As Halloween draws near, most people assume that the bumps they hear in the night are a result of a restless monster under their bed. However, too often there is a real life culprit responsible in the form of a robber. Now, thanks to a partnership between Scottish police and their forensics department, our favorite medium can now be used to fingerprint and identify the bad guys: fabric.
The above video does a good job explaining the basics of how the process works and is definitely worth viewing (plus the man doing the tutorial has a wicked accent).
The process is being referred to as vacuum metal deposition (or VDM). To start, officials put the fabric into a vacuum chamber at which time a thin layer of gold is applied to the material. It is vital that the gold application takes place in the chamber because it allows the gold to spread evenly and firmly bind to the material. Then, they repeat the same process with zinc. Due to the properties of the metals and the way they bond together in the natural world, the zinc only sticks to parts of the fabric that have not had any contact with skin, leaving a near perfect imprint of a hand or fingers.
Even though this type of work is technically right up J&O’s alley, we are hoping to leave the fingerprinting to forensic teams and creations of another great Scottish man, Sir Arthur Conan Doyle. They only mystery that we want to deal with this October is trying to figure out what awesome crafts we want to do with our Halloween novelty fabric.
