Tanners Instruments
7. We shall give you some examples of the Leather Tanner, and the Instruments by which such Works are performed.
Tanner's working knife
CXVIII. He beareth a Tanners Working
Knife, and a Pilling Knife.
The Working Knife is a crooked Knife with two streight out handles, having a thick back; this raiseth the grain.
Pilling knife
The Pilling Knife, of some called a Pilling
Iron; this takes off all the Hair of the Hide; being
a four square Iron set in two Handles, Hooped.
Related text(s) Fleshing knife
Tanner's mill
CXIX. He beareth a Tanners Mill, or
generally called by them the Ring and Mill. It is for
the grinding and crushing of their Bark; being a
round large Wooden Trough with a large Stone set on
the edge, or turning part, with sharp strong Knives
Leaded into the Stone, which Stone being turned in the
Trough with its Weight causeth the Irons of cut the
Bark very small.
Tanner's pooler
CXX. He beareth a Tanners Pooler (or
Poler) a Fisher, and a Lyme Hook. These are
three Instruments used about Tanners Pits; the Pooler
to stir up the Ouse, or Bark and Water; ...
Fisher
... and when it [the ouse, or bark and water]
is sufficiently soaked, and the strength gone out of the
Bark, then comes the Fisher, which is an Iron with
Nett-work, made from side to side of it with strong
Iron Wyers, with this the Bark is taken out of the
Water; ...
Lime hook
... and the Lime-Hook to draw the Hides out of
the Pits.
Scutching knife
CXXI. In this quarter are three other useful Instruments belonging to the Tanners Trade; the first is a
scutching Knife, by it all the roughness and exorbtances, and filthy excresences growing to the out-side
of the Bark, are cut away, and the Bark is also by
Ring, to be ground to small pieces.
Shaving knife
The second is a shaving Knife, by which Tanned
Skins are shaved and cleansed from their filthy Excrescencies of Flesh, Hair, and the end of the Skins.
Hewing knife
The third is a Hewing Knife, and used for the
Hewing of the Bark small, and to prepare it for the Mill.
Tanner's millstone
Image from proof plateCXXI. He beareth a Tanners Millstone, set with its Knives. This hath been a late devise of setting sharp Iron or Steel Knives, upon the edge of the Mill-stone to cut the Bark, which doth perform that work in less time and with more ease than formerly it was done only by the weight of the Stones, sans Irons. They have been her in use with us not above a Dozen years from this time, 1688.
{The second image is not described.]
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