Corset stays

Baleen is sometimes also (misleadingly) called whalebone. It is a tough material and is thermoplastic. It was popular for use as bristle in heavy duty brushes, and for corset stays and umbrella ribs as it was slightly flexible. It was also engraved and decorated as scrimshaw - the whalers craft (see Chapter 3, Ivory ). The solid part of a baleen plate looks much like horn and has been put to many of the same uses, for... 

GB patent for rustproofing corset stays with phosphoric acid... 

In 1864, De Bussey [9a] obtained a patent for the treatment of red-hot iron with a mixture of coal dust and Ca(H2P04)2, in order to secure a degree of corrosion resistance. The earliest patent relating to the phosphoric acid treatment of metal surfaces is that due to Ross [9] in 1869. This British patent refers to the rustprooflng of corset stays by plunging them, red hot, into the acid. In 1906, Cosslett... 

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