A very delicate color, requiring feathers almost a pure white to make
a clear shade. After thoroughly washing and rinsing, or bleaching if
required, with permanganate of potash, prepare a bath of one gallon
of luke warm water, and add a small handful of starch. Enter
feathers and manipulate between the hands; then add to bath a small
piece of copperas, about the size of a pea, and a few drops of diluted
logwood liquor; re-enter feathers and let remain in bath until in
appearances they are two or three shades darker than sample; then add
to bath a couple of drops of diluted violet, first removing feathers
from bath; let them remain in a few seconds longer, and squeeze out
and dry in the usual way. The violet gives your feathers the brilliant
shade that is so desirable in silver grays.
Be careful in drying them not to use starch that has been previously
used in drying feathers that have been dyed in acid baths, as it would
be liable to spot your color. Should you, through carelessness or
otherwise, allow your color to get darker than shade desired, rinse
feathers off a couple of times in cold water to remove starch; then
dilute half a teaspoonful of oxalic acid in a gallon of hot water,
and pass feathers through it for a few seconds, and then rinse off
twice in boiling water. After which prepare a bath same as per recipe,
using more care, and pass feathers through until you have obtained the
desired shade.