Aluminum Triformate

Aluminum Triformate Instructions

Making the mordant bucket:

Use a non-reactive container (food service bucket marked with liters is best)

1 liter = 33.8 fl. oz.

A 10 liter container holds several 50 gram skeins.

Get one with a tight fitting lid. Keep the mordant bucket as clean as you can.

Make sure there’s enough room in there so that your fibers can float feely in the mordant.

Calculating the amount:

2% solution.

20 grams mordant per liter of water.

Use until you start to see a color change on your fibers - then it needs to be recharged.

It will depend on how often you need to recharge the mordant. Try to keep liquid at 10 liters.

1 bucket has yields about 4 pounds of fiber. Keep in mind fibers will dictate when you need to recharge.

10 liter recipe:

Dissolve 200 grams of AT with one liter of hot water

Add 9 liters of room temp water to your mordant bucket

Add dissolved AT to your bucket, and stir very well.

Add fiber, press out any air bubbles.

You can leave it in the bucket overnight - gives best results. A 3 hour soak will give light results. 1 day seems to hit the max absorption and best results for fibers.

*When introducing fabric to the bucket. You want absorbent fibers. If it’s floating, maybe consider scouring the fibers as this will help with absorption. You can opt to pre-wet your fibers if you want, but either way will work fine.

Getting ready to dye:

Remove fibers from mordant bucket. Squeeze and wring the fibers, allowing the mordant water to go back into the bucket.

Rinse the fibers lightly prior to dyeing. Different color yields will happen if you don’t do gentle rinse with water on the mordant.

Go ahead and dye.

After dyeing, remove the fibers and let them cool, rinse with same temp water. Tends to rinse pretty clear pretty quickly.

Air dry away from direct sunlight.

Care & Disposal:

Mordant liquid can become discolored murky or cloudy, you can still use it but may be an indicator to toss it out.

Dispose in municipal waste sewage system, do not dispose in waterways, rivers or storm drains. Likely would not recommend pouring it down septic tank. Formic acid and alum is usually what is left over at the end of your bucket being used. Alum is hard on water life - don’t dump it in the river pond or water-table.

Notes:

Gently rinsing the mordant will yield a darker color result on fibers.

Overnight room temp soaks produce darker shade. 3 hour soaks will yield softer, lighter colors.

After recharging with 1 liter of water and 20 grams AT the mordant bucket gave very dark shades with overnight soaks.

Wool really loves this mordant.

Why does rinsing help increase colors? pH of the mordant is pretty acidic- around 4. This will cause some ph sensitive dye colors to shift their colors. Rinsing the mordant will help bring it up to around 7, which helps even out color results. Example: madder went very orange with no rinse, with rinse the madder went more red.

Can mix both cotton and wool mixed fibers in same mordant bath.

Ok to leave silk in the mordant bath for days.

Can use fiber wet or dry after mordanting

Store bucket at room temp.

Mordant works as a stand-alone mordant (no need to add calcium carbonate or tannic acid or cream of tartar unless you want to)

You can also use it as a mordant like a substitute aluminum acetate process, but not needed.

Mordant yields very bright, brilliant colors. 5% madder extract came out very strong. 

All mordants are all somewhat acidic, so using a calcium modifier is a good thing to keep in mind.