Kool Aid Dyeing SBS

[hankaye]

Ray, Howdy;

Thanks for the color chart and the links that give the step-by-step
process, truly takes the head scratchin' out of the process... -aid ... dude.

hank

[ScottP]

...

[letumgo]

That's fantastic! I gotta try this.

[tie2fish]

Excellent result.

[wsbailey]

Scott, this is a great introdution to a way of dyeing that should be acceptable to the other half. A K Best warned in his book on dyeing that this is an endeavor that can bring forth the fiercest wrath if one isn't careful. I too have looked for picric acid substitutes. The only thing it has to recommend it is the utter lack of skill needed to apply it. Old fly tying books often mention turmeric for a similar purpose. Namely, to dye gray materials to a green or olive hue. Here is an excerpt from E J Malone's book on tying Irish flies for golden olive.

“For those without access to Veniard’s golden olive dye, I would suggest they look to the kitchen spice rack with its store of turmeric now widely used for flavouring food. This will dye seal’s fur, or other dubbing, remembering that the material must be clean and free from grease – it might be worthwhile to ensure that that this is so by immersing the material (in a fine sieve) into soapy water (washing-up liquid), rinsing and finally making sure no soap residue remains, then dissolve a level egg-spoon full of turmeric powder in a cupful of boiling water and place one half of your dubbing in the dye-bath. Be careful and do not splash as the liquid will be a brilliant colour guaranteed to stain yellow all worktops and clothing.er approximately one half-minute remove the material from the dye-bath and rinse thoroughly in running water. The colour will be seen as a bright yellow – squeeze out the surplus water by compressing between sheets of newspaper.
Take the remaining half of the dubbing material and immerse in the dye-bath for ten minutes and the resulting colour will be a rich amber. Squeeze out surplus water as before and dry in front of the fire or radiator. Now we have two colours from a simple dye-bath and if we take a portion of each, 50% yellow and 50% amber and mix thoroughly until every fiber intermingles, we produce a third colour, golden olive.”

[narcodog]

I have a nice, small collection of picric dyed material that I bought from Lawrence Finney over the years. It is one of my favorite colors.

[wsbailey]

Lawrence Finney himself said that picric acid is what caused him to get esophagal cancer which led to his early demise. He said that it wasn't the dyeing process but rather handling the dyed materials.

[ScottP]

Ginger was the goal today (turmeric supposedly an option to Koolaid/Rit but we only have a little in the spice rack). A little Rit golden yellow and a drop of black - looked like greenish something in the dye bath but yielded a nice ginger/cinnamon.



This was pretty much undiluted; a bit more water would lighten things up a bit.


Regards,
Scott