If your shade to match be considerably on the yellow shade, use very little aniline brown, about one drop, and if more on the brown, use less turmeric. If your color be entirely too dark and dull looking, dilute half a teaspoonful of oxalic acid, and pass feathers through for a few seconds and rinse off in luke warm water. Prepare a fresh bath and enter your feathers, as per recipe; or, if wanted a very bright shade, wash off with soap and hot water, and rinse thoroughly in hot water. Then prepare a bath of one teaspoonful of turmeric, one teaspoonful of oxalic acid and one teaspoonful of diluted Bismarck brown in a gallon of luke warm water. Enter your feathers and keep in bath about two minutes, add a little starch to bath, and pass feathers through for a few seconds longer, squeeze out and dry in the usual way.
ELECTRIC BLUE.
Feathers must be white, or nearly so, to make a good clear shade of electric blue. Prepare your feathers by washing with soap and hot water if dirty whites, and if old, faded light colors bleach with permanganate of potash. Prepare your bath as follows: Take half a teaspoonful of cotton blue and a half teaspoonful of oxalic acid,—a little more or less matters not,—in a gallon of boiling water. Enter your feathers, and let them remain in bath about five minutes; after which take out and rinse twice in cold water and once in hot water to remove all acid and loose color. Prepare a bath of about one cupful of logwood liquor and a small pinch of copperas in a gallon of hot water, not quite boiling, however, and pass feathers through for a couple of minutes. Cool off a little of your bath, and add a small handful of starch and a few drops of violet, pass feathers through and dry.
MEDIUM BROWN.
All light colors can be made a handsome shade of medium brown without removing the color by bleaching or without washing, unless very dirty and greasy. Prepare your bath by diluting about two ounces of turmeric and a half ounce of copperas in one gallon, more or less, of boiling water. Enter your feathers, keep them well under the surface of bath, and let them remain therein about two minutes; after which take out, rinse twice in cold water. Have boiling meantime a medium strong bath of logwood, about the same proportion as for black; boil about fifteen minutes, and enter your feathers, allowing them to remain in about one minute; after which take out and rinse off twice in cold water; then dilute about a half teaspoonful of aniline brown in a gallon of boiling water, and after dissolving well, enter your feathers, and let them remain in bath about two minutes; take out and rinse in cold water; after which dilute a small handful of starch in a small quantity of luke warm water, and add to that a couple of drops of sulphuric acid; pass feathers through for a few seconds, squeeze out and dry.
Should your color be too dark to match sample, return to starch bath, add a few drops of sulphuric acid, let feathers remain in about half a minute, and dry. If a darker shade is wanted, it is necessary to rinse off starch in cold water, and return your feathers to logwood bath for a few seconds, rinse off and repeat Bismarck brown bath as before. By this process, with a little judgment, all shades of brown can be produced in the most satisfactory manner.
MEDIUM BLUE.
Prepare your feathers by washing and rinsing thoroughly in hot water; light faded out colors need not be bleached, but thoroughly washed in hot soap suds instead. Prepare your bath as follows: Take one teaspoonful of concentrated cotton blue and one teaspoonful of oxalic acid, dilute it in one gallon of boiling water. Be careful to see that the blue crystals are well dissolved. Enter your feathers, and let them remain in bath about four minutes, keeping them well under the surface. Meantime keep them gently agitated to insure an even color; after which take out, rinse, starch and dry.
If your feathers be found too dark for sample, or too much on the purple, rinse off, starch in cold water thoroughly, and pass through a bowl of boiling water, starch and dry, using a few grains of oxalic acid diluted in starch bath.
If a very light shade be desired, use but half the quantity of cotton blue, and do not allow them to remain in bath quite so long a time. If a much darker shade be required than the foregoing recipe will produce, then rinse off your feathers thoroughly in cold water, to remove all starch, and pass feathers through a medium strong bath of logwood at boiling temperature for a few seconds, and rinse off twice in cold water; dilute a half ounce of bichromate of potash in a gallon of boiling water, and pass your feathers through for a few seconds only; rinse, starch and dry. Should you get your color too dark by this process, pass your feathers through a solution of half a teaspoonful of oxalic acid in a gallon of boiling water, and rinse off in boiling water twice; then dilute a small quantity of starch in luke warm water, add a few grains of oxalic acid to it, pass feathers through and dry as usual.