Trampling barrel

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Left trampling barrel, right pedal stick (1726)

The trampling barrel was a device of the furriers , later of the specialized smokers , as a tool of the tobacco or fur finishing, the tanning of fur skins. In one of the following work steps , the skins were given a similar treatment in a similar pedal stick .

functionality

“The Tubbers”, CW Martin & Sons Ltd., London
Furrier's workshop in 1794. On the left in the background either a trampling barrel or a pedal stick

The trampling barrel is first mentioned in the early Middle Ages. It was the size of a normal water barrel four to five feet high. The raw hides, previously preserved with salt or alum, were trampled on with bare feet until they had the desired degree of softness.

In the history of the English company CW Martin & Sons Ltd. , founded in 1823, fur refiner and tobacco shop, especially for seal skins , the following episode is noted from the time. Thanks to modern machines and chemicals, pedaling was gradually becoming superfluous, and the company's “tubbers” were no longer employed and threatened to become unemployed. To their horror, one of the business owners took a tour of the company. They quickly jumped into the empty tubs, as usual, barefoot and only dressed in shirts, and pretended to be busy trampling. However, this was noticed and the boss was seen chasing the Tubbers, threatening with a broom, trousersless across the yard. Another description of the process known as “leathering” in an “enormous” barrel even said that the gentlemen generally had nothing to do with their work (“mid nodings on”). It would have been strange to see the men, their arms leaning on the edge of the barrel, doing their monotonous and sticky exercises on the treadmill in complete silence. But they would still be skilled workers. The constant pedaling generated heat from the friction. The worker had to be careful not to miss the point where the skins had to be removed from the bin. If the time was too short, the leather was not evenly greased. If it was too long, the hair became dull and the pelts were irrevocably ruined. At that time, coarser skins were already being "trampled" in a machine by fulled flasks that worked in troughs. In 1936 trampling with bare feet was mentioned in a specialist book in London as a common practice for fine and high-quality skins.

A description from the year 1762 shows that the furriers usually stacked a certain number of skins in the barrel:

300 white or black deer, or 200 white hare skins , or 250 rabbit skins , 50 scales ( raccoon skins ), 60 badgers or 8 polar bear skins , 100 virgin polecat skins , 60 marmot skins or the same amount of wolverines or 6 leopard skins . Zobel , however, were warmly entered in Tretstock.
The pelts were rubbed with butter or lard on the leather side, hair on the hair side, with the leather facing outwards, layered in the trampling barrel. The duration of the trampling of the fat bellows was given here as approximately three hours. After the “fat tanning” the hides were coated with salt water and the carrion was scraped off first on the furrier bench with a sharp knife, then on the curing bench with a blunt knife and then dried.
After another step, this time in a heated stick, the added sawdust freed them from the fat. If the hair was not completely free of grease afterwards, it was put in the trample for another hour, this time together with a mixture of half sand and plaster of paris. After tapping out the cleaning mixture with knock sticks, the leather was again covered with salt water and pulled again over the duller Abzieheisen even Pökeleisen or brats called to it "knows right and pure" to scrape.

In 1925, the trampling barrel was described as a mechanical, electrically powered device that was used instead of a crank or hammer mill for finer types of fur, because when using it, the otherwise existing risk of kinking or matting the hair as a result of the impact is significantly reduced :

“Instead of hammers, the trampling bucket works with steel balls or balls made of trestle wood , the diameter of which is approximately 12 cm. When filling the barrel, make sure that the balls do not hit the outer walls, but can always work fully in the skins. "

A machine called the “tramping machine” or “kicker” in the USA in 1949 contained two vertical wooden “legs” to which a few narrow wooden trestles were attached. These moved alternately back and forth in a semicircular barrel or tub, almost like a pair of legs or feet.

Bantu fur treatment

Soft rubbing, soft kneading or soft chewing among the Inuit are archetypes of processing raw hides to make them wearable for humans. The French missionary Eugène Casalis (1812-1891) reported about the Bantu tribes :

“An unusual noise calls us back to the village; it is a polyphonic grunt and chuckle, mixed with high-pitched screams, the discordant tones of which are subject to a perfect rhythm. You seem to hear a chorus of bears, boars and monkeys. This whole Heide noise has the center of an ox-hide , which is to be softened, in order to conform a biped the body. A dozen men in a crouched position grab her now here now there, rub her between their hands, squeeze, knead her with such rapidity, conveying her movements so strange that she seems to revive herself from the abuse she is receiving. Every expression of strength, every turn is accompanied by one of those strange tones for which we cannot account. The more the work advances, the more the power and speed increase; soon they escalate into a real frenzy. The noise, the ravishing force of the rhythm seem to drive the workers crazy. Some press the graceful movements of the gazelle on their backs, while others delight themselves with the ends of their skin like a cat with a mouse. Suddenly the noise stops; the coat is as soft as a glove, one carries it away with a shout of triumph, and the noise makers fortify themselves with a few mugs of beer, the only reward they expect. "

Web links

Commons : Trample and Walk  - Collection of pictures, videos and audio files

See also

Individual evidence

  1. ↑ a b c d Johann Samuel Halle: Der Kirschner - The eighteenth treatise , approx. 1780, p. 314 and p. 315 and p. 316 . In: Workshops for Today's Arts , Berlin 1762.
  2. ↑ W. Künzel: From raw fur to smoking goods . Alexander Duncker Verlagbuchhandlung, Leipzig, undated (approx. 1937), p. 7.
  3. ^ A b Christian Heinrich Schmidt: The art of furrier . Verlag BF Voigt, Weimar 1844, pp. 91-93.
  4. ^ Under Eight Monarchs - CW Martin & Sons, Ltd., 1823-1953 . Pp. 22-23.
  5. ^ John C. Sachs: Furs and the Fur Trade . 3rd edition, Sir Isaac Pitman & Sons Ltd, London undated, pp. 120-121 (English).
  6. ^ Frank Grover: Practical Fur Cutting and Furriery . The Technical Press, London 1936, p. 6. (English).
  7. ↑ Alexander Tuma: Pelz-Lexikon. Fur and Rough Goods, Volume XXI . Alexander Tuma, Vienna 1951, keywords: "Rauhwaren-Aufichterei", "Salvator", "Trample", "Tretstock" .
  8. ^ F. Elsinger: Fellbereiter and Kürschner of the 16th to 18th century . In: Die Pelzwirtschaft Heft 8, August 20, 1976, p. 37.
  9. ↑ Kurt Nestler: The smoking goods refinement . Deutscher Verlag, Leipzig, 1925, p. 174.
  10. ↑ Max Bachrach: Fur. A Practical Treatise. Prentice-Hall, Inc., New York 1949 (6th edition). P. 574 (English).
  11. ^ Heinrich Lange, Albert Regge: History of the dressers, furriers and cap makers in Germany . German Clothing Workers Association (Ed.), Berlin 1930, p. 75.