Have your feathers white, or nearly so, by washing if dirty, or
bleaching with permanganate if needed, being careful to rinse
thoroughly for the purpose of removing any acid or soap; after which
prepare your bath as follows: Take one gallon of luke warm water and
a small handful of starch. Enter your feathers and rub around between
the hands for a few seconds; then add to bath a few drops of diluted
safranine and copperas about the size of a pea. Let your feathers
remain in bath about one minute; after which take out and add to bath
about one teaspoonful of diluted Bismarck brown, first increasing
temperature of bath a few degrees with hot water; re-enter your
feathers and allow them to remain in bath about a minute; after which
squeeze out and dry in the usual way.
If your sample to be matched be more on the pink, use less aniline
brown; and if more on the yellow, use less safranine and more aniline
brown. Should you desire a much darker shade, use more of each color
than laid down in recipe, and add a few drops of logwood liquor. If
your feathers be found altogether too dark for sample, rinse off starch
in cold water and dilute a half teaspoonful of oxalic acid in luke warm
water, and pass your feathers through for a few seconds, take out and
rinse a couple of times in hot water (not boiling). Prepare bath again
as per recipe, using greater care. This shade of color is on the order
of the terra cotta and crushed strawberry, and can be made in the same
bath by adding color or diluting. Be careful in drying to use only
clean starch and a clean board that has not been used with any acid
colors.