In beginning the days work, it is well to do all your bleaching and cleaning first, while your hand basins and dyehouse are in a clean condition; after which the blacks, as they require logwood good and pure, and the same logwood used for them can be used for all other colors where logwood enters into their composition. Consequently one bath of logwood boiled in the morning will do all the work for the day.
In Chicago I remember, while giving instruction to a gentleman, who had come down from St. Paul, Minn., for the purpose of learning the art, that in one afternoon I taught him how to make every color and shade of color known, and my logwood bath that was used during the whole day's work was boiled in a small sauce-pan that held about two quarts. It had been used in making black, browns, greens and navy blues of all shades, and was still in good enough condition to make any color, excepting perhaps black.
Keep your bath of logwood covered at all times when not in actual use, and, indeed, then, if convenient, to prevent any foreign substance from entering it. It is the custom of a great many ostrich feather dyers to keep a quantity of starch in the dyehouse for the purpose of dipping their feathers into it and partially beating them out prior to removing them from the bath for the purpose of drying the ends up to see if they match sample. This is a very bad practice, for the loose starch flying through the dyehouse will settle on the uncovered colors and cause not a little annoyance and trouble. Keep the starch out of the dyehouse; keep it in the drying-room where it belongs. In drying your feathers out of the baths in starch it is well to have two boxes,—one to be used for colors that contain acid; as, for example, light blues, lemon, etc.,—the other for those colors that contain none; such as drabs, pinks, etc. In dissolving colors use ordinary bottles, and be sure to always use boiling water for the purpose of diluting. Let the proportions be about one teaspoonful of color to one pint of boiling water. Shake gently to thoroughly dilute aniline, and cork or cover bottles to keep out dirt.
Colors that are used in making very delicate shades, such as pinks or light blues, it is well to tie around the top of the bottle in place of a cork a small piece of muslin. It will act as a strainer, and prevent particles of color that may not have been thoroughly dissolved from passing into the bath and spotting your goods. Do not be too careful of the hands and afraid of getting them covered with dyestuffs; use them in the bath instead of sticks at all times, excepting where the liquid is too hot to permit it. The best method of cleaning the hands, no matter how dirty, is to pass them through a solution of soda, about one-quarter ounce in a small quantity of hot water; rinse off in cold water, and take about a teaspoonful of chloride of lime, moisten with water and rub the hands gently with it until all color has entirely disappeared; then wash with soap and hot water.
WASHING RAW STOCK.
First string your feathers, being careful to place the string on the end of quill so as not to get any of the flues under the loop; then slice down according to quantity of feathers to be washed, from one to more pounds of soap in boiling water, and boil down to a liquor; after which fill a clean tub half full of luke warm water, and pour soap into it; then enter your feathers and give them a slight rubbing. Then push them well under the surface of the water, cover them up and allow them to remain over night. In the morning run off dirty water and squeeze out your feathers; enter your feathers in a tub of clean luke warm water and use an ordinary wash board and a soft scrubbing brush. Rub bar soap on feathers, and brush gently, being very careful not to tear out the flues. Soap and brush one string at a time, manipulate them much after the manner of a woman handling a large wash. Be careful to give minute attention to the bottom portion of the feathers, as the flues are always more closely stuck together with the natural grease of the bird, and it often requires an amount of hard labor to remove. Repeat the washing operation and rinse off in about three luke warm waters, starch and dry.
In starching rub the feathers around well between the hands for the purpose of getting all the flues thoroughly expanded, squeeze out of bath and hang on lines to dry. Put no more out at once than the dyers can comfortably handle, as it is well to have them beat out on board at regular intervals of a minute or so; thereby expanding the flues to their utmost. The process of selecting the different grades or qualities follow, and it is necessary for the person performing this work to be familiar with the application of dyestuffs to feathers, to insure the dyer less trouble; as the different qualities all put in the bath together, and going through exactly the same process will come out different shades of color, will cause the dyer a great deal of trouble and labor getting them all an even color. When a batch of feathers are intended for white it will not be necessary to dry them first; simply wash and rinse, and prepare your white bath as per recipe, and pass them through it. It is scarcely necessary to remark here that natural black and gray feathers must not be washed at the same time with whites, as the latter would not be improved.
Strings should not contain more than fifty plumes, for, if they are made much longer, it would be awkward to handle them. Tips, however, are often strung three or four in a bunch, according to size, and an ordinary string may contain two or three hundred. In washing natural black tips it is advisable to use a brush on them during the first rinsing to remove all particles of soap therefrom.