The Wild Fishing Forum

I've got a couple of chunks of deer hair id like to dye, has anyone ever done it and how did you go about it?

Cheers

Ok doke, I tried it once before and the dye just sat amongst the fibres and didn't dry, wiped straight off. Chances are I won't do it but What would you bleach it with?

Ma wife tried dying her own hair with peroxide a few years back, it all fell of at the roots!! Not happy!
Not surprised it weakens the deer hair. If she's still got some kicking about I might have a bash on a small patch but like you say prob more hassle than it's worth. Was hoping someone might have a simple miracle method.....cheers for the info

Bleaching.

http://www.ehow.com/how_10031037_bleach-deer-hair.html (http://www.ehow.com/how_10031037_bleach-deer-hair.html)

Dyeing

http://www.ehow.com/how_6927431_dye-deer-hair.html (http://www.ehow.com/how_6927431_dye-deer-hair.html)

I have thought about it but never did get around to doing it.

Cheers I'll have a look

 I tried it. It was a disaster. Not worth the effort given a couple of pounds can get you a perfect coloured section.

Haven't tried it myself yet but the consensus is it is not easy.  My plan was to degrease it very well but also use the much lighter hair round the belly which i am guessing you wont need to bleach?  As for the darker hair i was gonna try dying that black and again not bother bleaching as google says that leads to problems.  D.Mcphail has a video on dyeing.

Hmmm aye sounds like it's pretty tough mark, plan was to dye a patch of each claret so would have one dark, one light. I'll look at the mcphail vid and the links sandy put up but votes are stacking up against ! That's it all cured and treated by the way, it's lovely stuff, the darker stuff in particular has loads of wee colour changes through it so should look great in the water :)

Claret deer hair is hard to find. I got some.from Ireland but had to search long and hard for good stuff. Dun is also a hard colour to find.  Strange because I would have thought these colours would be popular.

Deer hair has to be well cleaned with warm/hot soapy water to remove the oils, then follow the directions on Davie's video or other tutorials.  If the hair is taking the dye slowly I will cover the pot and leave it to soak as long as necessary, sometimes overnight.  Never allow the dye bath to get too hot with hair/feathers still on the skin or it may all fall off.  Below is roe deer and elk fur dyed with Jacquard or Veniard's acid dye.  Personally I want nothing to do with bleaching furs, I hate the chemical smell and prefer to use natural, white or professionally bleached items.

I'm a complete novice at dying, is it smelly?

Quote from: Lochan_load on February 20, 2014, 10:36:16 AM
I'm a complete novice at dying, is it smelly?

No, not really.  The only thing that smells is the vinegar.  No worse than when dyeing eggs for Easter.  Now that I think about it, I think the Easter egg dyes are acid dye and might be fun to stick a feather in the pot :)  Just make sure to work cleanly and don't spill the powder or dye bath. (unless your single or want to be)  :shock:

Don't do a microwave dye bath in fluorescent orange. I'm still married. :crap

Quote from: bibio1 on February 20, 2014, 11:19:58 PM
I'm still married. :crap

That's because you've not being trying hard enough.   :lol:

Must try harder. Must try harder.

Had a go at it in the end, went for claret and thought it went pretty well, once it all dried tho rather than claret everything turned out purple! Tips of the deer hair and some gp tippet went claret but the rest look like something of Liberaces smokin jacket!
Don't think I left it all long enough so going to give it another blast tomorrow and see what happens, here's the deer hair........
(http://img.tapatalk.com/d/14/02/24/bymu3ane.jpg)

That looks excellent Andy, can you put up your receipe/method at some point, my next fly tying order i was gonna order some claret and black dye

I'd say that was a complete success.  :)

Alright mark, I just gave everything a good wash through in a basin of warm water with Daz and left to soak for 10 and washed it all out thoroughly. Then just simmered in a pot with Veniard dye as per the instructions, the colour took fine but does say on the instructions that there is three components to each dye so you need to give time for each to take, it looked the right colour so I whipped it out, wasn't til it dried that it showed up purple but I'll bang it back in and hope it's second time lucky!
Ps I would wear rubber gloves, I look like I've been at the beetroot with bare hands!!

Right gave the stuff another go in the dye, left it to simmer for half an hour this time, came out a truer claret colour
The deer hair
(http://img.tapatalk.com/d/14/02/24/sa7a4asu.jpg)
A fly with a claret hackle
(http://img.tapatalk.com/d/14/02/24/u6umadun.jpg)
And my fingers!!
(http://img.tapatalk.com/d/14/02/24/a4yqyjej.jpg)

After it reaches the colour you want, wash the item in warm soapy/synthrapol water until the water runs clear.  I also press the fur with a bit of weight on paper towels until the skin dries to keep it from curling. 
Don't store not fully dried fur in a zip-lock bags, it will rot.  Yup, I did this one.   :(

That's  a nice colour. Might even dye my own greying head with it. Makes a statement. Something like,  look at me I'm mad.  :lol:

You could be the Denis rodman of the fishin world Fred!!
Darwin have you done deer hair before? Mine seems to have gone a wee bit different, kind of like straw if that makes sense!? You'll see it in this pic, Is it normal? (http://img.tapatalk.com/d/14/02/25/ysega2e4.jpg)

I dyed the items in my earlier post.  Not sure what you're referring to when you say 'like straw'.  The fur is hollow in some parts, some in the picture looks flat.  I don't know what would have caused that, can't say that I have ever looked as close as your photo.

Just wondered if u have done a float test on the dyed hair Lochan?  Deer hair floats cos it is hollow, just wondering if it has gone "straw" like/ flat has it lost its float-iness?
Do you think excess heat could have caused the flatness?
If you do any more dyeing there is an excellent post here by "Traditionalist" several years ago i have just been reading.
Am waiting for my dyes to turn up in the post so i'm gonna be having a go at black, cinnamon and claret in the next few days, bought several cream hen capes too to play with.

Not done a float test yet but suspect it will still float just maybe a bit less, not all the strands are dead flat just some, I've looked at some peoples muddlers on the 'other' site and seen a similar thing so not to worried, it's really good to work with. Think the damage was done when I put the dyed hair on a hot radiator so maYbe avoid that mate.  had great results with some pheasant tails and marabou and died an old cape and came up great, really brings the best out of them. Will definitely do it again and have a look at that thread

Got my dyes this morning and all done. Read on the www that deer hair is difficult to dye... nonesense, was easy and well chuffed with the results.
Even the naturally dark hair took the dye well.  The pic doesn't do the colours justice.
The only thing i am not impressed with is i bought 2 cheap cream hen capes to dye too, and they are total pants but then for £3.99 i guess you get what you pay for.
[attachimg=1]

I was expecting it to be a lot worse as well but pretty straight forward, also made the mistake of buying hen capes at £4, the skin was so brittle just fell apart! That's what I get for being a cheap skate!

Ps your stuff look great, what's the yellowish one?

Yeah well i fell in to the cheap skate hole too, some one from a well known angling shop convinced me they were ok, mutter mutter grumble anyway.
Cinnamon is the yellowy one although the naturally darker stuff went a kinda olive.
Like i said the pics really dont do the colours justice.
If u ever do black, triple the quanity of dye, i doubled it...not enough.