B. Dyes and Mordants
Abfeilinch
: filings, presumably of iron (mentioned in the Innsbruck Manuscript).Alkanet [
Anchusa tinctoria
]: Source of a somewhat fugitive red dye.Alum: Probably aluminum ammonium sulfate. Mined as well as found in club moss. Used as a mordant. German term appears to have been "
alaun.
"Attichpleter
: Leaves of the dwarf elder tree (dyestuff mentioned in the Innsbruck Manuscript). Color unknown.Aychephel
: Oak galls (mentioned in the Innsbruck Manuscript).Bedstraw [
Galium verum
]: The shoots are a source of yellow dye, while the roots are a source of red.Barberry [
Berberis Vulgaris
]: Source of a somewhat fugitive yellow dye. Mentioned as
Peizzelpaum
in the Innsbruck Manuscript.Black walnut shells [
Juglans nigra
]: Source of a brown dye.
Nusscheln
(meaning nutshells) are mentioned in the Innsbruck Manuscript, and may refer to the black walnut.Blue vitriol: Copper sulfate. Also known as copper vitriol, blue copperas and Roman vitriol. A common mordant. Copper acetate was also used as a mordant.
Brazilwood [
Caesalpinia echinata, C. sappan
]: Source of a fugitive red dye. Mentioned as
Presilig
in the Innsbruck Manuscript.Buckthorn: Source of a yellow dye.
Cochineal [
Dactylopius coccus
]: Insect ground to produce a red dye.Copperas: Ferrous sulfate (also known as green copperas). A common mordant.
Cream of Tartar: Potassium hydrogen tartrate or Potassium bitartrate. Used as an "assistant" to mordants, particularly alum.
Dyer's broom aka woodwaxen, greenweed [
Genista tinctoria
]: Source of a yellow dye.Dyer's sawwort [
Serratula tinctoria
]: Source of a yellow dye.Fustic [
Chlorophora tinctoria
]: Source of a dull yellow dye. Fustic is native to the Americas.Holdern
: Elder (mentioned in the Innsbruck Manuscript). It is unclear what part of the plant was used and what color was produced.Indigo [
Indigofera tinctoria, Baptisia t.
]: Source of blue dye. Mentioned in the Innsbruck Manuscript as
Indich
.Kermes [
Kermes ilicis
]: The female insect is a source of red dye.Logwood aka Campeachy wood or blackwood [
Haematoxylon campechianum
]: Source of a fugitive lavender and a fast black dyes.Madder [
Rubia tinctorum
]: The most common source of red dye.Massalterein/s
: Maple (mentioned in the Innsbruck Manuscript). It is unclear which tree is meant. The bark of some maples produces a rosy-tan dye.Orchil [
Rocella tinctoria
]: Lichen source of purple dye.Polish berry [
Margarodes polonicus
]: Insect source of red dye.Potash: Potassium Carbonate. Wood ash.
Safflower [
Carthamus tinctorius
]: Source of a fugitive yellow dye and an insoluble orangish-red dye.Saffron [
Crocus sativus
]: Source of a well-known yellow dye. It may not actually have been used often as a dyestuff, because of its expense.Tin: As a mordant, tin brightens colors. Discovered as a mordant in 1630. Likely used in the form of stannous chloride.
Tyrian purple: An ancient dye extracted from some species of the
Purpura
and
Murex
mollusks.Weld aka dyer's rocket, dyer's weed [
Reseda luteola
]: Most common source of yellow dye.Woad [
Isatus tinctoria
]: Source of a blue dye, it contains the same colorant as indigo, in much lesser concentration. Erfurt in Thuringia was the center of the German woad industry.
Adrosko, Rita J.
Natural Dyes and Home Dyeing
, (Dover: New York, 1971).
Baumann, Wolf-Rudiger, The Merchants Adventurers and the Continental Cloth-trade (1560s—1620s) (Walter de Gruyter: Berlin, 1990).
Bemiss, Elijah,
The Dyer's Companion
, 3rd ed. (Dover: New York, 1973) reprint of the 1815 edition.
Bronson, Bennet, "An Industrial Miracle in a Golden Age: the 17
th
Century Cloth Exports of India," (n.d.) http://www.homestead.com/iref/Textile.html.
Bronson, J. and R. Bronson, Early American Weaving and Dyeing: the Domestic Manufacturer's Assistant and Family Directory in the Arts of Weaving and Dyeing, (Dover, New York: 1971) reprint of the 1817 edition.
Buchanan, Rita,
A Dyer's Garden
, (Interweave Press: Loveland CO, 1995).
Casselman, Karen Leigh,
Craft of the Dyer: Colour from Plants and Lichens
, 2
nd
ed. (Dover: New York, 1993).
Druding, Susan C., "Dye History from 2600 BC to the 20
th
Century," (1982) http://www.straw.com/sig/dyehist.html.
Leed, Drea, "Dye Recipes from the Innsbruck Manuscript,"(2000) http://costume.dm.net/~drea/dyes/about.html.
Mariegola Dell'Arte de Tentori
, published in Italy in 1429, referred to at http://www.straw.com/sig/dyehist.html.
McCloy, Heather, "A Brief History of Dyestuffs & Dyeing," (2000) http://kws.atlantia.sca.org/dyeing.html.
Munson, Jennifer, "Anne Liese's Fibers and Stuff: Sources for Archaeological Records of Dyes," (1993) http://www.geocities.com/anne_liese_w/Dyeing/dyehistory.htm.
The Plictho of Gioanventura Rosetti: Instructions in the Art of the Dyers which Teaches the Dyeing of Woolen Cloths, Linens, Cottons, and Silk by the Great Art as Well as by the Common originally published (also in Italy) in 1548, referred to at http://www.geocities.com/anne_liese_w/Dyeing/dyehistory.htm.
The following articles were all found in the Digital Archive of Documents on Weaving. Textiles, Lace, and Related Topics.: (http://www.cs.arizona.edu/patterns/weaving/).
Americana, the
, "Bleaching" (1903).
Chamber's Encyclopedia
, "Bleaching," (1881) p. 148.
—, "Dyeing," (1881) p. 718.
Dick's Encyclopedia of Practical Receipts and Processes, "Art of Dyeing," (n.d.) p. 31.
—, "Bleaching," (n.d.) p. 175.
Domestic Encyclopedia
, "Dyeing," (1821) p. 90.
—, "Mordants," (1821).
Encyclopaedia Perthensis
, "Bleaching," (1803) vol. 4, p. 1.
Encyclopedia Britannica
, "Bleaching," 1st ed. (1771) vol. 1, p. 561.
—, "Botany: List of Dyeing Plants," 1st ed. (1771) vol. 1, p. 633.
—, "Dyeing," 1st ed. (1771) vol. 2, p. 460.
English Encyclopedia
, "Dyeing," (1867) p. 702.
Henry, Thomas, "Considerations Relative to the Nature of Wool, Silk, and Cotton, as Objects of the Art of Dying," Part 1,
The Repertory of Arts and Manufactures
, Vol. 2 (1795) p. 41.
—, "Considerations Relative to the Nature of Wool, Silk, and Cotton, as Objects of the Art of Dying," Part 2,
The Repertory of Arts and Manufactures
, Vol. 2 (1795) p. 116.
—, "Considerations Relative to the Nature of Wool, Silk, and Cotton, as Objects of the Art of Dying," Part 3,
The Repertory of Arts and Manufactures
, Vol. 2 (1795) p. 192.
—, "Conclusion of Mr. Henry's Considerations Relative to the Nature of Wool, Silk, and Cotton, as Objects of the Art of Dying," Part 4,
The Repertory of Arts and Manufactures
, Vol. 2 (1795) p. 249.
Hummel, J. J. and Edmund Knecht,
Encyclopedia Britannica
, "Dyeing," (11th ed., 1911) vol. ?, p. 744.
Knecht, Edmund.
Encyclopedia Britannica
, "Bleaching," (11th ed., 1911) vol. ?, p. 49.
London Encyclopaedia
, "Dyeing," (1829) p. 573.
Oxford Encyclopedia
, "Dyeing," (1828) vol. 2, p. 889.
Pellew, Charles E. "Mediaeval Dyestuffs,"
The Bulletin of the Needle and Bobbin Club
, Vol. 2 (1918) p. 3.
People's Cyclopedia of Universal Knowledge, "Dyeing," (1895) p. 875.
Rees's Cyclopaedia
, "Bleaching," (1819).
—, "Colour," (1771).
—, "Dyeing," (1819).
By Leonard Hollar,
Bob Hollingsworth,
John Rigby,
Phillip Schillawski,
Tom Van Natta and
John Zeek
The SRG is the standard muzzle-loading rifle of forces allied with USE. SRG stands for "Struve-Reardon Gevar," named after the manufacturer and designer of the weapon. "Gevar" is the German term for rifle.
It is based on the Pattern 1853 Enfield rifle, one of the most common guns of the American Civil War. It uses a hollow based, pointed bullet of the Minié design which can be quickly loaded as it is smaller than the bore of the rifle and it expands to grip the rifling on firing. The original percussion action has been modified to use a modern "French" flintlock such as was in common use at the time of the American Revolution. The rifle is stocked with a hardwood to within four inches of the muzzle and equipped with a steel ramrod for loading and cleaning. The rifle is slightly over 55 inches in length and weighs slightly more than ten pounds. The rifle is equipped with a tangent style rear sight that allows accurate point shooting to four hundred yards and the sight then flips up to be a ladder sight for shooting at area targets at ranges to eight hundred meters. The rifle is issued with a socket type bayonet with a triangular blade over sixteen inches long. There is a shortened version of the SRG in use with mounted troops and others.
Two things should have stood out in the previous article ("Flint's Lock,"
Grantville Gazette,
Vol. 3) about the SRG, the rifle adopted by the USE army in 1633:
1) The SRG is a stopgap weapon, better than any other weapon in Europe at the time, but still not the best that can be made.
2) By its very design the SRG can be copied and maybe even improved by many down-timers, including enemies of the new USE.
So the question becomes: What should replace the SRG?
The first answer that springs to mind is to convert it to a cap or percussion lock. After all, the P-53 Enfield on which the SRG was based was a percussion weapon.
That idea brings up the percussion cap and the action that goes with it. Basically the percussion cap is a simple cup made from any thin metal. Copper is the most common. The inside of this cup is varnished to prevent the metal from reacting with the priming compound. Then a small amount of the priming compound—this could be fulminate of mercury or any other impact sensitive material—is painted in the cap. A second coat of varnish protects the priming compound from moisture.
[We deemed it outside the scope of this article to get into the identity and performance of those impact sensitive priming compounds—fulminates, styphnates, etc. We know they are being worked on. That's one for the chemistry folks.]
The SRG rifle replaces the flash pan of the flintlock with a simple nipple or cone and the complex hammer (holding a flint) with one that has only a hollow face. In action, the rifleman loads his weapon much like he would load the flintlock, but instead of priming the flash pan, he cocks the hammer to half cock and places a cap on the nipple. To fire, the hammer is simply moved to full cock position, aimed and fired. Because capping the rifle takes the extra movement of reaching into the cap pouch when priming, the rate of fire will go down slightly. However, the loaded rifle is more windproof and a lot better in rain or in snowy conditions. It is not completely weatherproof, but it is close. In addition, the percussion rifle has a shorter lock time—the period of time between the shooter squeezing the trigger and the weapon firing. A shorter lock time makes for a more accurate weapon. That means there are some real advantages to going to a percussion version of the SRG.
But are those advantages enough to justify the effort of rearming the whole army? Another point to consider is whether a percussion SRG is that much better than the copies of the flintlock SRG that will soon be in the hands of the enemies of the USE. Remember that the SRG can be made by down-time gun makers, and the French already know about the modern flintlock, which itself was a big improvement on the matchlocks featured in the opening of
1632
.
It should be clear that we feel the gun designers of Grantville should skip a generation of firearms design and go directly to a cartridge breechloader.
But what cartridge breechloader? And, more importantly, what cartridge?
As you might imagine, there is a slight difference of opinion among the members of the panel on this subject. Some of us were holding out for the paper cartridge Sharps design that could later be converted to metallic cartridges. Some wanted to use the tipping chamber of the Hall and later Burnside. Both of these, the Sharps and the Hall, could use paper cartridges with percussion caps.
Other members of the group held out for going straight to a metallic cartridge weapon. Even among the metallic cartridge advocates there are a few differences of opinion. One wants a single-shot dropping block rifle like the Sharps, another wants a single-shot rolling block like the Remington, another wants a tip down rifle based on the single shot shotgun, and one wants to do an add-on hinged-breech to the SRG like the Trapdoor Springfield. All of these actions are strong enough for an effective black powder load and were fairly popular. Examples of each should be in Grantville, since the single-shots are all popular with cowboy action shooters and deer hunters who use single shot rifles.