates a new or modified product, but so little is known about the parchment of those days that it is impossible to say with any certainty whether this was the case here. One of our few informants about pre-Christian times is the (unreliable) Roman historian Pliny. He writes that the king of Pergamon (in present-day Turkey), Eumenes II (197-159 BC), was forced to look for alternative writing materials when the import of papyrus from Egypt was suspended. This is supposed to have led to the invention of parchment. Although parchment had been known at least eight hundred years before this date, Pergamon did have a reputation for good quality parchment in classical antiquity. The great change occurred around the fourth century AD, when people started manufacturing parchment using lime water. Until the fourth century skins were mostly treated with salt, flour and other vegetable products that were used to remove the hairs and to prepare the skin. The lime water method may have been introduced by Jews and Arabs to Spain in the early Middle Ages, after which it spread throughout the rest of Europe. Jewish parchment was lightly tanned on the surface with vegetable tannins. Another technique, the splitting of skins, was also known to the Jews and Arabs, even before the Middle Ages. In the West the traditional procedure to obtain the required thickness was to shave the full skin. Formulas and depictions of parchment manufacturing have come down to us, especially from the late Middle Ages. There is considerable correspondencebetween these mediaeval formulas and those used by modern parchment makers, and even the processing and tools have not changed fundamentally. For the most part, parchment manufacture is still a matter of handwork.

Pelt
This word means, strictly speaking, any kind of skin (Latin pellis, related to the German felle, a skin, and the English word fell, now preserved only in fellmonger). The word is somewhat loosely used in the leather industry, but its only common applications nowadays are to sheepskins in two or three slightly differing senses: (1) to the skin proper, to distinguish it from the wool that grows on it; (2) to dewooled sheepskins, as a pickled pelt or a fellmongered; or (3) in some countries to a woolskin bearing the shortest recognised staple. (11)

Pasting
A method of drying where wet leather is pasted onto a glass or steel plate and then allowed to dry in controlled conditions - often a tunnel with various chambers adjusted to fit the planned removal of moisture. Most used with side leather. Holds the area well, but if not well retanned the leather can feel hard and empty. There is a danger of the paste damaging the grain or interfering with the finish. US tanners are most skilled in this drying method.

Parchment
See Pergamum.

Painting
A process for loosening hair or wool (usually the latter) which is employed with skins whose protective covering is so valuable as to make it desirable to avoid injuring it by soaking in a lime liquor. The process is carried out by painting the flesh side of a skin with a depilatory substance, containing sodium sulphide or arsenic. Nowadays this is the usual method with sheepskins bearing the higher grades of wool. Before it was invented, such skins were usually dehaired by sweating. (11)

Paddles
A name applied to certain types of machinery with rotating arms, which are used in various tanning operations for agitating hides or skins in process. Use more water than drums, allowing larger floats and consequently gentler action. Mostly used in the soaking and liming areas.

Napa Leather
A cheap sheep or lambskin glove leather, made with an alum or combination tannage, and usually given a dull grain finish. The name is taken from the town of Napa in California. (11)

Nubuck
A grain leather which has been slightly sandpapered on the surface to give a very fine suede type look. The origins are interesting and I did the following research to help an Italian Dictionary Editor: 1. The name 'nubuck' came into use between 1941 and 1946 2.The concept is derived out of the original product 'buckskin', which is a historic product of a similar sort made out of deerskin. The nature of the deerskin grain is naturally inclined towards a sueded look and 'buckskin' became the standard way to make the product. It was natural that some one would try to copy the product in cattle sides

Mordanting
Pre-treating leather with any substance save acid or alkali which substantially alters its affinity for dyestuffs. (1)

Morocco
Finished leather with a pronounced grain, a term usually applied to goatskins. (1) A lot of Moroccan type leather originated in North Nigeria (Kano) and was traded across the Sahara for salt.

Meter Leather
A speciality leather prepared from selected sheepskins in such a way as to make it airtight, and used for the measuring of gas meters. (11)

Mechanical Leathers
A collective term for the speciality leathers used in various sorts of industrial machinery. Apart from belting leather the class always includes lace leather, picker leather, lithographic leather, mechanical raw hide, and a few others of lesser importance. (11)

Light Leather
Leather for clothing, gloving and shoe uppers mostly chrome tanned.

Liming
A process preliminary to tanning, which serves one or both of two purposes: (1) to loosen the hair or wool on a hide or skin, preparatory to dehairing; and (2) to plump or swell the fibres as of the processes necessary to prepare the substance for the action of the tan liquors. Liming is always required for the latter of these purposes.

Leather
For the avoidance of all ambiguities and doubts, which may and do grow upon the definition and interpretation of this word leather, it is enacted, and declared by these presents, that the hides and skins of ox, steer, bull, cow, calf, deer, red and fallow, goats and sheep being tanned or tawed, and every salt hide is, shall be, and ever hath been reputed and taken for leather. Act of Parliament. UK year 1604. (2)

Layers
The last set of vats or pits in which heavy leather is tanned, containing the strongest liquor. The hides in these pits are laid flat - originally with layers of tan bark between them.

Latigo Leather
The Spanish word latigo means a whiplash and this leather was originally tanned for that purpose; but as a technical term in the present day American trade, latigo means the straps used for cinching saddles of the McClellan, cowboy and Mexican types. This leather is usually prepared from cattlehides by a combination tannage.

Larrigan Leather
An American speciality made of light cattle hide and used in the manufacture of the heavy moccasins worn by lumbermen to guard against slipping when walking on wet logs. (11)

Japanning
A process of preparing the oil for, and the process of, manufacturing patent leather. (1)

In the white; in the pickle
Two roughly equivalent terms used to describe stock which has undergone the processes preliminary to tanning, but has not been actually tanned. Historically in the pickle is restricted to sheepskins and lambskins; in the white, in this sense, is used for practically all other classes of hides and skins.

Hydraulic leathers
A collective term sometimes used for the cattle hide leathers, chiefly rawhide and combination tannages, employed in pump valves, as piston packing, oils seals and so forth. (11)

Helvetia Leather
Oil tanned hide from which not all the excess grease is removed. (1)

Heavy Leathers
A term distinguishing sole leather, belting leather, and harness leather proper from other classes which are referred to collectively as light leathers. (11)

Handlers
One of the series of pits or vats in which heavy leathers are tanned with bark or vegetable extracts. They are usually worked with stronger liquors than the suspenders, but with weaker liquors than the layers. (11)

Guilds (Gilds)
Western European trade associations, grew strongly in the 12th and 13th centuries to protect and promote trade groups. Data from the Brewers` Company in London show that their were at least 14 different guilds concerned with leather listed in London in 1422). (17)

Guademici
Guademici art was developed in Ghadames, a town in Libya. It involved punching, stamping, gilding and adorning a pure white alum tanned hair sheep. The technology was taken to Cordoba in the 8th and 9th century, where it was developed and enhanced. See World Leather June/July 2001. 'Well known are the skins that arrive white as snow and then leave here, tanned red, bearing your name, Cordoba' Latin Poem from 9th century.

Glove Leather
A self-explanatory term which, however, covers two rather distinct classes: (1) the leather going into utilitarian or work-gloves and made of a variety of hides and skins, of which the most important are horsehides, cattlehide splits, calfskins and pigskins; and (2) the leather going into dress-gloves, including those for street, riding, driving, and sports wear. the latter is tanned predominately from sheep and lambskins; but there is a considerable item made of deerskin and a small one of pigskin, while an important item for the highest grades of women's fine gloves is tanned in a few countries of Europe from kidskins. (11)

Full grain leather
Leather whose grain has not been sandpapered or buffed to hide defects.

Frizing
The process of removing the grain of a skin by exposure to a strong lime liquor over an exceptionally long period,, sometimes as much as eight weeks. Such skins, after tanning are finished on the fine fibres under the grain. This is the method used in the manufacture of mocha glove leather and of certain classes of buckskin. (11)

Football Leather
Leather for covering the outside of soccer balls. Originally made of pigskin, then of cattlehide splits, and more recently of PU laminated splits. Lately leather has been somewhat replaced by full synthetics.

Flesher
The flesh piece from a thick woolly sheep which has been split into two layers. Used to make chamois. The grain is made into a skiver. Sometimes for cost and easy maintenance the material is part tanned and then split. The grain is then called a pliver. The flesh created in this latter way will not make true chamois.

Fatliquoring
Using fats and oils in appropriate mixes to lubricate and soften the fibre structure of leather, given the leather the required softness for its eventual end use.

Extract
A solution of a tanning material, normally vegetable.

Ecrase
Usually highly polished goatskin leathers showing differences in colour tone coinciding with the natural goatskin grain. (1)

Drums
The collective term for the rotary vessel in which many processes of tanning are now carried out. (11)

Drenching
A process for reducing the plumped fibres of a hide or skin. It accomplishes approximately the same purpose as bating and basically in the same way - that is, through soaking in a fermenting solution. Some authorities, however,, restrict the term bating to the process using ferments of manures and the term drenching to that using damp sawdust, bran, middlings, or a solution of lactic acid or some other chemical having a similar action. (11)

Deliming
A process preparatory to tanning proper to reduce the swollen and rigid fibres of a hide or skin after liming. (11)

Currying
A term practically equivalent to dressing and finishing, but confined chiefly to heavy leather (Latin corredare, to prepare or dress). (11)

Crust
Leather dried after tanning. Since chrome leather dried immediately after tannage will go hard, change charge and become difficult to rewet, this drying normally takes place after a basic retanning and fatliquoring. Leather is frequently traded world wide in this state, although tanners normally prefer to buy wet blue or pickle which gives them more flexibility of processing.

Crupp leather
A semicircular portion of leather taken from the butt of stuffed vegetable tanned horse hide. (1)

Corrected Grain
Chrome tanned side leather which is buffed with emery paper on the grain side to remove defects and then has a plastic resin and pigment finish built up on the leather. Used for shoe upper leather.

Cordwainers
From Cordovan leather. At first made many types of leather articles. In Middle Ages specialised in Shoes. Cordwainer is from the French word 'cordonnier' and came to England in 1066 with the Norman Invasion. After Cordoba fell in the 12th century English Crusaders brought back this alum-tanned goatskin. It was considered the highest quality shoe leather in Europe. Cordwainers work only with new leathers.

Cordovan Leather
Developed in Spain in the 8th century, when the Moors arrived in Spain. Made from the skin of the mouflon (Ovis Musimom). This hair sheep now only survives in Corsica and Sardinia. It was tanned with alum and later with alum and sumac. (Koninklijke Bibliotheek says sumac was not introduced until the 15th century). Best brilliant scarlet type was tawed with alum and dyed with kermes. (3, 22)

Cordovan
The shell of a horsehide, often tanned with a sulphur tannage. As such it was a soft vegetable tanned leather first made in Cordoba in Spain, and followed by goat, sheep and pigskin leathers with a similar formula. Cordovan leather has good wearing characteristics, and is non porous. The horse product still tends to be called 'shell cordoban leather'.

Conditioning
When leather is dried after retanning, dyeing and fatliquoring the fibres tend to stick together and the leather is hard. The fibres are separated and the leather softened by staking. Staking is best done at about 18% humidity and so a little humidity has to be put into the dry leather. This is most commonly done by a water spray and then piling the leather long enough for the moisture to even out. Adjusting the moisture content before staking in this way is called conditioning.

Combing leather
The name applied to the leather used on the combing rolls of cotton machinery and manufactured of calfskin or side leather. (11)

Cobblers
Shoemakers, but unlike cordwainers they work with old leather. Cobblers are essentially repairers.

Chamois leather
A soft leather originally made from the skins of the Alpine antelope known as the chamois but at the present time from the fleshers of sheepskins. Certain grades used to be used in gloves and fancy articles but the staple employment is for cleaning and polishing, primarily automobile. (11) Chamois is characterised by an ability to absorb at least three times its own weight of water.

Carding Leather
A special type of side leather used on the cards of cotton machinery. The leather lies flat against the beds of the cards, the teeth being forced through. (11)

Camar
Widespread caste in northern India whose hereditary occupation is tanning leather; the name is derived from the Sanskrit word carmakara, or 'skin worker.' The more than 150 subcastes are characterized by well-organized panchayats (governing councils). Because their work obliged them to handle dead animals, the Camars have suffered from the stigma of being considered a very polluted caste. (From encyclopaedia Britannica)

California Banknotes
In 'Two Years Before the Mast' (15) Richard Henry Dana describes how he sailed from Boston to California in 1834 to collect hides. He explains how hides are dried and loaded onto the ships before returning to the East Coast. Since California had nothing else of wealth at that time the dried hides were known as 'California Banknotes'. 'The hides are brought down dry, or they will not be received. When taken from the animal they have holes cut in the ends, and are staked out, and thus dried in the sun without shrinking. They are then doubled once, lengthwise, with the hair side usually in, and sent down upon mules or in carts, and piled above high-water mark: and then we take them upon our heads, one at a time, or two, if they are small, and wade out with them and through them into the boat.'

Cabretta Leather
A wrongly named hair sheep. When the Portuguese first went to Brazil they mistook the indigenous hairsheep for goats and called them cabrettas (kids). The skins were exported to the USA by the Blue Funnel Line (later the Booth Group) and the name cabretta stayed with them. Now all hairsheep skins have taken the generic name cabretta. Much used in footwear leather and sport glove leather.

Box Calf or box sides
Calf or side leather which has been boarded in two directions. (11)

Buffing
Sandpapering the leather with sandpaper or emery paper for various reasons such as the creation of a suede like nap on suede, a nubuck finish on grain, or for the preparation of corrected grain leather. Sometimes done on the flesh side to tidy up its appearance.

Bougie Leather
Leather from the town of Bougie in North east Algeria. Famous in the fifteenth century.

Boarding
A process of finishing a side or skin by folding it with the grain side in and rubbing the surface together under pressure. Gives a distinct look, and creates 'box' look when done two ways and 'willow' when done only in one direction. (6)

Belting leather
Leather employed for the transmission of power for machinery. The great bulk of this leather is made from the butts of high-grade cattle hides. In Europe a certain amount of buffalo hide is also used. (11)

Belt leather
Leather used for the leather going into men's clothing belts.

Beamhouse
The area of the tannery where the unhairing and liming processes are carried out. Before modern machinery the processes of fleshing, scudding and others were carried out over specially designed wooden beams using curved two handled knives with sharp or blunted edge according to the operation. Hence the name.

Bating
The process prior to tanning proper where the fibres of a hide or skin which have been plumped or swollen by liming are reduced and softened, thus assuring pliability in the product. The word is a form of 'abate' in the sense of reduce. (11)

Basil
Bark tanned pickled sheepskins. (1)

Bag Leather
A form of vegetable tannage in which the skins are sewn together in pairs to form bags and floated in tan liquor. This method avoids drawn grain and gives good spread of leather. (1)

Bag and case leather
A general term for the leathers used in travelling bags and suitcases. It does not include the light leathers employed for women's fancy handbags. The staple material for bag and case leather is cowhide. (11)

Aniline Leather
Leather which retains its colour only from dyestuffs rather than from pigment, and as a consequence looks more natural.

Aluta
Roman name for tawed (alum tanned) leather. Aluta was used for sails in Venice, and for shoe uppers in ancient Greece. (3)

Alum Tanning
A process of tanning with alum, used in combination with salt, egg yolk and other substances. (11) Used for the original feathery golf balls. 'In 1845 we more than doubled that. Hard work it was. I can still smell the leather, feel the heat. We used to use a chest clamp to literally compress and push those goose down feathers into the ball. Of course you cut six strips of bull hide and you soaked it in alum and of course you took three of 'em and stitched them inside out there, and the feathers went back in, and you compressed and compressed, and the idea being that as the leather shrinks as it dries out and the feathers expand. Then that gives you the compression.' Quoted by Wally Uihlein, Sept 1998, at St.Andrews Golf Congress.