Chapter VII: Part 7

Another way:--boil red wood powdered for two hours (two handfuls), and then put the hackles in, boil an hour longer, let the liquor cool, and put into a tea cup half full of water nearly a table-spoonful of aqua-fortis and pour it into the dye, stir well occasionally and keep the hackles down, boil for two hours more and rinse off, finish in a little urine. If a very dark claret is required lay them in to boil for a day and night with a scalding heat.

TO DYE BLACK.

Boil two good handfuls of log-wood with a little sumach and elder bark for an hour, put in the stuff or hackles (boil very gently), bruise a piece of copperas about the size of two Spanish nuts, put it in with a little argil and soda; take out the hackles and hold them in the open air a little, then put them in again and leave them all night gently heated, wash the dye well out of them and your black will be fine. The argil and soda soften the dye stuff of the copperas, but a small quantity must be put in.

TO DYE GREENS OF VARIOUS SHADES.

The greatest nicety of all is in finding the exact quantity of ingredients to put in, so as to prevent the dye stuff from injuring the fibres of the hackles, &c.; for the light shades add the smallest quantity, and augment it by degrees. Dye the hackles a very light shade of blue first, in prepared indigo,[J] as I said before, take a spoonful and put it into the dye pot and boil it softly for half an hour. Add a very small quantity of alum and tartar to the dye, put in your hackles, and boil for a short time; add to the dye a table-spoonful of the best turmeric, savoy, or green wood, a little of each would do best, boil slowly for an hour, take out the hackles, rinse them, and you will have a green: you may have any shade of green by dyeing the blues darker or lighter, and putting in more yellowing stuff and less blue when light yellow greens are required, boil gently, and look at the hackles often to see that they have taken the shade you want.

TO DYE LAVENDER OR SLATE DUN, &c. &c.

Boil ground logwood with bruised nut galls and a small quantity of copperas, according to judgment: you may have a pigeon dun, lead colour, light, or dark dun. The ingredients must be used in small quantities, according to taste. You may have raven grey, or duns of various shades, by boiling with the logwood a small quantity of alum and copperas.

FOOTNOTE:

[Footnote J: Half a tea cupful of water, and the same quantity of oil of vitriol, put into a bottle, the indigo to remain in twenty-four hours to dissolve.]

BLUES.

Dissolve some indigo in oil of vitriol for twenty-four hours, put a couple of spoonfuls in your pot, add a little crystal of tartar, put in your hackles and boil, or at least keep them at a scalding heat, or the vitriol will burn the feathers, furs, &c., take them out, rinse them well, and the colour will be lasting.

If to the above liquor some fustic chips, well boiled by themselves, and the juice added, you may then have any shade of the best green.

A SILVER GREY.

Boil some fenugreek and a little alum half an hour, put in the white hackles, &c., and add a little pearlash and Brazil-wood, boil them gently an hour, rinse them, and your colour will be lasting.

A COFFEE OR CHESNUT.

Boil the hackles, &c., that have been previously dyed brown, in some nut gall, sumach, and alder bark, then add a small quantity of green copperas to the liquor, allow it to remain a day and a night in water that you can bear the hand in, and all the stuff will enter the materials.

TO DYE OLIVES AND A MIXTURE OF COLOURS.

Olives are dyed from blue, red, and brown, of every shade, according to fancy.

From yellow, blue, and brown, are made olives of all kinds.

From brown, blue, and black, brown and green olives are made.

From red, yellow, and brown, are produced orange, gold colour, marigold, cinnamon, &c.

See Haigh's Dyer's Assistant of Woollen Goods, for larger quantities.

A CONCISE WAY OF DYEING COLOURS.

I will now add the way to dye the colours, for pighair, mohair, hackles, &c., in a concise and summary manner, to avoid giving trouble in too many words, and the quantities of ingredients I have given before, which would be superfluous to mention over so often, and which the dyer must know by this time. The great art is in knowing the quantities that each dye requires to obtain the exact colour, and this may be known by a close observation to the rules I have given.

Fustic and alum water will dye yellow, the hackles dipped three times in fresh stuff. Weld, turmeric, and fenugreek, will give a yellow, boiled in alum water, and the hackles dipped often, till they are the proper colour.

These may be dyed without tartar at pleasure.

Brazil-wood, boiled till you have a strong decoction, strain off the juice, then add alum water, boil the hackles in it slowly for a day or two, and it will produce good reds. If the colour of the Brazil-wood be very strong, there may be reds obtained in an hour's boiling. This is a wood which is of a hard nature, and it is difficult to extract the colour from it, although a good dye.

A claret may be produced from Brazil-wood mixed with red archil, and boiled in the usual manner, dipped in potash liquor, or brilla will act in the same way to strike the colour; use hard water.

A fiery brown may be made from fustic and turmeric boiled together with alum and a little crystal of tartar, (soft water for this dye), and then dip in liquor of potash.

A cinnamon brown may be made with a little madder, or stone crottle, boiled with alum and tartar, with a little turmeric to finish it.

A good blue may be had by boiling the hackles with alum water, and add a spoonful of the liquid blue; this is done by putting some oil of vitriol into a bottle with a little water, and then the indigo, powdered, which will dissolve in twenty-four hours, and be ready for use. (I have mentioned this twice before, as I am very particular.)

For a purple, dye blue first, then add the red dye, and dip it in potash; when the hackles, &c., are left long in the red, it is more of a wine purple.

To have a good green, dye blue first, then boil in turmeric and fustic bark, with alum and tartar, as usual. You may have any shade of green by noticing the process in the dye pot.

To dye an orange, first make it a turkey red with Brazil-wood and alum water, then finish with turmeric and fustic till the colour pleases you.

To dye a golden olive, boil sumach and turmeric with alum water, add a little potash and copperas, and finish with new turmeric and a little potash.

Green olive may be made with a little more copperas and verdigris.

Sooty olive is made by adding to the first a little alder or oak bark, and finishing with turmeric and alum water.

An amber may be made with red, and finished with yellow dye; the first with stone crottle or madder, and finish with turmeric bark; the yellow with alum water. All fishing colours should be dyed yellow first with alum and crystal of tartar, but claret.

Claret may be made from Brazil-wood, barked first in alum water, adding new Brazil three or four times fresh to the liquor, and simmer slowly for a day or two.

A fiery brown may be made from lima or peth-wood, barked with turmeric and alum water.

A golden yellow may be had from citrine bark, boiled in new stuff three times slowly, bark with alum, and dip in potash or brilla.

All blues may be dipped in potash, to sadden the colour.

A crottle or red orange, boil madder and stone crottle together, and bark with alum water; the madder will do if the crottle cannot be had. The crottle grows on stones in rocky places, like red moss.

An orange may be had by dyeing yellow in strong liquid three times fresh; bark with alum, and dip in potash.

A Green Drake may be made by dyeing a good yellow first, and adding a few drops of the blue decoction from the bottle of prepared blue dye, this comes to the green drake colour; add a little copperas to make a green dark or light, as you please.

A golden olive may be made by dyeing brown red hackles in fustic and a little copperas, and dipped in potashes, finished in turmeric and alum; you will have a sooty olive by adding but very little of the turmeric root.

A sooty olive may be made by dyeing black hackles in yellow first with alum water, add fresh yellow stuff three times to the dye pot, and dip them in potashes.

A wine purple may be made from light dyed blue hackles, put them in the red dye of madder, Brazil, or cochineal, and dip them twice in potashes.

Liver-coloured hackles may be had from brown red hackles, barked with alum, and boiled in Brazil-wood juice, dipped in liquor of potash.

A bright olive may be made from fustic and oak bark, adding a little turmeric and alum water.

A fiery cinnamon may be had from yellow dye, Brazil juice, and madder mixed, boil these well, and add a little turmeric with alum.

A golden crottle may be made from stone crottle and yellow dyes with turmeric and alum water. The stone crottle is best for all golden colours, but as it may not be easily got at, use madder instead; golden orange may be had from the above, adding a little potashes, and boil very slowly.

A pea green may be had by dyeing yellow first, and add a few drops out of the blue dye bottle, till it comes to the shade, it may be darkened to a leek or bottle green.

A stone blue,--bark the hackle with alum, and add to the alum water as much of the prepared dye out of the bottle as will make it dark enough, this may be easily seen from the appearance of the liquor in the dye pot.

A Prussian blue is done in the same way, keeping out the indigo, and adding the Prussian blue.

Dip a red into potashes and you have a light wine purple; blue and red dye is best.

Dip a good yellow in potashes, well boiled and stir, and you will have an orange. A little tartar is good for all colours but black.

Sumach, logwood, iron liquor, and copperas, will form a black. Boil a small quantity of copperas with logwood, and it will dye gut properly.

A tawny cinnamon may be dyed from stone crottle or madder, mixed with turmeric, alum, and a little tartar, these must be gently boiled in fresh stuff, adding a little copperas.

THE MATERIALS NECESSARY FOR ARTIFICIAL FLY MAKING.

The necessary articles used for fly making in general are as follows: Those feathers that are of a most gaudy hue are best for the wings of salmon flies, which are golden pheasant feathers, cock of the rock, the crest of the Hymalaya pheasant, the blue and yellow macaw, the scarlet macaw, red macaw, green parrot's feathers, particularly the Amazon parrot tail, the scarlet Ibis, blue king fishers, and chattern, the splendid Trogan, the Argus pheasant, the bustard, red parrot, and the Bird of Paradise; the wood-duck feathers (try the cock of the north feathers, black hackle, white body, and gold); the jungle cock; the spotted turkey, brown, light, and dark feathers; brown mallard, or wild drake; teal feathers; heron feather, black and blue; glede or kite tail feathers; grey mallard, widgeon, and shovel duck; various dyed and natural cock hackles; grouse hackles; guinea hen hackles, the rump and back feathers; silver pheasant, cock and hen bird tail, wings, and body feathers; yellow toucan feathers; blue jay feathers, and the wings of the jay for trout flies; peacock feathers, off wings, tail, and body; black ostrich feathers, and the white ostrich for dyeing all colours for the heads of flies, &c., with floss silk of every shade; gold and silver twist, and plate of different sizes; pighair, mohair, furs, &c.

The materials for small trout flies are, mohair, furs of every colour, water rat, fitch, squirrel, mole's fur, hare's ears and neck furs, mouse and common rat fur, martin's fur, sable fur, black spaniel's hair off the ear, black bear's hair for tailing the drake, and all white furs dyed of various shades, such as yellow, yellow-green, gold, orange, cinnamon, light duns, &c; starling wings, grouse feathers, snipe wings, woodcock wings, thrush and blackbird's wings, fieldfare wings, wren tails, tomtit tails, bunton lark wing, skylark wings, sparrow wings, landrail wings, water-hen wings, water-rail wings, partridge tails and hackle feathers, brown hen wings, tail, and body feathers, dun hen wings, &c.; dun cock hackles, dun hen hackles, dottril wings and hackles, and all dun, brown, and grey feathers that can be found on every bird that flies are useful for imitating the natural insects; tying silks of every shade, yellow and orange being the favorites; hooks of sizes, and silk-worm gut.

And now to wind up the line. I humbly beg to say that if I have deceived the friends of the rod in anything, they have a right to be indifferent with my profession of friendship, and ought to retain a sensibility of my misfortune; my conscience is clear it is not so, for I know that I would deceive myself were I to think that I could do without my admirable friends of the angle--without me they could do--but I value their worth, as in hope I rest, although they say "hope told a flattering tale." I am not deceived by flattery, be it far from us; I dislike deceit. I have hid nothing; I have done my endeavours in this book to show the youths of the angle, as well as the great fly fishers, all I know about the matter so far, and as the Chinamen say, that "time and industry convert a mulberry leaf into a silk shawl," so perseverance will be the means of the fly maker's success, if he allows himself an opportunity of accomplishing that which he requires to know and to perform, and at the same time neglect not to prepare for the "coming struggle," it will be his own fault if he does not become a skilful angler, &c. I will therefore consider myself highly honoured if the young gentlemen of England, Ireland, Scotland, and Wales, appreciate my labour, and to be enabled, by the natural genius they possess, descending from Him who visited us through the "Orient" from on high to enlighten our understandings in every good, to find out the information they desire in the perusal of these pages.

FINIS.

* * * * *

Transcriber's Notes:

Obvious punctuation errors repaired.

Book uses both pearl-ash and pearl ash; salmon-fly and salmon fly. Varied hyphenation was retained. Text also uses archaic spelling, "scissars".

Page vii, "cloured" changed to "coloured" (buff-coloured fur and)

Page viii, "surperbly" changed to "superbly" (superbly painted to suit)

Page viii, "Britian" changed to "Britain" (any river in Britain)

Page 15, "growse" changed to "grouse" to match rest of usage (grouse hackle prepared)

Page 23, "pains" changed to "pain" (with a little pain)

Page 36, word "to" added to text (next to the root)

Page 75, "woodcook" changed to "woodcock" (woodcock or wren grackle)

Page 148, "hymalean" changed to "Hymalean" (hen Hymalean pheasant is an)

Page 166, "Arklaw" changed to "Arklow" (Arklow, on the river Ovoca)

<pre id="pg-footer">