The Dyer's Guide / Being a compendium of the art of dyeing linen, cotton, silk, wool, muslin, dresses, furniture, &c. &c.; with the method of scouring wool, bleaching cotton, &c., and directions for ungumming silk, and for whitening and sulphuring silk and wool; and also an introductory epitome of the leading facts in chemistry, as connected with the art of dyeing

by Thomas Packer

On dyeing silk GREY.

All the greys, namely, nut-greys, thorn-greys, black and iron-greys, and others of the same hue, black-grey excepted, are produced without aluming. The silk being washed from the soap and drained on the peg, a liquor is made of fustic, archil, logwood and sulphate of iron: fustic gives the ground, archil the red, logwood darkens, and the sulphate of iron softens all these colours, turns them grey, and, at the same time, serves instead of alum as a mordant.

As there is an infinite variety of greys, without any positive names, produced by the same methods, it would be endless to enter into details, which would prolong this treatise to little purpose.

For reddish-grey the archil should predominate; for those more grey, the logwood; and for those rather greenish, the fustic.

Care should be taken not to use the logwood too much, as with the sulphate of iron it darkens more than most drugs: therefore the black vat, made either with alder-bark, or the other preparation mentioned in dyeing cotton, is preferable to the sulphate of iron.