FAST ALIZARINE RED.
I. Scour and rinse the white, respectively bleached gray, feathers and prepare a bath of boiling water with eight per cent., of the weight of feathers, alum, four per cent. tartaric acid, two or three per cent. oxalic acid, and three per cent. alizarine red; let the bath boil for fifteen minutes, then let the temperature go down just below the boiling point. Lay down the feathers in the bath, which keep at near the boiling point for at least one hour before allowing it to go down to hand-heat; then continue for two or three hours longer, agitating the feathers from time to time; lift, rinse, starch and dry.
By using alizarine acid 2 A. bl. bl., a pure red, similar to Turkey red is obtained. Alizarine 1 W. S. gives scarlets. If the feathers are passed, before rinsing, through a strong soap bath, pretty blue tones are produced.
II. For a fuller red, striking towards bordeau, prepare a well concentrated boiling bath in the same manner with three per cent. bichromate of potash, one and one-half to two per cent. tartaric acid, one per cent. oxalic acid, and eight per cent. alizarine red 2 A. bl. bl. When all is dissolved, let the temperature go down below the boiling point, enter the feathers, and proceed as above.