Veniard Fly Tying Dye Instructions

Veniard Fly Tying Dye Instructions

- Clean the feathers by soaking in any good detergent (Venpol for preference), or a quality soap powder for a few minutes.
- Note: Waterfowl feathers must be soaked for considerably longer to allow penetration of the natural oil coating.
- Rinse in cold water.
- Dissolve approx. a quarter of a teaspoon of dye in approx. a litre of boiling water, and stir well until completely dissolved, then add one table spoon of Acetic (if available) or vinegar. - To fix the colour. Black & all other dark shades should have a much stronger dye bath with more acid or vinegar.
- Put in the feathers to be dyed and return to simmer keeping the plumes moving all the time. - Most dyes are a mixture of three colours, so it is essential to allow time for all the colours to penetrate to obtain the correct / desired shade.
- They do not fix at the same rate so withdrawing feathers too soon could result in the wrong shade.
- You can get a good idea of final shade by watching the quill or by holding a single feather up to the light.
- Remember that the feather will look a lot darker when wet.
- Remove all feathers from the dye bath and rinse well in cold water.
- Press the feathers between cloth or paper to remove most of the moisture. Allow to dry naturally.
- To bring hackles back to their natural brilliance they should be partially dried and then placed in a cardboard lid, blown dry with a hair dryer, and shaken gently until dry.
- Please note these Veniard Dye instructions also apply to furs & wools. Etc.

- Lastly TOP TIP - always, if unfamiliar with dying or using a new colour / material test a small piece first to get quantities/timings exactly as you want without wasting expensive materials.

Produced with the kind permission of Veniard.

Veniard Fly Tying Dyes

Veniard Bulk Dye

Veniard Venpol Detergent