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Show Finishing Sealskin Natural sealskin Is so heavy and salt-Impregnated, so thick, greasy and coarse-haired, that no woman would care to wear the fur until It had been properly dressed. It requires a number num-ber of operations to finish the raw skins. They are washed, dried, cleaned with oil-soaked sawdust and skived to one-third of their original thickness. The skiving requires the most sensitive touch, as the knives must go deep enough to loosen tho roots of the stiff hairs but must not touch the roots of the fur Itself. When the bristles are loosened the skins are turned over nnd the bristles are rubbed out The skins then go to the hot rooms, where the fur side Is exposed ex-posed to blasts of hot air. The last operation Is the dyeing that gives the fur Its characteristic color. Unlike ordinary things, sealskin Is colored by being painted with coat after coat of dye, put on with a brush. |