community of dyers

Although I have not tried it, one publication describes that ‘black’ can be achieved by mixing the following colors in Cibacron F line:

1. Fuchsia + bright yellow + navy; OR
2. Scarlet + gold + navy; OR
3. Scarlet + gold + bright blue

I wonder if the same recipe could be used with Procion MX.

Dear Paula, Your site is like a port for a weary sailor!
I just have been struggling with a decision to make with my dye life and black.
I am a straight mx girl.. but I have gotten back into spinning.. we all know the color shifts with mx on protein. So have been surfing your site to figure out ONE line of dyes I can use for both silk painting on scarves PLUS hand painting self patterning yarns in wool, silk. I really hate steaming silks... but i may have to turn that way. I really need a black for the wool,silk line, so is there hope that we can use mx with citric acid on silk or wool with some dye line for black?
Any help as you know is greatly appreciated. See my sites below for my fun fruity journey with kool aid, food coloring on fleece! Got a yarn warp board for painting fiber in a pic here too.

Have fun here seeing my spininng, dyeing adventures with silks,also kool aid on wool
http://picasaweb.google.com/Halalsilks

Blessings, Grace in VT
www.ourchurch.com/member/h/HPA/

ProChem does sell a "Silk Black" MX dye mixture, their PRO MX 610. Presumably, from the name, it's standardized to produce a good black on silk, rather than cotton, but you'd probably better e-mail them to make sure whether that's for the soda ash recipe or the vinegar/citric acid recipe. You get different colors from a dye mixture on silk with soda ash than with acid, as Pia demonstrated for us. I have not tried this mixture myself, so have no useful opinions on it. Of course it will separate out into multiple colors, given the chance, like any black that's mixed from other colors, and you can't use the soda ash recipe on wool, only on silk (in addition to all the cellulose fibers).

The very best black for silk, wool, and other protein fibers is the Lanaset black, which ProChem sells as Lanaset/Sabraset Jet Black 680. You do have to steam it, but it's pretty easy to do—just wrap in plastic wrap and steam like you would vegetables. Check out their instructions at this link. I used their Method #2, with vinegar, and had great results with black on silk. It's a very deep, rich, smooth black, and really quite washfast compared to other acid dyes. It is actually a mixture of two black premetalized acid dyes, but it acts like an unmixed single color in my limited experience of it so far. If you like, you can dye a scarf with your MX dyes with soda ash, complete the dyeing, wash out, then as a completely separate step presoak in vinegar and paint on the Lanaset black with the Rainbow Dyeing recipe, and steam it to set the black dye on the silk.

You can use the Remazol black, reactive black 5, which ProChem sells as PRO Liquid Reactive Black LR604, on silk or cotton, and since it is a single-hue, unmixed dye, it will stay black, instead of separating out into brown and rose and navy and all that. Diluted, it produces grey. However, for some reason, ProChem recommends against using it on wool. I do not know why. It will certainly work, chemically, if you boil it at a mild acid pH with wool, forming a covalent bond as a fiber reactive dye, rather than acting as an acid dye. Perhaps it produces a less lovely black on wool, or perhaps it tends to be less level. I don't know which. Has anyone tried it?

Thanks for your views and advices. Can I mix that black freely with other Ostazin that I have - does it has same technological processing?

Yes, you can mix the vinyl sulfone dyes with other reactive dyes, such as the Procion MX type dyes. They need a high pH to react; my usual soda ash recipe works just fine. Be sure to give them a little extra warmth for the dye-fiber reaction. The Procion MX dyes won't be hurt by the added heat.

Does it have the same curing time?
Does the curing time alters with alkali used as it works witm MX dyes?
How much warm is extra warmth?
I process Ostazin with room temperature - I've realized that when I'm OK, my dyes are too. :-)

The curing time depends inversely on the temperature. 40°C is good. It should be too warm for human comfort, if the whole room were that temperature.

The Tobasign instructions for their vinyl sulfone dyes say to use room temperature for 24 hours; I think they are using sodium silicate, instead of soda ash, as their alkali. ProChem's direct application instructons mention 70°F (21°C) but add "We've found that the warmer the cure temperature, the darker the final color." They use potassium carbonate instead of sodium carbonate, in one of their direct application recipes, but I do not know why; they both reach about the same pH. The Createx instructions look exactly like the usual Procion MX instructions, but then mention heat-setting after rinsing out the dye, which is pointless—if heat-setting is required, it should be done before rinsing. Batik Oetoro says to use 40°C to 60°C.

The ideal reaction temperature is supposedly about 60°C, from a source that gives the ideal temperature for the dichlorotriazine dyes as 30°C. I almost always heat my small LWI dyebath in the microwave, until it is hot but not steaming enough to blow the tightly-applied plastic wrap off the top. When I used Dylon Permanent black, which is reactive black 5, the instructions said to use hot tap water (130°F-140°F = 54°C-60°C); that dyebath gradually cooled over the course of dyeing, and it worked fine. That shirt came out nice and dark black. Probably any of the methods used to add heat to Procion MX dye reactions would work, including tenting an electric blanket over the work, or putting the dyebath containers into a sinkful of hot water.

Check out the different instructions links on my vinyl sulfone dye page.

There is exhaustion curve
http://www.benninger.ch/module/site/view/index.php?navid=12&id=35&pid=32
I'm not sure if I understand all the information on horizontal axis - does it mean that I can either wait longer or increase temp?

That link is not working for me—I'm getting their front page, instead of the graph.

It's generally true, though. With reactive dyes, in general you can either wait longer, or increase the temperature so the reaction takes less time.

There is some temperature for each reactive dye below which the colors will be paler no matter how much time you leave it. For Procion MX dyes, most people say this is 21°C (70°F), but the True Tie Dye folks say it is 16°C (60°F). You generally need warmer temperatures for the least reactive dyes in the line, particularly Turquoise MX-G (reactive blue 140), and can use lower temperatures if you're not using the least reactive dyes in that line. I'm not sure what the bottom temperature for vinyl sulfone dyes would be, if you give them a full day to react in. I'm always impatient and end up heating it up.

Sorry, I somehow did mouse-paste with other link.

It's taken from the page for vinyl-sulfone black-N (N stands for neutral I guess)
http://www.synthesia.cz/cs/produkty/podle-sbu/pigmenty-a-barviva/barviva/ostazin-v/2767-ostazinova-cern.html

That one is maybe the same that THC had taken from here - I forgot to ask him if it's OK with him.

Thank for explanation - bucket with warm water sounds good...it's a trick I know from home-made photos/prints.

When I was emailing with some chemist from Ostacolor, I've been told, that for usage on e.g. window-hangings it is proper to use rather Saturn dyes than reactive dyes.
She said that reactive dyes are less able to compete with sunlight than saturn dyes. (OTH, Saturn dyes are worse in washing)
Do you have the same experience?

No. Synthesia's Saturn dyes are direct dyes. In only a few of the cases I've compared so far, case by case, has a direct dye of a given hue been superior in lightfastness to a similarly-hued reactive dye. Often the reactive dye has as good or even much better lightfastness. It all depends on the results of the lightfastness tests for each individual dye. It's possible that Synthesia has selected more lightfast direct dyes than the ones I looked up before, so we have to look again.

Direct dye has extremely poor washfastness, compared to reactive dye, but solving that problem with a cationic dye fixative may reduce lightfastness. I don't know what Synthesia calls their cationic dye fixative, but I'm sure they must have one.

The dyes that are best for light-resistance are the vat dyes, such as the indanthrene dyes (presumably including Synthesia's Ostanthren dyes). I think that most vat dyes will be superior in lightfastness. Not always, though; the first one I looked at in Synthesia's fastness numbers was vat yellow 2, which is relatively poor.

Synthesia has great detailed online information! It's true that some of the direct dyes are more lightfast than some of the reactive dyes; Synthesia sells some direct dyes whose lightfastness numbers are very good, better than any of the direct dyes for which I've seen numbers before. It's also true that some direct dyes are not very lightfast at all, noticeably worse than reactive dyes. When lightfastness is the main criterion, choose each dye individually. Here are some examples, for comparison's sake, where 8 is the best and 1 is the worst....

 
Among the direct dyes, it looks like blacks tend to be particularly weak in resisting light. Under some circumstances they rated only a "1".