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Topic: Bleaching of linen?

Love Ersare
New Member
Member # 242

posted 11-05-2001 03:38 AM

Hello, i'm a newbie reenactor from Sweden and i'm right now constructing a set of clothes from the late 15-th century. My brechers and shirt will be sewn of linen and I do not at all feel good about using linen that i bleched with modern chemicals. Ad I would also like to know what the result would be with a period method.

I've got many tips of how to do it. One was tha I should bleach them i Urine, i've tried that by putting a bit of cloth i urine for about two weeks without result, does anybody know of another metod?
I've also heard that they should be died in a mixture of water and wooden ashes, how is that done?

I've also heard that the cloth should be waxed and after that bleached in the sun for quite some time, can anyone be more specific?

Please help me, I can't find any good information anywere.

/Love (yes, that is my name)

Registered: Nov 2001 | IP: Logged

Fire Stryker
Admin & Advocatus Diaboli
Member # 2

posted 11-05-2001 07:47 AM

Hi Love,

Welcome to the board. I did some rooting around in some of the older threads on the board and remembered that this discussion had occured. Please take a look at the link below. Hopefully it will help out.

http://www.wolfeargent.com/cgi-bin/ultimatebb.cgi?ubb=get_topic&f=7&t=000132

In the second post on the thread you will probably find your answer.

Jenn

[ 11-05-2001: Message edited by: Fire Stryker ]

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Love Ersare
New Member
Member # 242

posted 11-05-2001 04:42 PM

Yes, i've already read these posts, but I want to know if anybody have any experience of, or any more specific information of how. Because I'm determent to give it a try, even though I've never done anything like this before. So, if I should try this method.

Is any woodash fine, or should it be of a special kind?
how should I mix the ash and the water? How much do I need of each?
How long should I boil them?
Is there anything else I need to know?

But thanx anyway for the help, I will make a test in the following days...

/Love

Registered: Nov 2001 | IP: Logged

fra.hulettaes
Member
Member # 222

posted 11-06-2001 10:48 PM

Hi, Love,
I found some info on a Danish biochemical site which said that the ureac acid used for bleaching worked best in high heat. I also spoke with a friend who is a biochemist and he felt that was correct. This suggests to me that you'd need to boil the linen in urine (a process not without it's drawbacks) in order to get the bleaching qualities. Also, if using woodash lye (very easy to get) you'd need to boil it as well. I run a period laundry for a local group and found alot of info on boiling household linens in lye and then adding a little blue dye the the end rinsing to counter act the yellowing if the excessive bleaching. Known as bluing. To make woodash lye, find or make several bushels of hickory ash. Make a large (3 foot deep) inverted cone shaped hopper of wood. Line it with paper(tough butcher paper will do) Fill it with ash and pour several gallons of water over the ashes. Place a bucket beneath your filter to collect the lye. There is some really good practical advice on this process in the Foxfire books from the 70's. Good luck in your process and please post your results as I'd love to know how it works.
Joan the Terrier Diligente.

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Why pay someone to do it right when you can screw it up yourself for free?

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Gwen
Member
Member # 126

posted 11-06-2001 11:25 PM

Joan-

Could we make a big "jelly bag" out of coarse linen, hang it and pour water over the contents to extract the lye? We could do this in camp without any modern materials (butcher paper), and I can generate enough wood ash to keep everyone's tidy whities gleaming!

Gwen

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Anne-Marie
Member
Member # 8

posted 11-07-2001 02:09 AM

a friend of mine made her own lye for soap.

it was a messy and potentiall VERY dangerous activity!

you can lose an eye working with that stuff. Scary.

--AM

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"Let Good Come of It"

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Ulfgar
Member
Member # 225

posted 11-07-2001 07:13 AM

Frau, when you say lye, do you mean sodium hydroxide (caustic soda)? How strong a solution does this method produce?, and do you know if you must use hickory ash? I use lye as a wood stain on some of my furniture, it is pretty caustic stuff.

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Yes, these are bruises from fighting.That's right, I'm enlightened!

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fra.hulettaes
Member
Member # 222

posted 11-07-2001 12:36 PM

Hey, good questions. As far as doing this onsite, I don't see why not. Once we learn some good safety proceedures for handling the lye. (Gwen, I couldn't sleep last night 'cause I was thinking of all the laundry and soapmaking possibilities for the camp. We could make and sell it at the booth.:-))As far as what wood to use, the only actual recipe I found was in a Foxfire book, (no. 1) and they specified hickory which I'm sure comes from the fact that it is the predominent local wood in the Appalachia. As to the safety of using lye, it is probably relative to boiling things in urine. (I spent alot of last night working out how to collect urine from Bella and Socks, could that be one of the pages duties?)The Foxfire books from the 70's are an excellent place to see folkes doing things the old way. The soapmaking chapter was priceless as well as the gourd working and hog dressing chapters, both worth the price of the book. (12.95 used at Cliff's. Anyone interested in these can email me and I'll pick them up a copy for cost and shipping. They had 6 copies of No 1.) Joan the Terrier Diligente.

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Why pay someone to do it right when you can screw it up yourself for free?

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Gwen
Member
Member # 126

posted 11-07-2001 01:20 PM

Joan, I'm willing to try the lye thing, but I am *not* going to follow Bella around with a pail.....especially when we can issue chamber pots and urinals to everyone in camp and let them do their own collecting!

Gwen, who is thinking that the possibilities of urine collection as an educational section for demo at schools would be priceless......

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Fire Stryker
Admin & Advocatus Diaboli
Member # 2

posted 11-07-2001 02:29 PM

Collecting... From horses? No way. The splash potential is NOT worth the risk. Yeeagh! :P

From your own members... your participation may very as well as level of enthusiam.

But anyway... what about the sunbleaching method or does this also involve "extract" of creature?

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Fire Stryker
Admin & Advocatus Diaboli
Member # 2

posted 11-07-2001 02:40 PM

quote:
Gwen, who is thinking that the possibilities of urine collection as an educational section for demo at schools would be priceless......

Remember this Ad?

http://www.wolfeargent.com/cgi-bin/ultimatebb.cgi?ubb=get_topic&f=19&t=000057

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Ulfgar
Member
Member # 225

posted 11-07-2001 07:27 PM

I seem to remember once seeing a type of leather strap on device (no really, I am serious!) ,for horses, to collect the urine. Apparently it was to be used as a mordant in dyeing (?). The device was sort of gourd shaped and appeared to be made of hardened leather and was about the size of a large football.
Ulfgar

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Yes, these are bruises from fighting.That's right, I'm enlightened!

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fra.hulettaes
Member
Member # 222

posted 11-07-2001 08:26 PM

Jenn, thanks for posting that add. Not only was it priceless, but they may have done such a thing a natural linen bleaching. Here is the url for thier homepage. web page I went there and they've posted a photo of members skinning a dead animal. Hey Gwen, see what I mean about dead animals? Joan the Terrier Diligente.

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Why pay someone to do it right when you can screw it up yourself for free?

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Fire Stryker
Admin & Advocatus Diaboli
Member # 2

posted 11-08-2001 07:38 AM

Hmmmm....

quote:
I seem to remember once seeing a type of leather strap on device (no really, I am serious!) ,for horses, to collect the urine. ...snip... The device was sort of gourd shaped and appeared to be made of hardened leather and was about the size of a large football.

I wonder if they used it on mares or stallions(or geldings). Without seeing such a device I would speculate that it would be the latter simply due to body configuration.

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Love Ersare
New Member
Member # 242

posted 11-08-2001 02:01 PM

Hum....

I wonder if it is a difference if you use urine from Horses instead of human urine? Does anybody know a good method (other than this leatherbag) to get hold of animal-urine? ugh, that didn't sound to well did it

Bye

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fra.hulettaes
Member
Member # 222

posted 11-08-2001 03:07 PM

Hi, Love,
More info. This site site has a very brief description of Norther Europeans bleaching linen in the sun and as I read it, I remembered a wonderful history of laundry book which had a painting from Germany around 1560 or so of a village with a green sward in the middle covered end to end with pieces of linen from the laundry laying on the grass to dry and bleach. This makes me think that one of the very necessary ingredients which Medieval folk had that we don't is time. Perhaps you could try putting a linen square in the sun for a few weeks to see how that works. I know I'm going off my own course (away, away God from the Urine!) but there is alot to be said for letting the sun do all the work and not having to "collect" urine or lye. If you're interested, I'll try to find that laundry source with the bleaching image and send it via email so you can take a look. Another thing that occured to me is that (or rather Anne Marie reminded me that) it is probable that most common folk didn't make every single thing they owned and if they did, it probably didn't look like a perfect, machine made item. Mostly it looked like crap. One of the places that the modern world intrudes into my interpretation of the historic one is that everything looks perfect. Perfect seams, perfect shoes. No raggedness, no shoddyness. Nothing touched by human hands. One of the aspects of the medieval world that I'm fascinated with is decay, rot, illmade things. Things to old to be used. Dead things. All these things where also present and add a wonderful texture and richness to medieval representations. How could one feel happy about a clean new shift if the old one looked new all the time? I hope I don't sound like I'm on a soap box, I just think it's interesting that most re-enactments are so clean and tiddy. In that view, bleaching linen, taking time, making in yourself and wearing it, in all it's handmade, non-perfect glory is way more period to me than a perfectly bleached linen shirt, bright as the noonday sun. Well, all that is IMHO.
Cheers, Joan the terrier diligente.

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Why pay someone to do it right when you can screw it up yourself for free?

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Gwen
Member
Member # 126

posted 11-09-2001 12:07 AM

Right- now tell them about how at the last event you wanted to tie that dead mole to a stick and give it to the kids to play with.....

Gwen

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fra.hulettaes
Member
Member # 222

posted 11-10-2001 11:27 AM

Hey, that vole was a perfect toy. It hadn't even been touched by ants yet. Besides, Wilhem thought it was a good idea. (Are we off topic here?) Another urine fact to add the the mix. Urine is sterile. (I heard this from a friend who's a veteranarian) I also found a short essay with this tantalizing tidbit, the turks used to boil thier eggs in horse urine to preserve them. (Gwen, think the guys would go for that?) Joan TTD

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Why pay someone to do it right when you can screw it up yourself for free?

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Gwen
Member
Member # 126

posted 11-10-2001 09:07 PM

the turks used to boil thier eggs in horse urine to preserve them. (Gwen, think the guys would go for that?)

Well, you could always tell them you poached the eggs in recycled beer, maybe that would make them more appealing. This is starting to sound like an 8 year old me feeding worms to my little sister and telling her they were spaghetti..... My mom wasn't too thrilled with it, but my mom isn't around to comment on your culinary endeavors!

Gwen

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Love Ersare
New Member
Member # 242

posted 11-11-2001 06:18 AM

Ok people, here is the result, this weekend I made an attemt to bleach linen by boilin git in mounth-old urine (I've been told that old urine is "strongder"). It wasn't such a discusting process, maybe because I only did it in a very small scale. I took two different peices of linen cloth, about 20*20cm and boiled them in urine on high temperature (over an open fire) for about 30-40 minutes. And the result was negative, the cloth became a little bit more yellow but not at all bleached, but it got quite a nice smell

SO, I guess that theory is quite wrong, and I will therefor use my energy to make attemts with ash-lye and sunbleaching. Sadly I live in northern sweden, and at this time of the year we just have a few hours of light, and it is very few times we really get any sun until the winter really has arrived, and then the days are even shorter.

But I guess i will have to try any way. So, next step is to make lye, and when that's quite a user substance I hope that I can find a good source in the library.

But is there anybode who's got any good tips on where to find more information about bleaching that would make me very happy, and I promise to tell you when I've got any results...

And yes, "fra.hulettaes", I would be very interested in that picture you told me about!

/Love

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Fire Stryker
Admin & Advocatus Diaboli
Member # 2

posted 11-11-2001 09:39 AM

I do not know if the process will yield instant results like chlorine bleach. There are others here who know far more about fabrics,dying, and bleaching than I do.

Now I am curious about how this was done.

From most of what I have read, urine was used more in the dying process. Just doing a cursory "surf" of the Net, most of the articles I have seen discuss sun bleaching linen in the "green fields" or staked on the hillsides. I haven't seen any that discuss the use of urine in the bleaching of linen, though I did see the passing mention of a specific animal's urine (sheep) for the purpose of bleaching. I did not read about anything describing the enitre process. Which leads me to a series of questions.

How common was the use of urine in the bleaching process of linen?

Was there any other substance mixed in to counter the yellowing effect of the urine to produce the white?

How long did the process take: hours, days, weeks?

Do we know of a specific and detailed "start-to-finish" process that can help people who wish to try out this method?

Registered: May 2000 | IP: Logged

fra.hulettaes
Member
Member # 222

posted 11-11-2001 11:31 AM

Hi, Fire,
I've been trying to find the actual process as well. Do you think the Regia might have done this? They seem to have the most hands on stuff I've seen out there. (very cool pit kiln experiment) Love, I'll get hold of that image and send it this week. (my name is Joan:-))
Joan the Terrier Diligente.

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Why pay someone to do it right when you can screw it up yourself for free?

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Anne-Marie
Member
Member # 8

posted 11-12-2001 01:45 AM

hey all from Anne-Marie, your friendly neighborhood science geek

fabrics, etc can "yellow" as a result of oxidation.

reduction is the process by way this chemical reaction is reduced.

Reducing agents include acids like citric acid (lemon juice or chlorine and sun bleach hair), and ureic acid as a byproduct of urine plus sun probably work the same way.

After boiling your fabric bits in the urine (did you have it fermented to produce ureic acid, or just sitting in a tightly sealed jar?), did you put it in the sun, or under a UV lamp?

Most chemical reactions require energy of some kind to help them work better. The reduction of the oxides that cause yellowing is another type of chemical reaction where the energy from the sun might help.

just a theory....
--AM

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"Let Good Come of It"

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fra.hulettaes
Member
Member # 222

posted 11-25-2001 06:17 PM

More on Bleaching. This site contains an exact description for making woodash lye for use in soap. This site contains scientific descriptions of lye and it's relative strenghts. And this sitehas an excellent description of doing period laundry. One small imperical example: a friend of mine did a large pot of linen laundry at an event and on a lark, added 2 big handfuls of white ash from the fire, boiled it for an hour and drained and rinsed it well. She said it came out sparkling white. Just more to add to the conversation. Joan the Terrier Diligent.

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Why pay someone to do it right when you can screw it up yourself for free?

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