Important: Safety Warning
This page describes trade processes that use dangerously toxic materials such as cyanide solutions, mercury amalgams, or strong acids. These processes require training, equipment, and precautions far beyond what the text describes.
In addition, this page directs the use of hazardous substances — such as benzine, gasoline, lye, or strong acids — for household tasks. These materials are highly flammable, corrosive, or poisonous, and the practices described have caused fires, burns, and poisonings.
This information has been left in for historical purposes but should not be acted upon.
Home › Miscellaneous › To color Silk Royal-blue
To color Silk Royal-blue
Take ten pounds of silk, make up a tub of nitrate of iron at six degrees, to which add one pint of good muriate of tin and four ounces of tartaric acid; wring out and return, repeating for about an hour; in another tub add one and a half pounds of dissolved prussiate, and one gill of oil of vitriol.
Wash goods out of iron tub, and put into prussiate tub, repeat in iron twice and once in prussiate, wash out of the iron, and put in a tub in which oil of vitriol until it tastes sour has been dissolved; give six wrings to elear off any rust that may adhere to it. More prussiate will produce a darker, and a less a lighter color, but the same quantity of iron and tin must be used.