Dying Feathers At Home With Professional Results!!
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- เผยแพร่เมื่อ 10 ก.พ. 2025
- Dying Feathers DIY At Home! I had great results with Rit dye and had pretty good results using Kool-Aid too! Dying feathers for fly tying is a hobby within itself and I go over how I got great results! Here are instructions below:
RIT Dye:
Fill a container with 1.5L of hot water(60°C)
Add 1/4 Cup Vinegar(White Vinegar)
Add 1 Tbsp Table Salt
MIX Until Well Combined
Fill a Mason Jar full with 1/2 Rit dye powder and 400-500ml of water(60°C water)
Shake until well mixed
Add to Container and Mix well
Add feathers and mix around for a couple minutes
Periodically Mix feathers in the Solution for 5 hours
Take feathers out and rinse them until dye stops bleeding
Dry on a cloth and gently tease the herls away from the stem
Allow to dry fully and that's it!
Kool Aid Dye - I used Mixed Berry(King Fisher Blue) and Pink Lemonade(Came out Shrimp Pink):
Fill a container with 1L of hot water(60°C)
Add 1/4 Cup Vinegar(White Vinegar)
MIX Until Well Combined
Fill a Mason Jar full with 1-3 Packages of Kool-Aid powder(4.5G) and 400-500ml of water(60°C water)
Shake until well mixed
Add to Container and Mix well
Add feathers and mix around for a couple minutes
Periodically Mix feathers in the Solution for 1-5hours
Take feathers out and rinse them until dye stops bleeding
Dry on a cloth and gently tease the herls away from the stem
Allow to dry fully and that's it!
Wish you the very best in your Fly Fishing and Fly Tying adventures!
I’ve been dying feathers of all sorts with Kool-Aid for years. Never had a problem with color not staying for the life of the fly. I’ve been tying a yellow perch streamer pattern for trout using yellow dyed grizzly streamer hackle. The feathers I dyed years ago are as colorful as they were when I dyed them.
That’s what i hear! Yeah, i am confident with kool-aid but wish i got a few more packets for a deeper colour. Thanks for sharing your experience
Thank you. I needed this specific video. You saved me from having to spend extra money for overpriced feathers
Wash the feathers in dawn and water before dying. That will remove the oils and let your dyes saturation.
Oh shoot. I forgot to mention that these were cleaned feathers from a package. When dying wild feathers then absolutely! But otherwise after doing it for years, never had a problem with store-bought feathers, only the wild ones. Happy fishing🙂
What’s dawn please
@@Helen-cv8qddawn, a liquid dish soap.
@@greenhornflyhornI think the vinegar works to strip off any remaining oils on the feathers.
60 C= 140 F ! Usually feathers are affected at about 165 F, so this temp won't hurt the feathers. I've dyed feathers and fur (coyote) with Kool Aid and it's good for colour fastness, as long as colours are set with vinegar.
You prob don't want to go over 160⁰
You had mentioned about dying materials and I'm glad to see this video - been curious about the Kool-Aid dye and your results with ostrich feathers.
I have been doing extremely well (bass, walleye, pike) fishing Bob Popovic's style bucktail streamers so I was pleased when I was gifted a dozen bucktails from the hunt. I recently colored them (and a bunch of other fur types) using Veniard dies with great results. I did have problems with the fine barbels of the ostrich feathers matting down though. I made sure that the quills were separate from the main shaft when drying but the end result is not fluffy like un-died feathers. Any suggestions?
Got some of the "hair extender" mylar that you suggested - nice, very nice! Thanks for suggesting that!
OH, MUCH BETTER ON THE HAT ;)
Cheers!
I can help you with the matted feathers. You need put the feather on flat surface and take a piece of wool or some other soft material(like an acrylic glove/mitten). while holding down the feather, take the peice of wool and stroke the herls towards and away from the stem. This will tease them back out and make them super fluffy. I left that part of the video out and now feel like it was a mistake. Alternatively, a blow dryer can also do this by vigorously moving it all over the feather(the fastest setting). Hope this helps!
@@greenhornflyhorn I put mine in a zippered pillow case & dry them in the dryer on delicate.
pro tip, you can also drink the kool-aid after lol
uhhh... You first! hahaha!!!
Kool-aid mixed with vinegar, yummy 🤢🤢
The red Kool.Aid looks a lot like the "Pattegrisen"-color "salmon pink". The "Pattegrisen" (Piglet"), a shirmp-pattern, is one of the most popular Scandinavian seatrout flies.
Only problem: I don´t think I will get Kool-Aid in Norway...
Luckily there is a big variety of colors available: Veniard (I think) has special dies for flytying-materials in all imaginable colors and they are quite cheap (about 10 bucks for a lifetime supply)
Unfortunately most takle-dealer don´t want you to know. They prefer selling you small packs of everything in every color...
But, it shoulnd´t be a problem getting them online, if you know they exist.
If I can buy them even in Norway (in these things we are a third world country) you should get them anywhere.
To be fair: I havn´t tried myself yet. But I heard only the best of it and some real big names in flytying use it themself.
Interesting. Even in Canada, Kool-aid is a hard to find commodity. You have to go to specialty candy stores to find the packers. Amazon sells them too! Rit dye is great but not sure if you can find it overseas. They have every colour imaginable.
I used Rit black on pheasant tail feathers and it came out green Everytime. I only use jacquards now
Really? Huh. Personally would never dye pheasant tails but green is very odd. Usually black will dye a dark purple from Rit if not done properly. Good on you for not giving up and trying a different dye!
I've done some research since, Rit is a compound dye, it's a combination of dyes that can each work differently depending on material and solution pH.
Acid dyes are hands down the preferred dyes. I've had lots of success with Jacquard acid dyes with both feathers and bucktails, results are professional grade. And they are actually cheaper than Rit. Kool Aid works because they use acid dyes for coloring.
@@joebaldus3572 yeah man, if it works for you. Keep givin it the juice bud🤘
@@joebaldus3572 I tried the rit green for silver pheasant and it didnt color it. I washed it with dawn and it didnt work. I added the vinegar, nothing. With the basic dye from Jacquard it worked perfectly and right away. Also I messed up on my first batch of jacquard green batch. II made alot so I decided to use it again the next day. So i heated the dye and forgot about it so when i realized the water was boiling. So i waited a like maybe 10 mins and let my father in. It dyed my feather pickle green juice color. Ewwe didnt look to nice. So i dumped the color and started new. So I bought the 8color set of basic dye from jacquard. I have feathers to dye and for my headress and cant wait to start testing out the colors and how they look.
I just did a batch of turkey feathers with black rit & they turned out beautiful. 5 cups water, 2 boxes of rit, ¼ cup of salt & 1 ½ cups vinegar. Heated to 180⁰ then held the temp at 160ish for 30 min
Can you die white turkey feather boa baby blue without ruining them please
I dyed some Royal blue
boil mine under a stove slow for 2 hours and its extremely black just water
Hey there, would mind giving more details to your method? You say just water?!? No dye!?! If you have a chance, would definitely like hearing about it
Back isn´t a color, it´s the exact opposite: The definition of colors is, that they (partly) reflect light. Black absorbs all light.
White is quite the opposite: It reflects all light, so it the combination of all colors.
---- wise-ass-mode off ---
Keep the wise ass mode on and go troll Ben at Huge Fly Fisher. He loves people like you!!😉😆