Dying Materials

[tinsoldier]

Looking to dye some peacock herl a yellow colour for the yellow owl cdc i think there called any tips and info please?(also curious if anyones worked out how Scratch ties those buzzers)

[mugsy53]

1. Soak the peacock herl in warm water mixed with plenty of deteregent for at least an hour to remove oils.
2. Rinse very thoroughly in clean water. Failure to do so can affect the uptake of dye.
3. Mix dye as recommended. Heat dye solution to just short of boiling point. Stir peacock herl to ensure even dyeing. Continue until you have the desired shade.
NB. Don't use pan or utensils you use for cooking. You can buy a cheap stainless steel pans very cheaply these days.
Veniards produce dyes specially for fly tying materials. Jacquard Acid Dyes are also very good.

Hope this helps.

Mugsy

[alimar]

As above
Jacquard Acid Dyes are better or use Picric solution,, get it from ebay

[dabhoy]

Just a question if you want the herl to go yellow are you not going to have to bleach the herl 1st.
At the end of the day I would think you would be far better of buying dyed herl for the job, because if you are going to the trouble to bleach and dye along with equipment you would need to be tying an awful lot of flies.
I know it can be fun to play around with dyes as I have in the past but if I want a proper job I will buy from a supplier at very little cost on top of the natural product.

[mugsy53]

You certainly could bleach the herl before dyeing it, Dabhoy, it all depends what colour you are after. I don't know what is specified for the Yellow Owl CDC. For all the Diawl Bach variations I know about which use dyed peacock herl, bleach is not used prior to dyeing.

Of course you are quite right in saying that it is generally cheaper to buy ready dyed materials, but I was just answering Tinsoldier's question. I started to dye my own materials because I was after certain colours that were just not obtainable any other way. It is a fascinating subject in its own right.

I would, however, caution against the use of picric acid, Alimar. It carries significant health risks and picric stained materials tend to fade with time. In any case, an almost identical colour can I believe be obtained using acid dyes.

Mugsy

[dabhoy]

Hi Mugsy you could be right but as it was a yellow owl that he wanted to tie I assumed it would be yellow he was after ,as the original yellow owl used yellow floss and i dont believe that you could produce this with peacock herl without bleaching before dyeing.
As regarding using picric anyone who uses it( I being one) takes the correct precautions there should be no problem.