RECIPES FOR DYEING WITH OLD FUSTIC
(1) OLD GOLD
Boil the wool with 3 to 4 per cent chrome for 1 to 1-1/2 hours. Wash, and dye in a separate bath for 1 to 1-1/2 hours at 100°C. with 20 to 80 per cent of old fustic.
(2) OLD GOLD
Mordant with 3 per cent chrome, for 3/4 hour and wash. Dye with 24 per cent fustic and 4 per cent madder for 45 minutes.
(3) BRIGHT YELLOW
Mordant wool with 8 per cent of stannous chloride for 1 to 1-1/2 hours, and 8 per cent of tartar. Wash, and dye with 20 to 40 per cent of fustic.
(4) GREENISH YELLOW
Mordant wool with 3 per cent chrome, for 3/4 hour and wash. Dye with 6 per cent fustic, 33 per cent logwood. Boil 3/4 hour.
(5) YELLOW
Mordant with 25 per cent alum, wash after laying by for 2 days, dye with 5 to 6 oz. fustic to lb.
TURMERIC
Turmeric is a powder obtained from the ground-up tubers of Curcuma tinctoria, a plant found in India and other Eastern countries. It gives a brilliant orange yellow, but has little permanence. It is one of the substantive colours and does not need any mordant. Cotton has a strong attraction for it, and is simply dyed by working in a solution of Turmeric at 60°C. for about 1/2 hour. With silk and wool it gives a brighter colour if mordanted with alum or tin. Boiling should be avoided. It is used sometimes for deepening the colour of Fustic or Weld, but its use is not recommended, as although it gives very beautiful colours, it is a fugitive dye.
QUERCITRON
Quercitron is the inner bark of the Quercus Nigra or Q. tinctoria, a species of oak growing in the United States and Central America. It was first introduced into England by Bancroft in 1775 as a cheap substitute for weld. He says,
"The wool should be boiled for the space of 1 or 1-1/4 hours with one sixth or one eighth of its weight of alum; then, without being rinsed, it should be put into a dyeing vessel with clean water and also as many pounds of powdered bark (tied up in bag) as there were used of alum to prepare the wool, which is then to be turned in the boiling liquor until the colour appears to have taken sufficiently: and then about 1 lb. clean powdered chalk for every 100 lbs. of wool may be mixed with the dyeing liquor and the operation continued 8 or 10 minutes longer, when the yellow will have become both lighter and brighter by this addition of chalk."
Flavin is extract of Quercitron bark, and is much used for bright yellow with tin.
YELLOW (1 lb.)
Mordant with alum. Dye with 1 oz. Flavin.
ORANGE WITH FLAVIN OR QUERCITRON (1 lb.)
Put into bath first 1/2 oz. Cream of Tartar. Then 3/4 oz. tin mixed with water (important to enter the Tartar first). Enter yarn and boil for 45 minutes. In the meantime have mixed up 1/2 oz. Flavin and 1/2 oz. to 3/4 oz. Cochineal (according to depth of orange required) with 1/4 oz. tin with a little warm water. Remove yarn, enter flavin, madder and tin, take off the boil, enter yarn and stir well. Boil 30 minutes.
BARBERRY
The roots and bark of Berberis Vulgaris is used principally for silk dyeing, without a mordant. The silk is worked at 50° to 60°C. in a solution of the dye wood slightly acidified with sulphuric, acetic or tartaric acid. For dark shades mordant with stannous chloride.
DYER'S BROOM
Genista Tinctoria. The plant grows on waste ground. It should be picked in June or July and dried. It can be used with an alum and tartar mordant and gives a good bright yellow. It is called greening weed and used to be much used for greening blue wool.
PRIVET
Ligustrum Vulgare. The leaves dye a good fast yellow with alum and tartar.
HEATHER
Most of the heathers make a yellow dye, but the one chiefly used is the Ling, Calluna vulgaris. The tips are gathered just before flowering. They are boiled in water for about half-an-hour. The wool, previously mordanted with alum or chrome according to the shade of yellow wanted, is put into the dye bath with the boiling liquor, which has been strained. It is then covered up closely and left till the morning. Or the wool can be boiled in the heather liquor till the desired colour is obtained.
ONION SKINS
Prepare by mordanting with alum. Take a sufficient quantity of onion skins and boil for 30 minutes. This gives a good yellow. The addition of tin will make the colour more orange.
CHAPTER VIII
BROWN AND BLACK
CATECHU ALDER BARK SUMACH WALNUT PEAT SOOT LOGWOOD AND OTHER DYES
CATECHU
Catechu (Cutch) is an old Indian dye for cotton. It can also be used for wool and silk, and gives a fine rich brown. It is obtained from the wood of various species of Areca, Acacia and Mimosa trees. Bombay Catechu is considered best for dyeing purposes.
Catechu is soluble in boiling water. It is largely used by the cotton dyer for brown, olive, drab, grey and black. (See pp. [46], [47], [48].)
LIGHT GREY
(For 6 lbs.) 1 oz. cutch, 1 oz. iron. Boil for 1/2 an hour in the cutch, then put into boiling iron, being very careful to stir well. Wash very thoroughly.
These proportions can be varied according to the shade of grey required; the more iron makes the colour browner, the more cutch the bluer grey.
CATECHU BROWN
The wool is boiled for 1 to 1-1/2 hours, with 10 to 20 per cent catechu, then sadden with 2 to 4 per cent of copper sulphate, ferrous sulphate, or chrome, at 100°C., in a separate bath for 1/2 hour.
ALDER BARK
The bark and twigs of alder are used for dyeing brown and black. For 1 lb. wool use 1 lb. alder bark. Boil the wool with it for 2 hours, when it should be a dull reddish brown. Add 1/2 oz. copper as for every pound of wool for black.
SUMACH
Sumach is the ground up leaves and twigs of the Rhus coraria growing in Southern Europe. It dyes wool a yellow and a yellow brown, but it is chiefly used in cotton dyeing.
WALNUT
The green shell of the walnut fruit and the root are used for dyeing brown. The husks to be used for dyeing must be collected green and fresh, then covered with water and kept from the light to prevent them oxidizing. In the walnut tree there is an astringent colourless substance which gives a greenish yellow dye. This has the property of absorbing oxygen from the air and turning dark brown. It is only the unoxidized pale greenish stuff that can act as the dye, the dark brown itself has no affinity for the wool. Acids should be added to the dye bath to prevent oxidization. Without a mordant the colour is quite fast, but if the wool is mordanted with alum a brighter and richer colour is got. When used they are boiled in water for 1/4 hour, then the wool is entered and boiled till the colour is obtained. Long boiling is not good as it makes the wool harsh. It is much used as a "saddening" agent; that is, for darkening other colours.
"The best and most enduring blacks were done with this simple dye stuff, the goods being first dyed in the indigo or woad vat till they were a very dark blue, and then browned into black by means of the walnut root."—William Morris.
PEAT SOOT gives a good shade of brown to wool. Boil the wool for 1 to 2 hours with peat soot. Careful washing is required in several changes of water. It is used sometimes for producing a hazel colour, after the wool has been dyed with weld and madder.
OAK BARK. Mordant with alum and dye in a decoction of oak bark.
ONION SKINS. (Brown.) Mordant the wool with alum. Drying two or three times in between makes the colour more durable. Dry. Wash. Boil a quantity of onion skins, and cool; then put in wool and boil lightly for 1/2 an hour to 1 hour; then keep warm for a while. Wring out and wash.
BLACK. Mordant with 3% Bichromate of Potash for 45 minutes. Dye with 1 oz. Hematin crystals, 3/4 oz. madder, 1/2 oz. Persian berries. After boiling for 1 hour remove wool and add 1/4 oz. cream of tartar, 1 oz. cochineal, 3/4 oz. iron, 1/2 oz. copper sulphate. Return wool and boil again for 1/2 hour. Wash in soap.