Bleaching and dying squirrel tails?

[Mangrove Cuckoo]

Lars,

Where can I find information on these techniques?

I love using squirrel tail material, especially on the tail of poppers, but it only comes in one color around here... banded squirrel grey.

Thanks to my cat I have an almost unlimited supply so I can afford multiple "learning curve" failures!

Previous attempts at dying materials has taught me to expect a few blunders before, or if ever, I get it right.

[Viking Lars]

Well, it's really quite a delicate art and on the more serious side of it, I'm really only a beginner. But I'll relay some of the invaluable information I got from my friend, Claus, who's a 6th degree black belt in dyeing.

But bleaching first. Also a delicate matter. I use hair bleaches, two part product, one a powder, the other a gel. These I mix 50/50 (as pr. instructions - yes, for once I actually read them - which you will after smelling that stuff - and after wondering why some people put that stuff in their hair). I use a 12% bleaching agent, but they also come in 6 and 9%, I think. Bleaching is rough on the hairs and if you're not careful, they'll go brittle or fall off the tail (!). Bleaching is not necessary as such as the white tips that colour very well. You'll never get them white and not uniformly white- You'll still have a little of the barring left and to avoid burning the hairs, take them out of the bleach when they're cream-white. Make sure they washed, degreased and wet before soaking them in the bleach. Wash them again after bleaching. That's the easy part.

Dyeing, I've learned, is far more complicated than just putting some dye in hot water and then soaking some materials (that's how I used to do it). It's important to know that some dyes are composites of several colours and different colour crystals and for them all to dissolve properly, it's important for the bath to boil hard when putting in the dye. Stir and give it time to dissolve and never add materials to boiling water.
Then comes the amount of dye to put in - and this is important. I used to just put some in and take the materials out after a while. But - both to save (expensive) dye powder and to get the best result, it's best to put in so little that once the materials have the desired colour, the dye bath is nearly clear again. And this is of course a matter of the amount of materials, but *very* little powder goes a long way. If the materials are too light when the bath has cleared up, you can always add more.
And - once again the different crystals come into play, because in some composite dyes, different nuances are soaked up at different rates. And if the dye bath never goes near-clear, you might not get the ones that are soaked up last.
Give it time - sometimes quite a long time. For instance, I've had my best results with Fiery Brown by keeping the materials in the hot batch for up to two hours and making sure to use the proper amount of powder. Then I've turned off the heat and let them sit over night.
Some colours take a long time, some soaks up very quickly.
I keep the temperature around 75C throughout (use a thermometer).
If you want to repeatable results, TAKE NOTES! Claus has emphasised this many times and it really helps.

And then experience. Different dyes react differently and different materials react differently - to the different dyes :-).

Lars

[Mangrove Cuckoo]

Lars,

Thank you very much!

This sounds like just the kind of thing I like to explore. And maybe my access to laboratory equipment will be an advantage.

I'll do some research first, and let you know how things turn out.

Gary

[Mangrove Cuckoo]

Guess what?

AK Best wrote a book on "Dying and Bleaching Fly Tying Materials"!

Not that I can afford it, though.

Based on the price of this old book, I might be able to sell my library old flyfishing books and pay off my house!

[Viking Lars]

Good Heavens - I even have that book and forgot to mention it... Stupid of me. But expensive? it's 46 USD on Amazon.

[Mangrove Cuckoo]

Lars,

Thanks!

I "Googled" the book and was finding prices like $180! Stupid me!

So, I went immediately to Amazon when I read your post and picked up a used copy for about $15 with shipping.

So... you might have saved me around $165, but since we all know how fly tying saves tons of money I will wait to see how that turns out.

[Viking Lars]

Well, just send me whatever is left of what you set aside for the investment .

[Mangrove Cuckoo]

Lars,

Do you have a preference for particular dyes?

I have a hard time finding Veniards, which seems to be the favorite among fly tiers. I can find Jacquards locally. (Excuse my spelling if not perfect).

I was looking at the Veniards site and was somewhat concerned when I saw that even they do not try to bleach and dye grey squirrel tails. It looks like they only dye over the lighter hairs... and they had no chartreuse.

Am I being too optimistic?