All natural color will have entirely disappeared. Whatever portion of the amount of feathers you have just bleached are for whites, before drying them up, prepare a bath as per recipe for white, pass through and dry in the usual way. This process of bleaching is used only when it is desirable to make light colors from gray or natural black feathers, but feathers for navy blue, seal brown, bottle green, etc., will not be improved by bleaching. The shade of color can be evened off in the bath.
HINTS ABOUT THE DYEHOUSE.
In dyehouses where steam is used, it is necessary to boil your bath a longer time than where the bath comes in direct contact with the fire. The accommodations of a dyehouse for the re-dying of ostrich feathers need be very simple and inexpensive; in fact, I have seen a dyehouse where old re-dyed transient work to the amount of fifty dollars per day was accomplished with a small cooking stove, a wash-boiler, a wash-bowl and a tin dipper; costing in all less than six dollars. Of course, in the manufacture of raw stock it is necessary to have larger vessels and much better facilities; for instance, instead of from ten to fifty, or even a hundred feathers, you will of necessity be compelled to dye lots of from five to ten pounds of goods at one time. Two stationary tubs or vats, one for use in washing white and bleaching, and the other for black, with water pipes and steam pipes and connections; a few large porcelain lined or copper basins for dark colors are essential; it is also well to have an outer room or inclosed closet to keep your dyestuffs in, as it is important that they be kept clean. When cans of color are opened for the purpose of diluting a portion or making a color, have the cover replaced and returned to closet when through with it.
Have bench or table whereon rests your basins, while you match shades in making colors, if possible, where a north light will strike it; and if cold weather and the windows closed, keep the glass clean. You will often get various reflections in the dyehouse that cause a great deal of trouble to the dyer; as, for example, if the sun should be shining on a red brick wall and the reflection beating into the dyehouse, it will often lead the dyer astray, and while he thinks he has a perfect match, when the color goes into the office there is a decided difference.
The great majority who are expected to be benefitted by this work are not ostrich feather manufacturers, but the job dyer; and it is my object to simplify the dyehouse as well as the methods of dyeing. A small corner of the dyehouse can be used, and a couple of ordinary wash-bowls, a common wash-boiler and a tin dipper are really all the utensils that are practically necessary to complete the dyehouse for the renovator. A couple of hours in the morning devoted to feather dyeing, and a good practical man can turn out fifty dollars worth at a cost of only his two hours labor, and perhaps fifty cents worth of color. Feathers can be dried in an ordinary hot room or, if warm weather, out in the open air. The dry room where large quantities of feathers are dried should never be too warm, as the feathers are apt to dry up quicker than the boys can beat the starch out of them; and, as a consequence, the flues or fibres are not expanded as they should be, and the feathers are much harder to curl. The board or table used to beat the feathers on must be perfectly smooth, as there is otherwise danger of tearing out the flues.
The drying of feathers is quite an important operation, and if not understood, can result in ruining a great many by drying them improperly, allowing the starch to dry up on the flues without beating it out, and by breaking the quills. The dry room is only used when the weather is too inclement to dry in the open air, or when you have not got outside accommodations. The yard or roof is far preferable to the dry room, and especially so for white and black feathers. After having been washed and the starch thoroughly removed, it will improve them greatly to expose them to the sun for an hour or two. Colors, especially delicate shades, should not be allowed to hang in the sun only during the actual time required for drying a black made by our process; it greatly improves upon exposure to the sunlight, giving it an advantage over all others. Baths of logwood or old garnet baths that you are desirous of saving for future use, it will be well to remove them from the copper or tin basins or pans to wooden buckets or crockery jars, and cover them up for the purpose of excluding all foreign matter.
MISCELLANEOUS INFORMATION.
In the re-dying of old feathers the first thing necessary is to enter them in book by whatever system you may think best; after which they are assorted as to color, the blacks, browns, greens, blues, etc. Put in separate lots and then string them and mark your tickets. You will often find when you have selected your colors a number of different shades to be dyed one color; as, for example, when you come to string your browns, you will find a blue, a green, a garnet, a drab, and perhaps a dozen different shades of colors; string them all on at once and enter together, and dye a good medium shade of seal brown and dry; after which you proceed to take them off the string, and place them with their respective tickets. You will now find, perhaps, one a shade too dark for your sample, another perhaps a shade too light. The former you would pass through a weak solution of sulphuric acid in starch bath, and the latter through a weak solution of bichromate of potash. Another one you may find a little too red for sample, or too yellow. These, in turn, you can bring to match your sample as per recipe for brown.