After stringing your feathers and marking your tickets, prepare luke
warm soap-water and wash thoroughly between the hands to remove all
dirt and grease. Rub the soap on the feathers, rinse thoroughly in luke
warm water two or three times for the purpose of removing all particles
of soap, which is very important; just as much so as removing the dirt.
For one to one hundred feathers you can use a common porcelain wash
bowl. Prepare bath by using one gallon of clear cold water, add to that
a small handful of starch, powdered or lump starch will answer. Enter
feathers, rubbing them thoroughly between the hands to expand the flues
and get them in condition to receive the color, so as to insure an even
shade; after which add about one-half teaspoonful of oxalic acid and a
drop of diluted violet, just enough to give your bath a pale lavender
tint. Enter feathers, and let remain in bath about one minute, keeping
them under the surface and agitating by rubbing them between the hands;
after which squeeze feathers out of bath and dry. The quickest method
for a few feathers is to have a small quantity of clean, powdered
starch, and rub them around in it. The starch will immediately absorb
all moisture, and you have but to beat it out of the flues, as it dries
either on a clean board or between the hands. It is but the work of a
few seconds. This method of drying insures an unsoiled color, as the
feathers are dry a few seconds after leaving the bath.
Great care should be used to bring your violet diluted thoroughly, so
that no particles may enter the bath and spot your goods. In diluting
your violet use boiling water, and shake well in bottle, and let it
stand for a time, when all sediment will settle at the bottom, and will
not again mix with your color.
It is very important to use only the amount of oxalic acid mentioned in
recipe, as a greater quantity would destroy your color by turning the
violet a dirty blueish green, and much less than the quantity mentioned
would have a tendency to cast a lavender tint on your goods. Should
you, by mistake or carelessness, spoil your white, proceed to rinse
off all the starch in cold water first; then in luke warm water to
remove all the acid from feathers, and then use soap and hot water, and
wash well, and rinse. Mix a fresh white bath as directed in the recipe,
and proceed this time with more care.