I. Scour the feathers as usual and rinse well. Prepare a bath slightly
acidulated with sulphuric acid, add two per cent., of the weight of
feathers, acid green and one per cent. aniline navy blue dissolved
in warm water and filtered acid, according to sample, some filtered
decoction of turmeric or solution of fast yellow. Dye at 170° F. to
shade, lift rinse and dry with starch.
II. Have the feathers well cleaned and rinsed. Prepare a bath twenty
per cent., of the weight of feathers, new green, eight per cent.
canarine, sixteen per cent. aniline blue black, sixty per cent. alum,
and one-quarter litre sulphuric acid (for two and a half pounds of
feathers). Bring the bath to a brisk boil, then chill with cold water,
enter the feathers and work them for one hour; finally sadden and
tone by adding some decoction of fustic and of logwood. Lift, rinse,
squeeze, starch and dry.
III. Prepare a sharp hot bath with a little sulphuric acid; add Guinea
green, according to shade, and tone by the addition of indigo carmine
and turmeric; for very deep shades add also some nigrosine or fast
blue-black, dissolved and filtered. Enter as hot as the feathers can be
handled, work for one half hour; then raise the temperature slowly to
near the boiling point and dye to shade.
The bath for deeper shades being not exhausted can be preserved for
further use, refreshed by suitable additions of dyestuffs as required,
but caution must be used as regards the subsequent additions of
sulphuric acid, that not so much be added as to injure the feathers.
For Russia green, especially the darker shades of it, naturally gray
and even black feathers can be used unbleached.