The ostrich feathers, like all material taken from the covering of the
animal body, wool, hair, etc., which are embellished by dyeing for the
use of man or woman in dress, contain by nature a certain amount of
fat, and in their raw condition are more or less covered with dust,
dirt and a greasy exudation, which must be removed for dyeing; that is,
they are scoured or washed and then bleached or whitened, because the
feathers, like all other so-called white animal matter, have always a
faint yellowish tint, sometimes yellowish spots which cannot be removed
without injury to the material, but obliterated by bleaching, which,
in the case of white feathers, is called bleaching or whitening. The
bleaching of gray and black feathers and the stripping or decoloring of
dyed feathers are different operations.
For scouring or washing, novel methods are recommended, which, however,
differ from one another very little, and are, on the whole, represented
by the following: Prepare a good handwarm bath (100-120° F.), in
which dissolve two ounces Marseilles soap in per gallon of water and
beat up to a good lather. Enter feathers and rub them well, string for
string, by hand. They may even be taken upon a wash-board and rubbed
with a brush, which does not hurt them, notwithstanding their delicate
structure, because the soap steep has given them great elasticity and
resistance to the manipulation. Continue the operations until the
tank is exhausted and dirty; then give another fresh bath of the same
composition and temperature; treat the feathers as in the first bath
and rinse them perfectly clean from every particle of soap in two or
three luke-warm (100°) waters; for, every trace of soap remaining upon
the feathers will hinder the dye from running up and cause uneven
colors, or, upon white feathers, yellow stains. Then prepare a cold
bath with solution of bioxolate of potash (one-eighth to one-sixth
ounce of salt to one gallon), enter feathers, pass them in the bath for
15-20 minutes, take up and rinse them in cold water three to four times
to remove the salt. For feathers which have to remain white, the latter
bath is composed of one and one-quarter ounces bioxolate of potash and
one and one-eighth ounces oxalic acid to one gallon of water, and the
feathers laid down in it until perfectly white; when they are taken out
and rinsed clean from acid in luke-warm water.
The feathers being rinsed clean from the oxolate of potash bath, if
destined for white, are then whitened, or rather blued, for the purpose
of covering the yellowish tint above mentioned. To this purpose a cold
bath is prepared with only so much methyl violet or methylene blue,
as to give the water a very faint tint. To ascertain whether this is
the case, a white china plate is held about a foot below the surface of
the bath, when its appearance will show the shade of blue that will be
produced by the bath. The feathers are then entered and gently agitated
in the bath until they have the desired tint.