After washing and rinsing feathers thoroughly,--if dirty or greasy,
extracting color if necessary,--prepare bath as follows: One ounce of
turmeric diluted in one gallon of boiling water; enter your feathers
and let remain in about one minute, after which take out and rinse
thoroughly. Prepare a weak bath of logwood, about half a pound to
the gallon of water, or about half the usual strength of an ordinary
logwood bath for black; boil a few minutes, after which enter your
feathers and let them remain in bath about one minute; then take out
and rinse thoroughly in cold water; after which prepare a bath of
half an ounce of bichromate of potash to one gallon of boiling water.
Dissolve bichromate of potash, enter feathers and let them remain in
about half a minute; a little longer if a very dark shade be required,
and so much less time if a very light shade is required; after which
take feathers out and rinse thoroughly in cold water. Dilute about
one-half a teaspoonful of aniline green in a gallon of boiling water,
and reduce temperature of bath a few degrees with cold water; then
enter feathers and let them remain in bath about two or three minutes;
remove feathers and cool off a small portion of the bath with cold
water, and add to it a small handful of starch; pass your feathers
through the bath, squeeze out and dry off in the usual way.
If found to be lighter than shade desired, rinse off starch thoroughly,
and return for a few seconds to logwood bath without increasing
temperature any; then rinse off in cold water, and pass through a weak
solution of bichromate of potash, about one-quarter ounce to a gallon;
after which rinse, starch and dry.
If found darker than shade desired, pass feathers through a solution
of half a teaspoonful of oxalic acid in about one gallon of luke warm
water for about thirty seconds; take them out of this and rinse
twice through boiling water, and then give a weak bath of aniline
green,--about half the strength of the first bath. If samples to be
matched be more on the yellow or olive, use decidedly more turmeric
in the first bath, and add a little, say about a teaspoonful, to the
aniline green bath. If a green on the blue, it will be necessary to use
only one-half the turmeric prescribed in the first bath.