Dye wood

“ When stuffs are dyed in the infusion or decoction of this wood, under the influence of a base which acts upon the hematine in the manner of an alkali, a blue dye bordering upon violet is obtained. Such is the process for dyeing cotton and wool a logwood blue by means of verdigris, crystallized acetate of copper, and acetate of alumina.
When we dye a stuff yellow, red, or orange, we have always bright tints; with blue we may have a very dark shade, but somewhat violet; the proper black can be obtained only by using the three colours, blue, red, and yellow, in proper proportions. ”

“ Dye woods are used as far as possible, and holly stained to the required colour serves for greens and blues and a few other tints. Pearl is always cut in one thickness, and is glued down on a backing of wood at least 1⁄8inch thick. [Pg 110]
Another mode of cutting the design approximates more nearly to the ancient practice. The whole design is drawn on paper attached to the ground, or counter, and cut out entirely. The various portions of inlay are then cut from different veneers of the desired colour and fitted into their places. ”

“ All these shades and the intermediate ones are made after the same manner and with the same ease. The stuff or wool dyed blue, light or dark, is boiled with Alum and Tartar, as is usually done to make white stuff yellow, and then with Weld, Savory, or Greening Wood. The Weld and the Savory are the two plants that afford the finest greens."
Another old Dye book says:—
"If you would dye your goods green, you must first dye them yellow with Broom or Dyer's Weed, otherwise Yellow Weed ”

“ After applying this stain to cherry and apple wood, the wood should be slightly reddened with a tincture of some red dye, whose colour is not liable to fade. A handsome dye is thus given to it which does not hide the grain, and which becomes still more beautiful as the wood grows darker by age. Walnut bark makes the most permanent yellow dye for dyeing cloth of any of the vegetable substances used in this country. ”

“ Make a dye with fustic three pounds, of log-wood three ounces, to each pound of goods, by boiling dye one hour; when cooled so as to bear the hand put in the goods, move briskly a few minutes, and let lie one hour; take out and thoroughly drain; dissolve and add to the dye for each pound of cotton, blue vitriol one-half ounce, and dip another hour. Wring out and let dry in the shade. By adding or diminishing the log-wood and fustic any shade may be had.
Yellow:—For five pounds of goods, seven ounces of sugar of lead; dip the goods two hours; make a new dye with bichromate of potash four ounces ”

“ They dry the root in the sun, and afterwards crush it and soak it in water, and the water so coloured becomes the pigment to be used. The black stain is obtained in the same way as that used for face-staining. These dyes are put on to the cloth with the fingers, which the men dip into the dye, or with feathers. In making a design they do not copy from a pattern placed before them, nor do they first trace the design on the cloth. ”

“ Prolonged dyeing should always be avoided, as the yellows are apt to become brownish and dull. The chips should be tied up in a bag and boiled for 1⁄2 hour before using. It is still better to soak the wood over-night, or boil up in a small vessel and strain into the dye bath. The proportion of Fustic to be used for a good yellow is 5 to 6 parts to 16 parts of wool. ”

“ The dye stamps are made of teakwood by an ordinary carpenter, the flat surface of the wood being hollowed out so as to leave ridges which form either a design in curved lines or the outlines of the figures of men, elephants and tigers. ”

“ Lanete-wood is useful in carving and in the making of musical instruments, or elsewhere where delicacy is required, as well as strength.
From sapan a rich crimson dye is extracted. This is obtained by cutting the smaller branches into little pieces and soaking them [252] in boiling water. This dye is much esteemed, but is not so permanent as that made from cochineal. ”

“ In addition to the dye-woods in more common use, the tropics furnish a number of woods which contain fine colouring matters, but which are only in restricted use, either on account of their cost or because they are not always to be bought. ”

“ The wool can be dyed blue for green in three different ways:—1st in the Indigo vat, 2nd with Indigo Extract with Alum mordant, 3rd with logwood with Chrome mordant. For a good bright green, dye the wool a rather light blue, then wash and dry; Mordant with alum, green it with a good yellow dye, such as weld or fustic, varying the proportion of each according to the shade of green required. ”

“ The females, which alone are valuable, are plucked from the trees and killed by exposing them to vapours of acetic acid, or placing them in hot water, or in an oven. From their dried bodies, of which over fifty thousand are necessary to make a pound, the dye is produced. As both these dyes are noted for their fastness, they are constantly used, but when silk or wool is to be dyed cochineal is preferable to madder. ”

“ By the chloring of the wool the intensity of the shade dyed is increased to such a degree that when dyeing with Acid black, Naphthol black, Naphthol green, Nigrosine, Fast blue, Water blue, and some others dyed in an acid bath, but little more than half the dye used on unchlored wool is required, while with Induline, more even and intense shades are obtained than is otherwise possible. ”

“ Usually, for the larger portions of the patterns, the natural colours of the wood afford sufficient contrast, but for bands in the borders, and for edgings for the geometric figures, more vivid colours are sometimes desirable, and these are obtained by dyeing some light-coloured wood, such as ash or sycamore, to the required tint. ”

“ If we consider only the heartwood, the black color of the persimmon, the dark brown of the walnut, the light brown of the white oaks, the reddish brown of the red oaks, the yellowish white of the tulip and poplars, the brownish red of the redwood and cedars, the yellow of the papaw and sumac, are all reliable marks of distinction and color. Together with luster and weight, they are only too often the only features depended upon in practice. Newly formed wood, like that of the outer few rings, has but little color. ”

“ Among these are Ladies Bedstraw, whortleberry, yellow iris, bracken, bramble, meadow sweet, alder, heather and many others. The yellow dyes are the most plentiful, and many of these are good fast colours. Practically no good red, in quantity, is obtainable. Madder is the only reliable red dye among plants, and that is no longer indigenous in England. Most of the dye plants require a preparation of the material to be dyed, with alum, or some other mordant, but a few, such as Barberry, and some of the lichens, are substantive dyes, and require no mordant. ”

“ Oxygen, especially in the nascent state, is very powerful upon dyes. See Bleaching.
The atmosphere in a somewhat moist state affects many dyes, at an elevated temperature. Silk dyed pink, with safflower, when heated to 400° F. becomes of a dirty white hue in the course of an hour. The violet of logwood upon alumed wool becomes of a dull brown at the same temperature in the same time. But both stand a heat of 300° F. Brazil red dye, turmeric, and weld yellow dyes display the same phenomena. ”

“ You may have grey, and duns of various shades, by boiling with the logwood a little alum and copperas.
To Dye Green.
Dye your material a light shade of blue first, according to the directions for that color; then put them into the yellow dye, and examine them frequently while boiling to see that you get the proper shade. You may get any shade of green by dyeing the blues darker or lighter, and then boiling them a shorter or longer time in the yellow dye. ”

“ This group of colouring matters comprises dye-stuffs of both natural and artificial origin, the latter of which are getting very numerous and valuable, and bid fair to displace the natural members of the group. With but few exceptions the adjective dye-stuffs are not colouring matters of themselves, i.e., they will not dye wool or other fibres by themselves. Some are coloured bodies, such as fustic, logwood, Persian berries, Anthracene yellow, etc., but many are not so, and some possess but little colour, which, moreover, gives no clue to the colours that can be developed therefrom. ”

“ A vegetable dye will fade into a lighter tone of itself, while in a chemical dye some one of the colors used to make up the composite color will disappear. For instance a blue, which has been used with yellow to make green, may entirely disappear, leaving the yellow; thus in the aniline product the surface will show the changed color and the original color will show down next to the warp, while in the vegetable dyed product there will simply be two shades of the same color. ”

“ It is somewhat interesting to notice that, notwithstanding the great prevalence of green in Nature, the dyer has at his command no natural green dye-stuff, but must, if he prefers to adopt natural dye-stuffs, use a mixture of blue and yellow dye-stuffs to produce green shades. There are but few green colouring (p. 127) matters derived from coal tar: Gambine, Dinitroso-resorcine, Alizarine Green, Brilliant Green, Malachite Green, Azo Green, Fast Green, Naphthol Green, Acid Green, Diamine Green, Benzo Green almost exhaust the list. ”

“ From the above we discover that the art of applying and fixing colours in dyeing depends on the chemical affinity between the cloth and the dyeing principle: and accordingly as this is more or less strong, so is the facility with which the substance is coloured, and on this the deepness of the dye depends: for frequently one kind of cloth will be found to receive no colour at all, whilst another will receive from the same composition a deep tinge. ”

“ Coal tar dyes have come to stay, vegetable dyes for the most part have gone and will not return, and there is no sadness in the word. It is rather for us to rise to the challenge that has come, to recognize our greater heritage, and by pains, patience and intelligence in our work to ply the art worthily.
COLOR MIXING
The following general principles of color mixing apply to dyeing, both when colors are mixed in a dye-bath and when they are dyed one color over another:
Red is grayed by small amounts of yellow and blue or by any color containing both of these, as green, brown or gray. ”

“ Dye with equal quantities of Cudbear and Logwood, the wool having been mordanted with chrome. A lighter colour is got by dyeing with 8 lbs. cudbear, 1/2 lb. logwood (for 30 lbs. wool) .
To dye Yellow on Linen with the Lichen Peltigera canina (a large flat lichen growing on rocks in woods) . Mordant with alum (1/4 lb. to a lb. of linen) boil for 2 hours. Then boil up with sufficient quantity of the lichen till the desired colour is got.
LIST OF LICHENS USED BY THE PEASANTRY OF DIFFERENT COUNTRIES FOR WOOL DYEING [D] SHADES OF RED, PURPLE AND ORANGE
Borrera ashney. ”

“ The different tints of colors, whether the brown of oak, the orange brown of pine, the blackish tint of walnut, or the reddish cast of cedar, are due to pigments, while the deeper shade of the summer-wood bands in pine, cedar, oak, or walnut is due to the fact that the wood being denser, more of the colored wood substance occurs on a given space, i.e., there is more colored matter per square inch. ”

“ The art of dyeing consists in impregnating flexible fibres with any color which may be desired, in such a manner, that it will remain permanent, under the common exposures to which it may be liable.
2. The union of the coloring matter with the fibres receiving the dye, is purely chemical, and not mechanical, as in the case of the application of paints. Wool has the greatest attraction for coloring substances; silk comes next to it; then cotton; and, lastly, hemp and flax. These materials, also, absorb dye-stuffs in different proportions. ”

“ During their prosperity their manufactures, purple dye, glass ware, and metal implements were in demand everywhere; they were the traders of the world, their nautical skill and geographical position making their markets the centres of exchange between East and West; their ships sailed every sea, and carried the merchandise of every country, and their colonists settled all over the Mediterranean, Ægean, and Euxine, and even beyond the Pillars of Hercules, in Africa, in Britain, and the countries on the Baltic. ”

“ Care should be taken that the skeins of yarn or swatches of cloth are exactly equal in weight, that the same volume of water is placed in each of the dye-pots, that the same amounts of sulphate of soda or other dye assistants are added, that the quantities of dye-stuffs and solutions used are equal, in fact that in all respects the conditions of dyeing are exactly the same, such in fact being the vital conditions in making comparative dye-tests of the actual dyeing strength of several samples of dyes. ”

“ The Irish homespun friezes, which are so dependable in colour for out-of-door [50] wear, are invariably dyed with natural stains, procured from heather roots, mosses, and bog plants of like nature. It must be remembered that any permanent or indelible stain is a dye, and if boys and girls who live in the country were set to look for plants possessing the colour-quality, many new ones might be discovered. I am told by a Kentucky mountain woman, used to the production of reliable colour in her excellent weaving, that the ordinary roadside smartweed gives one of the best of yellows. ”

“ In this respect it serve as a guide that concentrated baths are best used dyeing dark shades while light shades can be dyed in more dilute baths. The most important factor for producing uniform dyeings is the appropriate regulation of the temperature of the dye-bath. Concerning this the dyer must bear in mind that the direct colours possess a greater affinity for cotton if dyed below the boiling-point, and only go on the (p. 172) wool when the bath is boiling, especially so the longer and more intensely the goods are boiled. ”