Aniline Blue on Cotton

Prepare a dye bath by dissolving 1 pound of aniline blue (soluble in spirit) in 10 gallons of water, and set it aside to settle. Meanwhile prepare a mordant while boiling 35 ounces of sumac (or 5.5 ounces tannic acid in 30 gallons of water) and then dissolve therein 17 ounces of curd soap. Boil up and filter. Put the cotton goods in the hot liquid "and let them remain therein for 12 hours. Then wring them out and make up a dye bath of 2.5° Tw. with red liquor. Add dye color according to the shade desired. Put in the goods and work them until the color is correct, keeping the temperature at the boiling point.

To Dye Silk a Delicate Greenish Yellow

Dissolve 2 ounces of citronine in 1 gallon of methylated spirit and keep the solution hot over a water bath until perfectly clear.

To prepare silk fabrics, wash them in a weak soap liquor that has been just sweetened (i. e., its alkalinity turned to a slight sourness) with a little sulphuric acid. Work the goods until dyed to shade, and then rinse them in cold water that has been slightly acidulated with acetic, tartaric, or citric acid.

To Dye Cotton Dark Brown

Prepare a mordant bath of 10 pounds of catechu, 2 pounds of logwood extract, and 0.25 pound magenta (roseine), and bring to a boil; work the goods therein for 3 hours at that temperature; then put into a fresh dye bath made up of 3 pounds of bichromate of potash and 2 pounds of sal soda, and dye to shade. These proportions are for a dye bath to dye 100 pounds of cotton goods at a time.

To Dye Silk Peacock Blue

Make up a dye bath by putting 1 pint of sulphuric acid at 170° Tw., and 10 ounces of methylin blue crystal dye liquor of 120° to 160° Tw., with a dye bath that will hold 80 pounds of goods. Put in the silk at 130° F., and raise to 140° F., and work up to shade required.

To Dye Felt Goods

Owing to this material being composed of animal and vegetable fiber it is not an easy matter always to produce evenness of shade. The best process to insure success is to steep well the felt in an acid bath of from 6° to 12° Bé., and then wash away all traces of acid. Some dyers make the fulling stork the medium of conveying the dye, while others partially dye before fulling, or else dye after that process.

The fulling stock for 72 ounces of beaver consists of a mixture of

Black lead or plumbago............. 16 ounces

Venetian red........ 48 ounces

Indigo extract (fluid). 5 ounces

Ordinary Drab

Common plumbago.. 12 ounces

Best plumbago....... 12 ounces

Archil extract (fluid).. 15 ounces Indigo extract....... 10 ounces

Mix into fluid paste with water and add sulphuric acid at 30° Tw. For the dye liquor make a boiling-hot solution of the aniline dye and allow it to cool; then put into an earthenware vessel holding water and heat to 83° F., and add sufficient dye liquor to give the quantity of felt the desired shade. First moisten well the felted matter (or the hair, if dyed before felting) with water, and then work it about in the above dye bath at 140° F. To deepen the shade, add more dye liquor, lifting out the material to be dyed before adding the fresh dye liquor, so that it can be well stirred up and thoroughly mixed with the exhausted bath.

Brown Shades

Bismarck brown will give good results, particularly if the dyed goods are afterwards steeped or passed through a weak solution (pale straw color) of bichromate of potash. This will give a substantial look to the color. Any of the aniline colors suitable for cotton or wool, or those suited for mixed cotton and wool goods may be used.

Blue

Use either China blue, dense ferry blue, or serge blue, first making the material acid before dyeing.

Green

Use brilliant green and have the material neutral, i. e., neither acid nor alkali; or else steep in a bath of sumac before dyeing.

Plum Color

Use maroon (neutral or acid) and work in an acid bath or else sumac.

Black

Use negrosin in an acid bath, or else mordant in two salts and dye slightly acid.