Dying Pheasant Tails

All about flies Fly Tying
1

I’m going to dye a couple of pheasant tails a medium/darker olive. The kool-aide approch seems like the best bet, but I’m wondering what flavors to use and the length of time to let the feathers sit in the dye. Any advice from you tyers with experience doing this particular task would be greatly appreciated.

John

2

Unfortunately, they don’t make olive flavored Koolaid. I have used Koolaid successfully to dye materials in the brighter colors that Koolaid comes in. I notice that now they have Arctic Apple flavor, I assume it is green. I would think that because pheasant tail is prodominately brown that dying it green would give you olive. I have not tryed this yet so I can’t really say. You will have to experiment. Mix 2 pgs koolaid w/ 2 cups of water and 1/4 cup of vinegar. Heat it up to just boiling and then let it cool to about 150 degrees then throw in the materials for a few days. Check the color periodically to get shade you want, the longer you leave it in the dye the darker the shade. I would also soak the feathers in amild detergent bath prior to dying, don’t rinse them just throw them in the dye bath. That will help the feathers soak up the dye better. Rinse them out when you are done w/ the dyeing process and dry on newsprint. Dyeing is highly experimental, you never know what you will get but sometimes the results are awesome.

Ron M

3

Try the lemon lime flavor. The resultant color depends in the color the material is before dying. Here’s a chart:

[url=http://www.thepiper.com/fiberart/koolaid/images/colorchart-high.jpg:f92b7]http://www.thepiper.com/fiberart/koolaid/images/colorchart-high.jpg[/url:f92b7]

The color at the top is the starting color with the results from the different flavors below.

Joe

4

You dying it before bleaching it? If so it will not come out that great. You will need to bleach the tails a bit before you get a good Olive with any Dye. The color you get without bleaching is a real dark olive that is not much different from the normal tail unless you have some very light colored tails. I got a few this year in the several hundred that I bought. It is much cheaper to just buy them already dyed if it is a true olive that you want. LOL. Ron